Life As I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin Good by Colonel Sanders

Ok, so I will admit that I was hoping there would be the secret herbs and spices blend hidden somewhere in this book. Or even some kind of recipe. But alas, there wasn't. But it was still interesting and considering Mr. Sanders himself wrote it at 83 years of age and having only a 6th grade education, it was a pretty good book.

Sanders describes his entire life from when he was a boy and left home at the age of twelve, all the way up through the time that he is writing the book. He seems to drift through jobs, never staying any place long, and did a lot of work on the railroads and also selling insurance. It actually wasn't until he was in his sixties that he really buckled down and got the chicken thing going. Which is where the book turned the most interesting as he describes how he franchised and ran the business and developed his methods for cooking chicken. I never knew they used pressure cookers to cook the chicken until now and it really explains how they can cook it so fast.

Sanders is a pretty persnickety guy and he makes sure you know it in this book. Of course he's also somewhat of a braggart and makes sure you know just who he influenced or how much he gave to charity. But I guess at 83 if you want to brag its as good a time as any. And he did do a lot of good with his life. His biggest flaw, although not really seen in the book, is his cussing it would seem. He reiterates several times that he has a pretty foul mouth. And he also likes to preach quite a bit as he has a distinct relationship with God in his mind.

The book could have greatly used an editor to be more reader friendly (or a better one if it already had one). Sanders wrote just how he spoke more than likely and it is seen in the way his stories meander back and forth and how he gets off track. And if you read it out loud it would sound very much like regularly speech when you're telling a story to a friend. There were some details that were probably superfluous, but others that really gave an example of just how amazing his life was. I only wish he would have wrote more about his immediate family, they seemed to take a back burner to the stories strictly about him.

Still an interesting read of a unique fellow who had a way with chicken. I'll have to smile a little next time I step into a KFC and see his picture.

Life As I Have Known It Has Been Finger Lickin Good
Copyright 1974
144 pages