I do love presidential history. A good friend and I were talking about the inaugural luncheon for Obama's Second not too long back, and he commented about Andrew Jackson's raucous shindig. I said, yeah, he threw a kegger! Because I have a tendancy toward being a pedant at times, I had to rattle off some tidbits about the cooking during one of my favorite administrations: Millard Fillmore.
Kidding. I mean FDR.
Mrs. Nesbitt, the owner of a bakery that Eleanor frequented, was hired by the First Lady to be the Head Housekeeper, a position at the time that also had purview over the kitchen. She was widely regarded as the single worst White House "chef". She was accustomed to working with upper class families....especially those with no sense of culinary taste apparently. I dug up these tidbits about Henrietta and some other menus. I love the "passive aggressive" comment at the end, but the truth was that Eleanor just didn't pay a lot of attention to him unless she was lobbying for an important social cause that was getting lost in the maelstrom of war and really couldn't care less about food.
Here's some tidbits on the fearsome Mrs. Nesbitt. Menus from some inaugural luncheons follow....food history! I couldn't find the menu at Jackson's kegger unfortunately. Let's just comfort ourselves by thinking it was wings and nachos!
With (commentary). Hang in there, Mrs. Nesbitt gets multiple mentions.
The White House Kitchen
When she toured the White House kitchen in 1933, Henrietta Nesbitt, Eleanor Roosevelt’s housekeeper, found cockroaches crawling about. In her book White House Diary she describes her first inspection of the premises—“I can’t work up any charm for cockroaches. No matter how you scrub it, old wood isn’t clean. This was the ‘first kitchen in America,’ and it wasn’t even sanitary. Mrs. Roosevelt and I poked around, opening doors and expecting hinges to fall off and things to fly out. It was that sort of place. Dark-looking cupboards, a huge old-fashioned gas range, sinks with time-worn wooden drains, one rusty wooden dumb waiter. The refrigerator was wood inside and bad-smelling. Even the electric wiring was old and dangerous. I was afraid to switch things on.”
“There is only one solution,” she told Mrs. Roosevelt. “We must have a new kitchen.”
(It's truly ironic to think that this incredibly bad cook was so diligent about hygiene. The lack thereof wasn't going to kill FDR...he'd be bored to death by the menus!)
Public Works Project No. 634 was instituted; demolition and new construction on the kitchen began in the summer of 1935. During the Depression, the jobless rate was exceedingly high and Franklin Roosevelt insisted relief workers be employed for the reconstruction whenever possible. The renovation, planned by the White House staff and engineers from General Electric and Westinghouse corporations, reconfigured the working space, replaced rusted pipes, put in a whole new electrical system with all-new electric appliances, and installed more efficient dumbwaiters to transport the food to the State Floor dining rooms above. New equipment included six roasting ovens, a sixteen-foot-long stove, eight refrigerators, five dishwashers, a soup kettle, a meat grinder, waffle irons, multiple mixers, a thirty-gallon ice-cream storage freezer, and a deep fryer that held five gallons of fat. Stainless steel storage and counter tops were installed throughout.
(8 refrigerators that were utterly unable to meet the challenge of keeping a lot of cut up chicken cold and safe for their debut as inaugural chicken salad. One attendee later carped about the amount of celery and so little chicken in the "chicken salad". Good rule of thumb: never tell your guests what you're making ahead of time. That way, if it doesn't quite work out, you can call it something else. Celery Du Jour!)
The President and Mrs. Roosevelt were delighted, but Mrs. Nesbitt reported that the staff was overwhelmed by the latest technological innovations. They continued to do things the way they had been done in the past: washing dishes, as well as chopping and slicing food—by hand. And unfortunately for President Roosevelt, a new kitchen did not improve the quality or variety of Mrs. Nesbitt’s menus. Mrs. Nesbitt believed in economical, simple, American fare: cheap cuts of meat including brains, sweetbreads, and beef tongues; mashed potatoes; flavorless canned vegetables; molded gelatin salads dotted with marshmallows; and insipid desserts. Franklin Roosevelt once joked that the only reason he sought a fourth term of office was so that he could return to the White House to fire Mrs. Nesbitt!
Although Roosevelt won his fourth election, Mrs. Nesbitt and her bland menus remained, for Mrs. Roosevelt ran the household staff. In her biography Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume Two, author Blanche Wiesen Cook writes, “ER’s curious disregard for her husband’s tastes suggests an explanation for her persistent defense of Henrietta Nesbitt: The housekeeper was one expression of her passive-aggressive behavior in a marriage of remarkable and labyrinthine complexity.” (
The leader of the free world, and they fed him canned veggies. He'd never fire Nesbitt. When it came to those things in the purview of the women, like housekeeping decisions, he was utterly whipped early on by his indomitable mother Sara. He had nothing left to fight with by the time Eleanor escaped daily micromanagement by her mother-in-law by ending up in the White House)
Menu for the James Buchanan Inaugural Ball—March 4, 1857
400 gallons of oysters
60 saddles of mutton
(nothing like old lamb)
4 saddles of venison
125 beef tongues
75 hams
500 quarts of chicken salad
(rumor had it there was ACTUAL chicken in this one)
500 quarts of jellies (
Jellies had been surprisingly popular for centuries. It was one of Elizabeth I's favorite foods. Kind of like their version of jello. Nowadays they don't make the menus that often, except at Lutheran potluck funerals)
A four-foot cake
$3,000 worth of wine
(now we're talking!)
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| Turtle soup? Good idea! |
Abraham Lincoln’s Inaugural Luncheon Menu, March 4, 1861
Mock Turtle Soup
Corned Beef and Cabbage
Parsley Potatoes
Blackberry Pie
Coffee
Not an inaugural event, but American royalty just the same...
Nellie Grant’s Wedding Breakfast Menu, May 21, 1874
State Dining Room
Woodcock and Snipe on Toast
(what's a snipe??? Isn't that what they always make the rookie in the hunting party go after?)
Soft Crabs on Toast
Chicken Croquettes with Fresh Peas
Aspic of Beef Tongue
(The one section I will never touch in Julia Child's Mastering The Art Of French Cooking is about aspics. I don't mind the idea of arranging food in clear flavored gelatin, not "jello" but actual unflavored Knox with chicken stock instead of water for example, but making gelatin from scratch from calves' feet??? Yuck.)
Lamb Cutlets
Broiled Spring Chicken
Strawberries with Cream
Wedding Cake iced with Doves, Roses, and Wedding Bells
Ice Creams and Ices
Fancy Cakes
Punch
Coffee
Chocolate
President and Mrs. Eisenhower’s Dinner Menu
in Honor of King Paul and Queen Frederika of Greece, October 28, 1955
Shrimp Cocktail
Cocktail Sauce
Saltine Crackers
Sherry
Clear Consommé
Sliced Lemmon
(Lemmmmmmmon......)
Celery Hearts Assorted Olives
(no 50s table could be without these things: clear Consommé and olives/celery plates)
Fairy Toast
(wtf is fairy toast???) Per Wikipedia - "Fairy bread is sliced white bread spread with margarine or butter and covered with sprinkles or nonpareils which stick to the spread. It is typically cut into squares or triangles". OK..................we would have never known, having grown up utterly without white bread at home.
Wiki goes on - "Fairy bread is commonly served at children's parties in Australia and New Zealand. The origin of the term is not known, but it may come from the poem 'Fairy Bread' in Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, published in 1885. "Wait a minute, Ike and Mamie were feeding ADULTS, right??? Of course, she was always wearing pink and had little girl's bangs until she was, like, 100....who's the Princess?????
White Fish in Cheese Sauce
(oh man, this sounds like 1950s Home Ec recipe hell, right up there with anything called "Something SURPRISE" and Mom's Secret Weapon)
Coleslaw
Boston Brown Bread Sandwiches
White Wine
Crown Roast of Lamb
Stuffed With Spanish Rice
Mint Jelly
French Peas
Braised Celery
Bread Sticks
Orange and Roquefort Cheese Salad Bowl
French Dressing
Toasted Triscuits
(Saltines, Triscuits. Was this the White House, or Auntie Arminta's bridge party?)
Champagne
Caramel Cream Mold
(Salted caramel???? LOVE!!!!!)
Burnt Caramel Sauce
(Burnt salted caramel???)
Lemon Iced Diamond Shaped Cookies
Nuts
Candies
Demitasse
More of the fearsome Mrs. Nesbitt, this time with graphic details of the crimes against the nation's leader.....
The Franklin Roosevelt Administration: Henrietta Nesbitt
When meat was rationed during World War II, the White House had to stretch its meat allotment, too. But Mrs. Nesbitt, Roosevelt’s housekeeper, said that she would not skimp on the president’s food if she could help it; others would have to sacrifice because she did not want to worry him about food.
(No, not to worry, just to not be able to eat it...) According to Mrs. Nesbitt, favorite White House meat-stretcher foods were: “stuffed peppers, stew, ham scallop, noodles and mushrooms with chicken scraps, spaghetti with meat-cakes cut down from the ‘good old American size’ to mere marbles
(Meatcakes????? WTF???? I'm fairly certain I don't want a "good old American size" meatcake. or a marble-sized one either....CTROSAHGS*, that was a quote! They let the woman talk to the press???), curries or omelets with meat tidbits; croquettes for a sustaining meal in themselves; minestrone soup or fish chowders, ‘both good meals in themselves;’ creamed cheeses (soft ones weren’t rationed) for a satisfying light meal
(Here you go, Mr. President, a tub of Philadelphia cream cheese. Bon appetit.); gumbo z’herbes (good light meal for children if less spiced); stuffed eggs (meat bits for stuffing)
(What is it with Henrietta and the meatcakes/meat tidbits/meat bits? I guess she just couldn't deal with a whole cut?); baked beans, deviled meats
(meats again, in unidentifiable preparations) and casseroles.”
Gumbo Z’Herbes (Cheapest Soup) - 2 tablespoons lard
2 tablespoons flour
1 bunch each of spinach, mustard greens, green cabbage, beet tops, watercress, radishes, chopped onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf, green onion top, salt, pepper, red pepper pod or drop of Tabasco. Bacon strip, veal or port brisket, or hambone.
Wash well the greens, bacon strip, hot water and boil well. Drain off water and save it. Fry meat in one tablespoon lard, chopping up the while with the greens with the onion and seasoning. Take out the meat and fry the greens, stirring. When well fried, all the flour, stir. Season well. Add meat and the treasured water of the boiled greens; leave all to simmer for an hour or so.
Croquettes (Can be Done Day Ahead) -
Make thick heavy cream sauce, let it get cold. Use left-over fish made into regular croquettes
(just not the fish from the ineffective refrigerators). Dip in fine bread crumbs, then into eggs, and back into bread crumbs. Cover with cloth if you want to keep until next day to cook.
Lismore Stew (Serves Six) -
2 pounds lean chuck cut in cubes
12 onions size of walnut or quarter
2 bunches carrots cut
Tops of bunch of celery cut in short lengths.
Use Dutch oven or iron pot. Braise meat in some fat until nicely browned on all sides so as to have nice gravy. Add vegetables and water, salt and pepper to taste. Add a clove of garlic, then one-fourth teaspoon of stew herbs. Simmer over low fire several hours, watch and stir. Before serving add teaspoon of Worcester or similar sauce. Simmer few minutes.
At least, these recipes make an attempt at identifying quantities and timeframes. Here's two from Martha Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson's daughter:
Macaroni: Boil as much macaroni as will fill your dish, in milk and water, till quite tender; drain it on a sieve sprinkle a little salt over it, put a layer in your dish then cheese and butter as in the polenta, and bike it in the same manner
(bike it?)
To Pitchcock Eels: Skin and wash your eels, then dry them with a cloth, sprinkle them with pepper, salt, and a little dried sage, turn them backward and forward, and skewer them; rub a gridiron with beef suet, broil them a nice brown, put them on a dish with good melted butter, and lay around fried parsley.
(I can't tell if she's cooking them or dancing with them)
OK, I looked up Andrew Jackson's inauguration, and found this:
The crowd continued to descend into a drunken mob, only dispersed when bowls of liquor and punch were placed on the front lawn of the White House.
So, he didn't need the wings and nachos. He lost his wife Rachel shortly after being elected and never had another reception at the WH. Of course, that could have been because the guests trashed the place.
* Christ the Redeemer of S and H Green Stamps, credit: La Torpille Rose
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| I've got my Girl Scout uniform on under this. |
** Mamie and Ike were drifting apart at one point in their marriage, Ike's many military postings and travel creating long periods of separartion. A girlfriend of Mamie's suggested that she employ a subtle power. You mean I should vamp him?, replied Mamie. She cut the bangs and things started heating up again. Little girl bangs. I wonder what other interests the General had?
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