You can learn a lot about people and the times they lived in by looking at what they ate. That includes presidents.
Here & Now鈥榮 Scott Tong talks to chef and writer of 鈥�,鈥� about his collection of presidents鈥� recipes and what it鈥檚 like to eat like certain presidents for a day.
Cottage cheese figures prominently in the diets of some past presidents. Former President Richard Nixon liked his with ketchup. And while former President William Howard Taft didn鈥檛 eat cottage cheese, he did eat a lot of other food, including possum with sweet potatoes.
8 questions with Bennett Rea
Where did you find these presidential recipes?
鈥淥ne of the most delightful parts of this project is that so many of them come from analog source material. So old cookbooks, old cook booklets, you know, the spiral-bound type. Great biographies out there. And even some archival New York Times, Washington Post articles can dig into the later presidents, [former President] Jimmy Carter and [former President] John F. Kennedy.鈥�
A lot of them strike me as rather weird. Did you pick the weird ones, or is this just what you found?
鈥淵eah, you got me there. I definitely am drawn to the ones that are neat or different, or I kind of follow the fun in terms of recipes. And I find if it鈥檚, you know, a favorite recipe of theirs or one that they have themselves submitted to the world. The ones that have the most fascinating ingredients or a strange name or something we鈥檝e never heard of, like 鈥榤ugwump in a hole.鈥� That was a [former President] Chester Arthur favorite.鈥�
You ate like Taft for a day. A typical Taft dinner included possum with sweet potatoes. Is there something serious you learned about particular presidents based on what they eat?
鈥淵eah. I started this whole series out of curiosity. I wanted the experiential side of presidents.
鈥淚 saw some of the recipes. I tested them out. I鈥檝e eaten, I think, 41 out of the 45 presidents so far.
鈥淏ut you kind of learn a lot in different periods of time, I think.
鈥淭here鈥檚 like a 40-year span where everyone鈥檚 eating steak for breakfast, which is fascinating. And then there鈥檚 a 40-year span where cottage cheese gets really trendy. And so that鈥檚 [a] consistent lunch, whether you鈥檙e having it with a martini like [former President] Gerald Ford or with ketchup like Nixon. So, I think you learn a lot about specific eras of time, but also about the presidents themselves 鈥� who treats food as something they enjoy and something to be treasured and something that brings people together, and who treats food like fuel.鈥�
I made one recipe from your collection: crustless coconut pie. It sounds really good: milk and eggs, nutmeg, coconut flakes and tiny bit of flour. Give us the reveal. What president does this come from, and what do we learn from this?
鈥淵eah. Crustless coconut pie. This is a [former President] Barack Obama recipe, actually. So, a more recent president. It鈥檚 delicious. It鈥檚 custardy. It鈥檚 also just kind of goes along with a lot of these other foods that he ate on a daily basis. But unique, efficient, a little on the healthier side. Kind of fits with Obama鈥檚 general image.鈥�
Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ate chicken of aspic. What is that?
鈥淎spics are so interesting to me because they started off as this very high cuisine, right? A French cuisine, very popular, and really only for the elites or only for wealthy folks for many years. And then eventually Jell-O came along and kind of brought gelatin to the masses.
鈥淎spics are a gelatin dish, right? So, you鈥檒l see something like asparagus and duck suspended in what looks like what we would call Jell-O. They鈥檙e usually savory. They usually have meat, fish, sometimes you see eggs involved as well.
鈥淏ut it鈥檚 very time-intensive. It takes days to boil the calf鈥檚 feet; in the 1700s, 1800s, that鈥檚 what they were using. It鈥檚 a very expensive process. It鈥檚 laborious. And so it was not very popular for most people to be eating gelatin in the states, at least until the [1940s] and [1950s] and beyond.鈥�
What was in Roosevelt鈥檚 recipe?
鈥淭here鈥檚 not much to it, but when you see it, it鈥檚 mostly just shredded chicken suspended in a broth-based gelatin. So, it鈥檚 salty. It鈥檚 brothy. It almost might be better on a sandwich, like between two pieces of bread with a little bit of mayonnaise, rather than just kind of dug into straight as a luncheon item.
鈥淭he funny part about [Roosevelt]鈥檚 entire culinary history and his daily diet is he didn鈥檛 like the food that he was eating in the White House very much. So, we don鈥檛 know whether he even enjoyed this dish. He had a very worldly palate. But due to the Great Depression and Eleanor Roosevelt鈥檚 very keen insights on maybe not eating fancy in the White House, he was not eating food that he adored.鈥�
Nixon ate ham mousse. You鈥檝e tried all these things. Are you somebody who is OK eating a lot of different kinds of things, or did you become OK at it?
鈥淚 think I always had a curiosity, and I don鈥檛 kind of cross off a lot of foods into, 鈥極h, I won鈥檛 try that.鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 constantly training myself to try new foods by doing this series, and there鈥檚 really relatively few that I wouldn鈥檛 try in the world. I鈥檒l try that, you know, 100-year-old duck egg or whatever. I鈥檒l give it a shot.鈥�
Is there anything you would suggest we try because you think it鈥檚 good?
鈥淚 really like a lot of the kind of Gilded Age food that came about. So, you know, Taft, this is post-Gilded Age, but Taft鈥檚 rich lobster stew, some of the odder recipes from [former President William] McKinley and [former President Herbert] Hoover, even. There鈥檚 caramel tomatoes. There鈥檚 a four-color cream fruit pie.
鈥淚鈥檓 at work on a cookbook with all of this. So soon, there will be more recipes for folks to go to. I would also recommend Harry Truman鈥檚 day-of-eating is particularly interesting, filled with vegetables and it鈥檚 got a great pineapple fairy fluff at the end, that鈥檚 light and flavorful, and it鈥檚 kind of a perfect way to end a full day of eating.鈥�
This interview was edited for clarity.
Recipes
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