All the Presidents’ Moms - No. 212

Food at the White House, from Mary Todd Lincoln’s courting cake to Eisenhower’s vegetable soup. Plus, a priceless Julia Child state dinner video.

Mary Todd Lincoln White Almond Cake. Photo: Mitch Mandel.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER’S MOTHER Ida raised six sons in Abilene, Kansas, at the turn of the 20th century, teaching them to cook, wash, sew, and read history. (A seventh son, Paul, died from diphtheria at just 10 months old.) Eisenhower, would become our nation’s 34th president, but long before, with his mother’s help, he had learned to roast chicken, grill steak, boil potatoes, bake apple pie, and make a two-day vegetable soup.

That soup recipe—best made the day after you cut-up a chicken for frying and have the neck and backbone to add to the pot—would be shared coast to coast after World War II when five-star general Eisenhower became president of Columbia University. The recipe was included in a cookbook, What’s Cooking at Columbia. Eisenhower later marveled how a recipe for his mother’s soup would get more attention than any statement he made as president.

But then, it’s not surprising, really, as food is a great connector to us all and what someone cooks, especially if that someone is president, and more to the point, what the president’s mother cooks, tells us as much about him as the policies he endorses.

I had interviewed author Alex Prud’homme about his book Dinner With the President for a recent post about Julia and Paul Child. Prud’homme’s grandfather was Paul Child’s twin brother, which made Julia Child his great aunt.

I knew I wanted to circle back and get into the meat of his book, and with Mother’s Day this Sunday, I couldn’t help but find some references to mom.

Congressman Richard Nixon with his mother, Hannah Milhous Nixon, 1946. Photo: The Nixon Foundation.

Just like mom made

Abraham Lincoln had a soft spot for his mother’s gingerbread but would learn to love his wife Mary’s almond cake often called ‘’courting cake’’ because she baked it for him while they were dating.

Richard Nixon had an affinity for mashed potatoes, and his mother, Hannah Milhous Nixon, would say he was ‘’the best potato masher you could wish for,’’ Prud’homme says. Nixon used a whipping motion that smoothed out the lumps in the potatoes and made them fluffy. His mother, a devout Quaker who raised the family in Yorba Linda, California, said even when she visited him as vice-president in Washington DC, he still mashed the potatoes perfectly, adding, ‘’He actually enjoys it.’’

Teddy Roosevelt developed his mother’s love of grits. Martha (Mittie) Bulloch Roosevelt’s family had come from Georgia, and Roosevelt would instruct the White House cooks to simmer grits for his state dinners and drench them in meat gravy. And perhaps the saddest love story ever, on Valentine’s Day in 1880, his mother died of typhoid fever in one room of his house while his wife Alice (Sunny) died of kidney failure in another, spiraling Roosevelt into solitude that led him west and charted his path as the ‘’Conservationist President,’’ protecting 230 million acres of our nation’s land.

Like his mother, Roosevelt loved reading. And after finishing Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle, about the deplorable conditions in the meat-packing industry in Chicago and the plight of immigrants who worked there, he signed the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal Meat Inspection Act to require food labeling and safety.

His fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, our country’s 32nd president, on the other hand, couldn’t try hard enough to gain independence from his doting and overbearing mother, Sara Roosevelt. He was her only child, and she was all too eager to weigh in on child rearing and socializing, and she often clashed with his wife Eleanor. But when Roosevelt asked her about his idea of serving hot dogs and beer to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1939 on their visit to America, his mother strongly disapproved.

But he didn’t listen, and as it turned out, it was a bold move grabbing attention on both sides of the Atlantic because the King loved the hot dogs and America warmed to Britain. It would take two years and the attack on Pearl Harbor for FDR to send troops into World War II combat, but, nevertheless, Prud’homme says his Hot Dog Summit was called was ‘’the meal that ended the war.’’

Dinner with the President traces the role food has played in American political history, from George Washington starving with his troops at Valley Forge, to Dolley Madison’s keen social prowess, to Woodrow Wilson’s chronic indigestion.

Here was a man who could stomach few foods but with the help of Herbert Hoover, Wilson fed hard-pressed Americans and starving Europeans during and after World War I.

‘’Some presidents were destined to play a role for which they were ill suited,’’ Prud’homme says. ‘’John Adams was the first president to live in the White House and it was half built. He was there alone in this lonely house and once his wife Abigail joined him, the locals were expecting the Adamses to host an opening party. But John and Abigail Adams didn’t really like parties. They liked to read books by the fire.’’ Eventually they relented and on New Year’s Day 1801 they put out plates of cakes, tarts, lemon curd, creams, jellies, trifles, and fruit, along with sherry, brandy, and wine and opened the People’s House to the people.

Prud’homme also found irony in Nixon, who ate a dollop of cottage cheese every day, going to China in February, 1972 and opening it up for commerce. ‘’He prepared by practicing with chopsticks. He knew the optics would be good. He drank mai tais even though he had a weak head for alcohol. But the trip was popular with the American public and a huge boom for Chinese restaurants in this country.’’

The book focuses on just 26 of our nation’s presidents and is filled with delicious insights, some that I knew but many more that I didn’t:

Jacqueline Kennedy, 1958, at an 'April in Paris' ball. Photo: Slim Aarons/Getty Images.

I knew Jackie Kennedy brought elegant style to the 1960s White House, but I didn’t know she was an introvert who would rather curl up with a book. She would ask her Second Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, or her mother-in-law, Rose Kennedy, to fill in for her at events.

Mrs. Kennedy realized the importance of the White House’s appearance, brightening the dark green State Dining Room with two tones of white paint and replacing Mamie Eisenhower’s large tables with small round ones that doubled the number of guests and made conversation more intimate. She reduced five-course meals to four to leave more time for mingling and entertainment after dinner, and she brought in smaller flower arrangements that looked less funereal and didn’t block views. She served good drinks, placed ashtrays everywhere, and invited artists, writers, composers, diplomats, and wealthy patrons over for dinner.

She offered celebrity chef Jacques Pépin the job as chef, but he declined, saying he didn’t want to move to Washington and recommended his roommate, Rene Verdon, who was hired at $10,000 a year. Verdon grew vegetables on the roof of the White House, planted herbs, and hired a pastry chef. While JFK wasn’t a foodie and had been raised on hearty New England clam chowder and cod, Prud’homme says the First Lady had a taste for French clothes and food and modeled her parties on the court of Louis XIV. ‘’Jackie conjured a sense of magic…a form of seduction, and revolution’’ and in the process ‘’redefined the role of First Lady.’’

Dwight D. Eisenhower’s boyhood home in Abilene, Kansas. Photo: Eisenhower Presidential Library.

Presidential food often speaks of home

After Julia and Paul Child created the public television documentary on the 1968 state dinner hosted by President and Mrs. Johnson for Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and Mrs. Sato of Japan, they encouraged White House chefs to embrace American foods.

And by far the best cooks in the White House, outside of the professional chefs, says Prud’homme, were two presidents from rural America—Eisenhower and Jimmy Carter.

He considers Carter, Eisenhower, and FDR the best listeners, too, and wise in how they used the dinner table to get the pulse of the nation and pursue their agendas. Eisenhower staged impromptu dinner parties and posed questions to his guests. FDR carefully orchestrated a dinner with Wendell Willkie, whom he had defeated in the 1940 presidential election and whom he needed to convince Congress that America should join the war against Nazi Germany.

‘’FDR researched what his guests liked to eat, drink, and smoke, then constructed a menu that was more than a simple list of things to eat. It was a meal layered with signs and symbols,’’ Prud’homme says. The symbolic dish for Willkie was a rare turtle soup simmered with cream, tomatoes, spices, and a dash of sherry, popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was FDR’s personal favorite, served in his private study surrounded by family photos and maritime prints, and he wagered it would appeal to Wilkie, a son of German immigrants and a self-made Midwestern man wanting to rise in global politics. He was right.

‘’Soon after that dinner, Wilkie departed on a diplomatic mission to England, North Africa, the Soviet Union, and China on Roosevelt’s behalf,’’ Prud’homme writes.

But the most famous presidential meal came to be called the Dinner Party Bargain and was set in June of 1790. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison arrive at a modest home in lower Manhattan for a secret dinner hosted by Thomas Jefferson. They walk in as adversaries and walk out after copious courses of Virginia ham, salad, braised beef, and Bordeaux agreeing to restructure America’s debt and move the capital from New York to Philadelphia for 10 years before building a new federal city in the South.

Thomas Jefferson, the epicure of presidents, might have conceived the strategic meal but his enslaved chef, James Hemings, would execute it. And it was a big win for Jefferson, says Prud’homme. ‘’With toothsome food and wine, and a deft juggling of egos and political calculations, he had helped save the Union and, not incidentally, enhanced his own standing.’’

In more modern times, Lyndon Johnson was just as shrewd. ‘’LBJ would get congressmen out to his ranch and soften them up with a horseback ride and chili and beer and cornbread and beans and bourbon and then go in for the kill,’’ Prud’homme adds. ‘’He was very intentional.’’

With a softer style, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter relied on Southern hospitality to orchestrate the Camp David Accords in 1979 and bring peace to the Middle East. Julia Child was a fan of the unabashed regional foods like grits, barbecue, and layer cake served in the Carter White House.

President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn dance at a White House Congressional Ball in December, 1978. Photo: Getty Images.

Why does White House food even matter?

‘’A meal at the White House isn’t just a meal,’’ Prud’homme says. ‘’The White House is the most important house in the world, the nerve center of our government and a decorative arts museum thanks to Jackie Kennedy.

‘’The president’s health impacts the nation and the world.’’

More than anything, ‘’the public pays attention to what the president eats.’’

From vegetable soup to mashed potatoes, almond cake, grits, and hot dogs, ‘’when we see someone eating something we like,’’ Prud’homme adds, ‘’we think we are from the same tribe.’’

And if you like it, then you’ll vote for me.

Happy Mother’s Day!

- xo, Anne

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Texas, my heart breaks for you

After learning of the latest gun violence tragedy at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, every one of us who has experienced a mass shooting in our hometown has that feeling of a thick, sad fog. In Nashville, it’s been six weeks since three children and three adults were gunned down by a shooter at Covenant School, and none of us have forgotten. The red and black bow—the school’s colors—tied onto my mailbox is wind- and rain-battered, but I won’t pull it down.

History tells us this moment in America is just as critical as when we once ensured the milk fed to our children was pure. Living in a society where we are frightened to shop at a mall or send our children to school isn’t living. It’s dying.

On Mother’s Day, as mothers are honored by children, stepchildren, godchildren and grandchildren, many of you may say, let’s think of something more pleasant to talk about. But I say, let’s talk about this sad state of gun violence in America like the strong mothers before us. Let’s figure out how to work together to make this right.

And coming Thursday for Paid Subscribers:

Channeling White House meals of the past, I share an ode to cottage cheese and my mother who loved it.

THE RECIPE:

Mary Todd Lincoln White Almond Cake

This recipe is a part of the culinary history of Kentucky, where both Mary Todd Lincoln and Abraham Lincoln were born, and it was often referred to as her ‘’courting cake.’’ After the Lincoln assassination, it became a symbol of Lincoln himself and was baked for inaugural and military banquet menus in the 1870s. And this was a turning point in America’s baking as those reared on hearth cooking would transition to the wood-fired stoves in the 1860s. This recipe is from my book, American Cake. And it is a lovely and light pound cake, perfect for baking for mom.

Makes: 12 to 16 servings

Prep: 25 to 30 minutes

Bake: 57 to 62 minutes

• Butter and flour for prepping the pan

• 2 cups granulated sugar

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 3 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon baking powder

• 1 cup whole milk, at room temperature

• 1 cup (4 ounces) blanched almond slivers, very finely chopped

• 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

• 6 large egg whites, at room temperature

• ½ teaspoon salt

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Lightly grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan with butter and flour. Shake out the excess flour, and set the pan aside.

2. Place the sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl and beat on medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Set the bowl aside.

3. Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, and sift two more times. Add the flour mixture to the creamed butter and sugar in three additions, alternating with the milk. Beat on medium speed until the mixture is just blended. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, and fold in the almonds and vanilla. Set the bowl aside.

4. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and salt on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 4 to 5 minutes. Fold about a quarter of the beaten whites into the batter, just until combined. Fold the remaining whites into the batter, just until combined. Pour batter evenly into the reserved pan, and place the pan in the oven.

5. Bake the cake until it is golden brown, and the cake tests done when a toothpick is inserted in the middle, about 57 to 62 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place on a rack to cool 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edges, give the pan a gentle shake, then invert the cake once and then again onto the rack to cool completely, right-side up, 1 hour. Slice and serve with whipped cream, ice cream, and fruit.