Presidential Food
To celebrate President’s Day, I’m sharing some of the weirdest, most delicious and even deadly foods our American Presidents ate. Teddy Roosevelt was a real life Ron Swanson, eating a dozen eggs a day. George W. Bush banned broccoli in the White House. Nixon liked cottage cheese topped with ketchup?! FDR even served hot dogs to the King and Queen of England. Let’s not forget about Zachary Taylor who died from an intestinal infection from a batch of bad cherries. Then of course there’s Thomas Jefferson, who popularized many dishes we love today. Read about the connection between Thomas Jefferson and Mac & Cheese here.
Back to FDR and the hot dog incident! In 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt invited King George VI and Queen Elizabeth to Washington to discuss the growing concern of Hitler and to see if American assistance was possible. To ease tension, FDR & Eleanor hosted a casual American picnic at their Presidential cottage in Hyde Park in the Hudson Valley( Which may sound familiar from the movie about this particular meeting called Hyde Park on Hudson). So casual in fact, that hot dogs and beer were served to the King and Queen of England on silver platters. What a momentous occasion for British royals to step foot on American soil for the first time in history since the American Revolutionary War while on the brink of another World War… and they served hot dogs! But it worked! They drank beer, had a lovely time. The king liked his hot dog so much that he requested another. The queen daintily ate hers with a knife and fork. Food can be a great equalizer and sometimes catalyst for friendship and diplomacy.
OK, not to brag but I got to meet the former Obama White House Chef, Sam Kass, when I was working at the Emeril Lagasse Kitchen House & Culinary Garden. He and Mrs. Obama worked tirelessly to promote healthy eating and affect policies that would promote healthy school lunches for American children. Together, they even started the White House Garden in 2008, which is still used today for White House meals. Obama and Kass even became the first to brew beer in the White House using honey from the White House Gardens. Washington distilled spirits at Mount Vernon and Jefferson made his own wine at Monticello but Obama was the very first President to brew beer at the White House. My kind of President.
Of course there are the elaborate & impressive state dinners, started by Ulysses S. Grant in 1874 when he entertained the King of the Sandwich Islands (which later became Hawaii!). What I find even more interesting are the day to day foods that get the Presidents through the day. Apparently, the first family has to pay for their own groceries, although they do have discrete personal shoppers that frequent many different stores as not to raise suspicion for safety reasons. There is a small family kitchen that was added to the executive residence in the 1960’s. In the Oval Office, on the resolute desk, there is a small red button that the President can push to have refreshments delivered on a silver tray at any time of day, sometimes nicknamed the Diet Coke button and I’m deeply jealous.
The recipe below is for Martha Washington’s Crab Soup, which was popular in the Roosevelt and Eisenhower administration. She was a woman after my own heart. She had a 9 o‘ clock curfew for entertaining and did not like waiting around for her husband. Sometimes I tag along on my husband’s work trips, but Martha followed him out to war!!! During the Revolutionary War, at Valley Forge, a notoriously bleak, cold battle, Martha had a log cabin built TO DINE IN. I made some changes to her original recipe which called for chopped egg. I’ve never tasted a soup and thought, “you know what this needs? CHOPPED HARD BOILED EGGS!” So what remains is a simple, delicious crab soup.
Martha Washington’s Crab Soup
Ingredients
- 1 cup (8 ounces) cooked chopped crab meat
- 1 Tablespoon butter
- 1 1/2 Tablespoon all purpose flour
- 2 cups milk
- 1/4 cup heavy cream
- 1/4 cup sherry wine
Instructions
- Head butter in a pan. Stir in flour and cook while stirring for a few minutes until lightly toasted, on medium heat.
- Stir in the milk, cream and wine. Heat over medium-high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly until the soup has reduced and thickened.
- Add plenty of salt and pepper, then the crab.
- Heat crab through.
- Serve with chopped green onion or chives.