FDR’S TABLE

By J.K. Maze On Feb 9 2012, 7:07 am

According to the Food Timeline organization, while many of the people were “making do,” some not even that, the president and his wife had no such problem. FDR came from family wealth and tradition while Eleanor, who was social minded, did not have a problem breaking the rules.

The Food Timeline Organization says, “Their dinner tables, both public and private, reflected the fact that opposites attract. Confusing, intriguing, well-intentioned, sacrificing, inspired. No one knew what they were going to eat for dinner. Hot dogs served to the Queen of England. Often criticized by period political and culinary experts, FDR’s tables were actually a brilliant reflection of his time.

However, because of friction between Sara Roosevelt (FDR’s mother) and Eleanor, we may never know what FDR liked. Sara presided as the matriarch of Springwood, Hyde Park and this conflict between the two women is well documented.

Among their favorites were creamed chipped beef, bread puddings, fried cornmeal mush. For Sunday night suppers, they often served Welsh Rarebit, and cheeses were always available for FDR. This family also liked donuts for breakfast and teatime.

As said in the Food Timeline Organization’s article, “The President took his breakfast on a tray in his room. His choice of coffee was a dark French roast, prepared in the White House kitchens from green coffee beans. A coffee maker was placed on the President’s breakfast tray so that he could regulate the brewing to his satisfaction…. Luncheon was not really a family meal for the President. Very often he would lunch at his desk from a tray…Dinner brought the Roosevelt family together…Sunday-night suppers at the White House were intimate occasions…Supper consisted of Mrs. Roosevelt’s scrambled eggs, ham, bacon, or sausage, a dessert and coffee…Mrs. Roosevelt…redesign[ed] the kitchens, equipping them with electric stoves and dishwashers…”
—The Presidents’ Cookbook, Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks [Funk & Wagnalls:New York] 1968 (p. 430-440)”
[NOTE: Details on Mrs. Nesbitt, FDR's cook may be found in "Home Cooking in the FDR White House," From Hardtack to Home Fries: A Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals, Barbara Haber (p. 107-130)]

It is also reported that,

“Left to themselves, the Roosevelts were the plainest sort of people, so far as eating habits went. What we served family fashion in the White House was thet simplest of American cookery, of the standards set my Mrs. Sara Delano Roosevlet, or “Mrs. James,” as we call her, and which were preferred by her president son. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt went along with their tastes, since hers didn’t run so much to food. But she wanted the best to be given the guests, for, after the President, the White House guest was king… Most of the recipe used came from my own family files, because there wasn’t a single recipe card, not even a cookbook, left in the White House when I went in, along with the Roosevelt family, back in 1933. If ever humans were what their eating habits were, it was the Roosevelts. The President and his family liked the hearty, vitamin-filled dishes that are typically America. Regularly we served creamed chipped beef and corned beef hash and poached eggs, because they wanted these dishes, and they liked bread pudding. The loved fried corn-meal mush with maple sirup, sometimes even as a dessert…They desserts they liked best were fruit and cheese…I don’t think Mr. and Mrs. Roosevelt would ever have ordered a canape themselves. They just weren’t the hors- d’oeuvre sort…Caviar was often sent in as gifts by the Russians, and someimes we had presents of pate de foie gras–two delicacies the President liked. he was also very fond of terrapin. These and heavy cream were hsi only luxurious tastes.”
—The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests, Henrietta Nesbitt [DoubleDay & Co.:Garden City NY] 1951 (p. 1-2)”

Birthdays were interesting and special and they went to “great pains” with cakes, which always had 21 candles. “No one ever grew any older than that.” It was Angel Food for Eleanor and fruitcake, from an old English recipe brought from Ireland, for FDR, though they exchanged dates for currants, considering the latter too dry.

As indicated, they liked cheeses and used them in salads, snacks, as a main course, or desserts. Cheeses included Camembert, Roquefort, Swiss, Gruyere and Liederkranz.

Another favorite of the president was Lake Superior Whitefish. Lobsters were served cold, stuffed, broiled, boiled, in salad, Imperial, Newburg, Thermidor. Kedigree was served over and over and it was Mrs. Roosevelt’s favorite.

According to Henrietta Nesbitt, Roosevelt cook, in her book The Presidential Cookbook, following are Eleanor’s likes and dislikes:
Likes:
1. Favorite fish dish: Kedgeree
2. Fresh salads (mixed vegetable, fruit, German potato)
3. Favorite lunch: bowl of soup and dish of fresh fruit
4. Favorite supper dish: scrambled eggs in chafing dish, cooked tableside
5. Roast beef, good steaks, chops, roast duck, roast chicken
6. Doughnuts (Berliners) & fresh bread
7. Angel food cake (Eleanor’s standard birthday cake)

Dislikes
1. Brussels sprouts
2. Rich desserts, preferring fruit and cheese to finish her meal.

Eleanor Roosevelt’s scrambled eggs were a legendary fixture in FDR’s Sunday suppers. Notes & recipes here:

“Mrs. Roosevelt’s scrambled eggs are a favorite dish with the President any time. His fondness for them has already paid him handsomely politicaly, for he won a round of grins from a Southern audience recently by assuring them that he preferred scrambled eggs to ‘grilled millionare’ for breakfast. At Sunday night suppers, besides at breakfast, scrambled eggs are the White House dish. The little ritual, with Mrs. Roosevelt fixing the eggs on a chafing dish at the supper table, has been a famly institution fo years. It was inaugurated by Mrs. Roosevelt as a bride, when her brother…was a regular week-end guest, and has been continued ever since. The chafing dish is already hot when the ceremony begins. The ingredients are at hand. A liberal amount of butter goes into the chafing dish first, then the eggs are cracked and dropped in. Mrs. Roosevelt mixes in about half a pint of milk or cream to a dozen eggs. She adds salt and pepper and beats the mixture vigorously with a fork while it is cooking. Care is taken not to cook them too hard. It is all over in a few minutes. Then the members of the family or whoever else has showed up for Sunday supper, get their scrambled eggs. For larger gatherings the eggs are broken and placed in the chafing dish before it is brought in and placed on the table before Mrs. Roosevelt. For still larger affairs, the eggs are scrambled in the kitchen with careful observance of the recipe, and are brought in to be served by Mrs. Roosevelt.”
—”For Gourmets and Others: Fine Points of Egg Dishes,” S. Wright, New York Times, January 15, 1939 (p. D7)

“Sunday-night suppers at the White House became a tradition during the Roosevelt administration. The marked the apex of the week, when the Roosevelt family and their friends relaxed for an informal breathing space between one week’s affairs and the next. Scrambled eggs were a ‘must’ on these Sunday nights. Mrs. Roosevelt cooked them herself, in a silver chafing dish, and they were particularly good because she used real cream instead of milk. Coming from Hyde Park, where they had the farm to supply them with the simpler luxuries, the Roosevelts were accustomed to using all the cream they wanted. But when they went into the White House on the crest of the greatest depression in history, and had to set and example of simple simple and substantial meals. We were closely observed…Eggs are health-giving and easily fixed and can be made into many different dishes. We tried them out every way possible in the White House. But through depression and war the President and Mrs. Roosevelt clung to cream. It was about the only luxury left that could be found in sizable quantities. The President liked cream as thick as it could be had in his morning coffee, and Mrs. Roosevelt wanted cream for the scrambled eggs that were served every Sunday night in the White House through three presidential terms and what were enjoyed by all who came.

“Scrambled Eggs in Chafing Dish Mrs. Roosevelt’s
1 tablespoon butter
6 eggs
3 tablespoons cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
Melt butter in pan, stir in lightly eggs and cream beaten together. Don’t overcook. Two eggs to each portion.”
—The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests, Henrietta Nesbitt [Doubleday & Company:Garden City NY] 1951 (p. 92-93)
[NOTE: If you would like more recipes from this book please let us know. Mrs. Nesbitt was the Roosevelt's cook. Her recipes are punctuated with personal notes and family favorites.]

Kedgeree
1 cup any boiled whitefish, flaked
1 cup boiled rice
2 hard boiled eggs, cut in quarters 1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
Mix fish and rice, mostien with cream or fish stock if dry, and saute lightly in melted butter. Must be fluffy. Add salt, pepper, and eggs. Heat thorougly, and serve. All the family liked this dish, especially Mrs. Roosevelt, and we served it over and over. Serves 4.”
—The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests, Henrietta Nesbitt [Doubleday & Company:Garden City NY] 1951 (p. 28)

“Angel Food
1 cup cake flour–sift before measuring
1 1/4 cups egg whites (10 or 12)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond flavoring
Sift flour at least twice. Beat egg whites with hand beater until foamy; add cream of tartar and 1 cup of sugar carefully, continuing beating until the whites stand up in peaks. Add flavoring. Sift 1/2 cup sugar with salt and flour and very carefuly fold into whites. Bake in angelcake pan in 375 degree F. oven 30 to 35 minutes.”
—The Presidential Cookbook: Feeding the Roosevelts and Their Guests, Henrietta Nesbitt [Doubleday & Company:Garden City NY] 1951 (p. 173-174)

Presidential hot dogs?
Fact: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt served hot dogs to dignitaries visiting the Summer White House (Springwood, Hyde Park NY) as early as 1934.
Fact: Some people thought Eleanor purposely served hot dogs in Hyde Park to undermine the authority of Sara, her mother-in-law.
Fact: The King and Queen of England were served hot dogs at FDR’s Summer White House on June 11, 1939.
Fact: The Royal couple was not offended by the menu.

I thought all of this very interesting. Who but the President and First Lady could get by with breaking rules. Certainly not all of the dishes were what we would now call healthy, but a number of them appeal to me – except for the fried mush. Someone would have to pay me big bucks to get me to eat that.
Also very interesting is the conflict between Eleanor and Sara. But this, of course, isn’t unusual. It is not unusual to hear about the stereotypical battle between mothers and daughters-in-law, though I suspect it is greatly exaggerated. (I love my daughter-in-law). I’d love to be an invisible spectator at one of their battles. Of course, I’d have to timetravel to do that.
This is a rather long article, but after doing this blog and the one about George Washington, I have to come to the conclusion the presidents and their families are no different than anyone else – except, of course, they made it to the top. A behind-the-scenes story, perhaps even a romantic suspense, would, in my opinion, fit in this type of setting as well as in any other. Some time ago, years, there was a special on TV about backstairs at the White House. If only I’d taped that.
I’m using my imagination because of this article. How about any of you?

One Response to “FDR’S TABLE”

1. McKenna Darby says:

   February 12, 2012 at 11:23 pm

   Absolutely fascinating. I feel more kindly disposed to the Roosevelts based on their preference for the food of simple people. Thanks for sharing!