About the Recipes
THE MAIN COURSE
The Presidential Palate Cookbook helps bring presidential history to life by providing a favorite recipe of every president.
Just imagine that you are in the family kitchen on the second floor of the White House preparing a simple Macaroni & Cheese lunch (enjoyed by President Ronald Reagan). Then move down to the main kitchen on the ground floor to cook up a tasty dinner featuring President Howard Taft’s Turtle Soup (no turtle meat handy? Replace it with chicken or even tofu—quelle horreur!) and President Lyndon Johnson’s legendary Pedernales Chili. And then finish the day in the pastry kitchen to bake President John Quincy Adams’ Apple Pan Dowdy or a Garfield Pie (yes, named after President James Garfield).
You should be able to prepare pretty much any of the recipes in this cookbook and then sit down with your family at home and enjoy the meal. But it would be more fun to organize a potluck dinner with several friends, each one bringing a different dish (maybe the dishes of their favorite presidents).Â
Alert to pescatarians, vegetarians, and vegans: Most Americans have always eaten meat-centric diets. Many of the recipes call for beef, pork, chicken, turtle, bacon drippings, and the like. In some recipes, you could replace a meat with fish or tofu or just omit the meat ingredient. You could also replace animal fat with vegetable shortening. The recipes won’t taste the same, but they would still constitute an interesting, culinary link to the past.Â
What the presidents considered their favorite dishes has been reported in books and periodicals. We then obtained recipes from historical archives and cookbooks. Janaea Eads, a graduate student in gastronomy, then tested, tasted, and modified them, as necessary. Because few grocery stores stock such ingredients as turtle meat, squirrel meat, or suet (though some are available from specialty grocery stores or online), Janaea suggestes alternative ingredients in several recipes. She also took the photographs that accompany the recipes. Some of the recipes (such as Harding’s and Eisenhower’s) are little edited from the presidents’ personal recipe cards or cookbooks (or their wives’ or mothers’), but most are adapted from cookbooks with recipes typical of the presidents’ eras. Â
Next, two registered dietitians, Emma Anstine and Alyssa Smolen, analyzed the nutrient content of the recipes, often adding “Dietitian’s Notes” to suggest healthy adjustments. (Most presidents did not have nutrition advisors!) When several alternative ingredients are indicated (e.g., bacon drippings or butter), the nutrient breakdowns are usually based on the most readily available ingredient. Unless otherwise indicated, ground beef was assumed to be 80% lean, 20% fat; butter to be unsalted; and flour to be white flour. When a range in ingredients is shown (e.g., 3–4 cups) or a range in servings (e.g., 6–8 servings), the nutrition analyses are based on the largest quantity of ingredient and the smallest number of servings. The nutrition numbers do not include optional ingredients or “salt to taste” estimates.Â
As a general rule, you could make many of the dishes much healthier by using leaner meat, whole wheat flour and brown rice, less butter, and half as much salt (or use “lite” salt, which has half the sodium of regular salt). Â
Now, off to the kitchen! We hope you enjoy eating like a president! Bon appétit!
