apply to our current situation to bring food to more people, to reduce in this country. and that was a wonderful surprise as that evolved over the course of the last decade or so. and one that i'm excited to share with people. so well paula. stephen, ashley, thank you again for joining us today. round of applause for. well, welcome back for our second panel discussion the day presidential and white house foodways. just a reminder if you'd to learn any more about any of our presenters or speakers and moderators, please consult the printed program. otherwise, going to give very short abbreviated introductions

so we can hear from our participants. hopefully you all still have your pencils so we will try to finish a little bit more closer to the end so we can have audience q&a. so as i mentioned, just write down your question, hold it up high and a member of our will be around to collect the cards and then we will give those data to see how much we can fit in at the end. now, it is my pleasure to our next panel, presidential and white foodways dr. claire jerry is a curator in the division of political history at the national museum of american history, where she specializes political rhetoric, the material culture, 20th and 21st century campaigning, and the history of the presidency. she has curatorial responsibility for the exhibit. the american presidency. glorious burden was team for the 2020 digital campaign hashtag vote history and plays a central role in the museum's collecting a presidential campaign material culture. lina mann john first join the white house snorkel association

in 2017 as american university's public history fellow and joined us a full time historian in march 2020. she is interested in many aspects of white house history, including enslavement at the white house, white house staff, white house traditions in the white house of the white house and their jonathan pliska a historian and author, his award winning books a garden for the president the history of white house grounds and the white house easter egg, a history for all ages, were both by the white house historical association. he has served as a contractor for the national service's historic american landscape survey and the national capital region, written cultural landscape contributed to national register of historic places nominations and uncover new and exciting information for several important sites in the district of columbia. and john is always a go to resource. any time we have questions about what's on in the grounds, it's always a good, good time to reach out to john. all right. and last but certainly not least, our moderator for this panel is aton bernhardt, an

award winning chef, tv personality, entertainer and social justice activist. he began his gilded entertainment career early as one of the youngest ever contestants on the food network's chopped. just 11 years old. i can't even i trying to think what i was doing at 11. it wasn't very impressive. since then, burnt -- social media presence has amassed over 10 million followers and 3 billion annual video views that reach more than hundred and 50 million consumers in 150 countries every year. he, the chief executive officer of, time productions, the principal culinary contributor for the daytime emmy award winning drew barrymore on cbs and is a contributor the washington post food and wine. so we're in dawlish please join me in welcoming our panelists. thank you. well, i am super excited to be here with all of you. not there is that i also love the white house and i've always been fascinated.

so of all panels i've ever moderated, this is actually most exciting for me. are prep call before i hung up, call my mom and it was like, oh my god, this is so interesting. so today we're going to be talking about food in the white, about about the kitchen staff. and, you know, they they say you always want to surround yourself with, people smarter than you. and i've done that today on this panel. i can assure everyone. so, lena, i want to start with so among the rich history of culinary personnel who are the notable or interesting staff that have worked in the white house kitchens, the dining staff in history. yeah. so i actually want to highlight some of the lesser known individuals there, of course, world class chefs. we'll hear from some of them today that have worked in the white house kitchens. but i really want to go back to the beginning. so when jefferson moves into the white house, he brings along a french chef named honoré julienne, who trained in french

the art of french cuisine. he's cooking these french dinners for, the white house. but jefferson also brings over a series over time. three teenage enslaved women from monticello. these are individuals are rarely talked about in terms of white house history, but are very, very interesting individuals. so i do to highlight them today. the first individual arrived in the fall 1801. she was 14 years old and her name was ursula hughes. the document that is pictured on the left hand of the screen here is a document about medical care at the white house. it actually lists ursula on that documents as this from march of 1802. ursula arrives at the white house and was likely already pregnant. jefferson probably did not know the fact that she was pregnant. she arrived, but she does give birth. in march of 1802, which is the second line of that document. it says to her child.

this corrects a large myth for us in white house history for many years was stated that that jefferson jefferson's daughter had given birth to the first baby at the white house in 1806. but as you can see from documentation from 1802, in fact it was this young 14 year old girl named ursula granger gives birth to the first white house baby. now, ursula ends up going home as a result of this the baby was not healthy she sent back to on a cello later that summer and we do believe that the child passes away. however, she is replaced by two other teenage girls from on a cello. why is he bringing teenagers from on cello to train at the white house? it's a great question. for one. for starters, these are all younger women. he thinks that women will be less likely to bargain for freedom. he previously had a chef named james hemings who had gone to france, him who had bargained for his freedom. in addition, all of these women had strong family ties, mount a

cello. so multiple generations also already had husbands and were beginning to have children which further connected them to the monticello community and prevents them from trying to seek their freedom once they're here in washington, d.c. he's also looking ahead. he's preparing for his retirement after his presidency. he brings the second two women back with him to monticello their names are francis gillette, hearne and edith hearne. fawcett. they arrive at the white house. edith arrives in 1802 after ursula leaves. then francis arrives in 1806. they stayed throughout the rest of jefferson's presidency, train really hard under. that french chef on the julian. they also have babies at the white house they're mothers they are raising children in enslavement while performing all of these incredibly difficult duties of preparing large dinners when they get back to monticello so they take over the kitchens. julian comes in for about two weeks to get the kitchen set up and then edith takes over as

head cook and francis assists for basically the rest of jefferson's life. in fact, daniel webster visits in 1824, and he describes their cooking as in half french and half virginian style in good taste and abundance. so very talented chefs and the other that i just want to briefly mention is dolly johnson. she is possibly in the second image that i have here. we're not entirely sure that it is her, but she is a really interesting individual born into enslavement, gained her freedom in 1889. she comes to the white house to cook for benjamin harrison. now, i always tell people that the white house kitchens in the 19th century are not what see today. today they are world class in the 19th century it was dark. it was damp, it was rodent infested. fact caroline harrison even has quote where she says the rats have taken the building so not exactly a very nice kitchen comes in she is cooking more kentucky style. there had previously been a french chef at the white house

named madeline pollard, but the newspapers say, quote, the president likes the plain dishes of dolly johnson, the colored cookie and gates from kentucky, better than the complicated menus of her predecessor in her way. dolly johnson, too, is artist. she stays at the white house seven months. the first time gets rave reviews. she's written about in the papers a lot. she goes back to kentucky to care for a family. but in 1893, for grover cleveland, second time at the white house, he seeks her out and brings her back and she cooks again at the white during that time. and when she leaves the white, she goes back to kentucky and opens an aptly named restaurant called the white cafe, where she serves dishes for the rest of her days. so from the 19th century. those are the four women that i wanted to highlight. i think you know, john, i have a question for you. so i'm the one collector myself. so saying i was wondering when preparing for this is who was the first president known to have a wine cellar in the white

house. okay. first of all, wow, i am so absolutely impressed with everything mentioned, especially at such a young age. and now you're also a wine or i've got to say i'm envious of your palate. i'm lucky if i can distinguish a red and a white with taking a peek at my glass. so not only are you a refined gentleman, but you're also in great company because it was none other than our third president, thomas jefferson. and that's definitely someone that you're going to be hearing that name a lot today. thomas jefferson. he was the one to build the first white house wine cellar. and it's also particularly appropriate because jefferson was one of the most famous and well known wine lovers in all of american history. and in fact, it's actually said to have quipped at least once that, quote, good wine, a necessity of life for, truth. so it's therefore not at all surprising that was the one that

built the cellar. but lena you actually know more about the actual procedure on that. yes. so i just wanted to briefly mention wings that you see on the white house. so today. we know them as the east and west wing. these are added by jefferson during his time in the white house. he brings in the architect, benjamin henry, to help him design these new features. so the original house is completed by 1800 and then he's the one that's adding on these side and he's modeling it off of monticello. so i have an image of monacelli here. and if you look closely, you can see that he has sort of the same thing happening at his house there. both of these are built into the hillside. so these east and west wings that they have are not very visible from the front of the house. and this is where he's building in all of this stuff like wine cellars, any any other place where you need to store things. it is also a place where workers are working and this is why he is doing this type of he is both

trying to hide this visually. so you don't have a bunch of small little buildings and huts around on the white house grounds, but it also serves a larger purpose as well. it is meant to sort of conceal the work of enslaved laborers that are working at both monticello and the white house. so that's sort of what's going on. and the wine cellar is certainly part of those extensions that he built on to the white house. is there currently is a current white house wine cellar or is it the same one that he does not the same, i gather. yes. okay. but yes, do have wine storage, all sorts, stuff like that. yeah, very cool. thank you for that. no thing that you know, i think it's interesting is leading up to the white house. can you talk a bit about what food and food metaphors have been used in presidential campaigns? well, i am here is comic relief because my interest is in campaigning and also rhetoric

and. i'm always interested in how does rhetoric find way into objects? because words ephemeral objects last and the image you have here is of probably the earliest known political food metaphor, a presidential food metaphor and, really the origin of the first presidential food fight in american history. this comes the 1840 election between william henry a wig and martin van, a democrat. and the democrats were trying to find a way to challenge. well, harrison's popularity and. so said, you know, if we just gave him a log cabin and a keg of hard cider, he would just go away. well, as it turns out, william henry harrison was not born in a log cabin. he did not even like hard cider. it considered the drink of the common people. but whigs said, hey, we'll lean into this. and instead of being insulted by it they made objects. they parade floats. this was this of a log cabin and a keg of cider was carried in a parade. and then they started accusing martin van buren, who had grown up relatively poor compared to harrison of being the champagne

guzzling candidate. and so the democrats tried to use food attack harrison. they lost the food fight and they lost the election as well. i have a couple of other examples they're graciously me tell you three stories because they're my favorites but i don't have that much time. so the second one is from the election of 1896 between william mckinley and william jennings bryan. and mckinley was republican candidate in both 1896 and 1900. he ran on platform of the full dinner pail, modeled on a lunch pail that workers would carry. this happens also to have been something that was carried as a torch in a parade, but it was on buttons and banners william jennings bryan and the democrats tried to counter by saying that full dinner pail was leaky. it was full of corruption. but once again, they lost the election and the battle over the full pail, interestingly, the full dinner pail metaphor reoccurs well into the 20th century. even lyndon johnson one point sort of evoked this full dinner

imagery. but the one that my colleagues, when we earlier decided they really wanted me to talk about is this third one. and it's a complicated story of both food and toys. if i were to ask this audience to name toy named after a president, you would either give lincoln logs or more likely, the teddy and teddy bear is named after theodore roosevelt because as many of you know, he was at a hunt. they couldn't find a bear. the organize of the hunt found a bear, beat it senseless it to a tree and said to theodore roosevelt here, go. and he was a sportsman as well as a hunter. he said, this is not appropriate. he released the bear. it went viral and what we would call today was in it was in editorial cartoons and it was in children's books and became the teddy bear toy that we still knoway. theodore roosevelt designated, william howard taft, to be his successor to the presidency. and taft's people wanted something that would do for taft what the teddy bear had allegedly done for roosevelt taft is one of our largest

presidents, well over 350 pounds for most of his adult life. a man of prodigious appetite, he was at a political event in georgia and was served either a 17 or an 18 pounds possum, which he ate with great enthusiasm, all of it, apparently, to his doctor's dismay, and he had requested possum to be on the menu. so he was quite delighted and his staff said, we've got it, teddy, theodore bear, william, billy possum and billy possum was born. and there we have this button. we have a few postcards. if you ever there were billy possum toys made. if you ever see one in an antique store, please me immediately. because we would love to have one. but what i love thinking about this story is, you know bears are sort of cute possums. so much. i saved the bear ate the possum. it was not the same story. so it is one of my favorite presidential food stories, but it was not a successful one. wow shocked that it didn't

stick. speaking of animals, lena. i want to note this kind of a random question, but do you have a favorite turkey that's been pardoned? i'm so glad you asked. been waiting years to be asked this. question. i love white house turkey. pardon? i think it is very fun event and at its context it is basically i feel a press conference, but the origins of it are quite so. there is a story from 63 about abraham lincoln allegedly pardoning a turkey i can't quite verify that one. it was a christmas turkey, so not quite the same but the story of people sending food to the white house is very interesting and happens over period of years. so in the 1870s we do have a man who starts sending turkeys annually to the white house. many others take up and start doing it as well. in the 1920s. you're getting crazy turkeys wearing costumes like flew a

turkey across the country. it had like flight goggles, fun. but once we get to world war two in the post-world war period, is we get the origins of the modern turkey pardon. so my favorite event is, something that happens in 1947. so 1947, we're a couple of years past world war two and there is an issue food shortages throughout europe in the united states there are measures taken to attempt to address that and president puts together a committee that is in charge of trying to figure out what they're going to do. now they appoint gentleman named howard luckman, who wasn't exactly the right for the job and what he decided would be the best way to go about basically having more grain production for europe is to eliminate birds in the states that would be eating that grain. this was not a thought out idea, but that year decided to launch

something called poultry last thursday is which is where you were not supposed to be eating poultry on the day of thursday now. this was a huge problem. if you are a member of the turkey industry because in 1947 the dates of christmas thanksgiving and new year's are all. on thursday, the three biggest turkey holidays. so this creates mayhem. people very upset by this, particularly farmers. so they start sending hens to the white house. they call the hens for harry and then leghorn for luckman. they would send lots of these chickens to the white house. the white house staff were like, what do we do with these birds? so this ends up becoming a turning point, essentially to quell fears of the turkey industry, truman then hosted the poultry and egg national at the white house. the turn national federation, and they presented a turkey this then takes on a life of its own.

it gets recreated every year and so many, many years. we have some examples here. here is truman with the turkey right there. we even have john f kennedy with a turkey. in the early years, these birds were eaten. they were not spared. as you can see, the turkey in the jfk photo is wearing a sign that says good eaten. mr. president so not pardoned. this sort of gets be a pardoning over time we see it sort of jell by the reagan administration and there are some really fun press conferences where he comes out and makes a bunch of jokes, turkeys and then the press is like, what are you going to do with this turkey? and they start saying, we're going to send it to a children's petting of animal, petting, museum, whatever. but it really doesn't jell. we get george h.w. bush in 1990s. he the one that uses the word pardon and says he will pardon this bird. so ever since then, it has been an official again, a very fun press event where they make a lot of puns and jokes, obama in

particular did a lot of these at the of his daughters so i brief turkey pardon history here thank for that no john i want to go back to you so today the white house is known for its impressively maintained gardens. you know, it hasn't always just been beautiful flowers, bushes, trees you know what else has been grown on the grounds? well, you're absolutely right. today the white house grounds range over approximate 18.7 acres. and the landscape is primarily known because of its hundreds of magnificent trees and shrubs as well as its beautiful flower gardens. most specifically, the rose garden. so this is it also oftentimes comes as something of a shock when i tell people that many, many years, fruits and vegetables and herbs were also all grown on the white house grounds, oftentimes in great numbers. and so this is the part of our moderated discussion here, where i talk the most and what i'd

like to do is give you a lot of information and hopefully not in an overly long amount of time. we want to leave time for questions, but really take on a historical journey. so if ready. here we go. i'm ready. awesome. so i've got my notes here to keep me on track. so the beginning of our journey really does go all the way back to the beginning of the white house and november 1st, 1800, john became the first president to move in. and prior to his political life. he grew up in farming family in massachusetts and this fact has led to the persistent that a kitchen garden meaning, a garden that grew fruits, vegetables as well as culinary and medicinal herbs, awaited him at the newly white house. unfortunately, there's simply no evidence that this was in true and in his wife, first lady abigail adams, rather ignominy ously noted that the whole place quote, had not the least fence or other convenience and quote

nonetheless, she somehow managed to remain optimistic and also describe the site as a beautiful, capable of every improvement and any such improvements however really needed to wait for the next president. and once again, that's thomas jefferson, because this is this is because term ended about five months after he first moved into the white house. and that brings us to this image here. this is the first known landscape plan for the white house dates to about 1806 or so. and it's believed to have been executed, at least in part, thomas jefferson's own hand. and that's obviously an awful lot going on in this image here. but you can see the main block of the white house, the historic mansion at the center, and then some of those ancillary wings that lena was describing earlier, branching off in either direction. so but what i really want to do is call your attention to the bottom right in the image that sort of oval shaped area that specifically just says garden

down there at the bottom right. and the prevailing idea is that jefferson probably intended for this to become a mixed use garden, something where ornamental and edible plants could grow together. and this would be in keeping the gardens he planted both at monticello poplar forest. however, the herculean task just developing initial white house grounds meant jefferson never got to do any planting himself. he did, however, order seeds shortly before leaving. and so it was that a few months of becoming the fourth president of the united, james madison received a package in the mail, and it held a wide of vegetable seeds. and these included cabbage, broccoli, radish and chive cucumber carrot beet parsnip turn up in leek. and the accompanying bill of sale, which was dated 27 1809, came to a grand total of $14, 12 and a half cents.

now that's actually about $367 in today's money. so that's an insignificant amount of money to be spending on seeds and seeds were in fact duly planted. and so for the first time in its history, white house had a kitchen garden. unfortunately, however, it didn't last long. and that's because the white was burned by the british during. the war of 1812. that happened in august of 1814. and as far as we can tell, the grounds were also completely destroyed. but here, however, a classic example of american. some 20 years later, not only some 20 years later. in the late 1820s, not only was the white house rebuilt, but the garden itself were planted this time even better than before so. what's more, by now we had the ideal person in office as president, and that was john adams, the son of the first president. adams and you'll be forgiven if you don't really remember him from history class, but i'm here

to tell you that he abso harbored a lifelong love gardening his diaries note that he personally kept records of when individual plants germinated in the spring and he delighted in harvesting peaches and currants from the fruit orchard as well as marjoram mint sage, tarragon, tansy and from the herb patch. so the man was honestly hands on in the truest sense of the word. and so the garden continued to grow and develop over time. and by the time got back and started, oh, you let the cat out of the bag. yeah the famous photo of me. and so the garden continued to grow. so this was this image here dates to really right around the civil time and by then the kitchen garden had moved to different spot on the south grounds it's shown immediately adjacent to the white house there it's in that sort of

trapezoidal shaped area on the left. and as we see, it was pretty big. it looks very also like orderly. that's exactly right. it it about an acre of land and. it was divided into these eight individual plots, which suggests to me at least that it was really run something like miniature farm. so really much of the food grown at the white house during the civil war destined for the president's dinner table, but not all of it. and various accounts that first lady mary todd lincoln personally distributed fresh produce to washington, d.c., area hospitals in order to help feed convalescing union soldiers and that her strawberry eyes, which were picked fresh from the white house garden, were particularly prized. these errands of mercy. and unfortunately, however, lasts forever. the old kitchen was removed in 1878 during the grant administration in order to accommodate the growth and development of what we now know today as the modern white house

grounds. so i'll take a quick time out here to say that. i'm happy report that a great number these historic fruit and vegetable and herbs seeds are still available today purchase from heirloom seed growers and as you can i'm living proof that growing them isn't necessarily as hard as it might look as a of a lark. my wife and i decided to give it a try in our backyard and then also our community garden. and for me is really important because i able to find the seed list from the lincoln administration and the late great dr. bouchon, who for many years was the chief historian here at the association always said, if you're going to find something new, lincoln's a good president to do for nobody's particularly necessarily interested. grover cleveland got up to so this you can sit in a chair you

can read a document if those are historic that's a tangible link to the past. but really able to grow the same food. the president lincoln and his family ate. for me, that's something deeply personal. also just incredibly cool. and on that, we'll fast forward to the spring of 1943. the united states had been fighting in world war two for just over two years and the victory garden movement had really begun to take on some steam at that point. simply put, the entire idea behind the victory garden movement was to encourage average everyday to grow as much food of their own as possible so this was to allow farmers to concentrate on supplying food for the war effort. and first lady eleanor roosevelt took the challenge of championing the victory garden administration and she also directed that a model victory garden be laid out on the white house grounds. and she selected ten year old girl by the name diana hopkins,

who was the daughter, harry hopkins, the longtime presidential advisor to president roosevelt. and he she put her in charge of this garden. and i'm very happy to say that diana was more than up for the task, as was america in general. and millions and millions of pounds of food were grown. today is the day, as we heard. so this food literally helped fuel the war effort. and i'm particularly happy that i was able to write an article about, the model victory garden at the white house, that appears the current issue of the white house historical journal. so if you're interested i'd encourage you to check that out. and now finally, we're going to fast forward again to about another five years,. up to 2008, when lady michelle obama led the creation of the modern white house kitchen garden. and she did this as a vehicle to promote healthy eating habits and youth of america. and in many ways we've now really come circle as with its

historic predecessor, sir, the current garden occupies an acre or so of land and a wide variety of fruits, vegetables. the produce grown here today is served not only on the presidential table, but used in preparing official state dinners. and a lot of it is actually also donated to local charities to help fight food insecurity. so with that, our little journey is over, at least for now for me, for now. i hope i didn't go on terribly long. is it really still with me? yes. no, that is fascinating. i, i do some gardening at home and it's not as large as that. so back to you, claire. so i've only been conscious adult, not even adult conscious human for three presidencies or i guess for that. i knew what a president was. so i think of, you know, presidents and food. i of ice cream mcdonald's for some of the presidents that have served while i've been alive but i'd love to hear are there any

other moments that really shine out to you or your favorite moments of presidents and food and how they of affected the broader culture of food? when we first met as a as a group, we were talking about the influence on on broader food. and that's a little harder to track from the white house. but two stories always come to mind for me. they both involve president reagan. what is more serious when his administration was promoting ketchup as a and school lunches. that caused quite a bit of controversy but it led to a lot of national conversation about school nutrition and those kinds things. a lighter hearted story course is his association with the jelly bean, which may or may not affected food culture in the united states. reagan turned to jelly beans in the 1960s to help wean himself off of his pipe and became very, very fond of them, and then kept jelly beans on his desk for the rest of his life by the time he got to the white house, his favorite company was the company we now know as, the jelly belly

company, and he wanted a red white and blue jelly bean set for his inauguration. and they didn't make food jelly beans at that time, but they developed a blueberry blue bean, which has become one of the most popular. continues to be popular for them as a company. he gave as gifts. he offered them to people, came to visit him. and he always said, i've got i want to find this quote here that he believed and i can't find quote, but he believe you can tell a lot about a person by the flavor of jelly they did they take a mixed or did they go for a particular flavor? unfortunately, he never us what his judgment was those two ways of choosing jelly bean from him. but he loved having them on his desk. at one point his administration, he was ordering 720 bags of jelly beans a month, and he was not personally consuming all of the particular or company he bought from. said that their skyrocketed, that their sales from 8 to $16 million in the first year of his presidency. other jelly bean companies said

more people are eating jelly beans. but didn't that, you know, giving reagan the credit for that the most and this is about the from our collection let them eat jelly beans and i've always been trying to figure out some people catalog it as a reagan button that that went in their collection because it's so fun and festive other people you know it's really a reference to marie antoinette but so maybe it's actually an anti reagan button but it's still a fun way of talking about that story. and when bush vice president dan quayle son entered the house of representatives, he told stories about how he also was a child, then met president reagan, was given jelly beans and he issued this statement that it's really tells a lot about america, because jelly in a colored jar like that are so democratic so may have influenced food culture, may have made more of a c jelly beans today that's a little hard to prove fascinating seems a lot of presidents have a sweet tooth which is

interesting. lena, i want to go back to you so the white house is known host very lavish parties and you know with hundreds and hundreds of people tons of. can you talk a little bit about how the kitchen staff have changed and kind of adapted to to this kind of explosion in size white house culinary events. yeah. so earlier i talked a lot the 19th century. these are certainly smaller scale overall the. first, as we talked about earlier, i think stewart, the very first state dinner takes place. 1874 for king david, the king of hawaii. and that's the first example of that state dinner. and that is only gotten bigger as time has gone on as we approach the 20th century, the united states emerges, as more onto a world stage. and so we see the increase in

these very elaborate that are meant to diplomatic events. we also have number of other events that take place at the white house, which of course require scale dinners. so i have a couple interesting examples here. these are all from the collection of henry haller. henry haller was a white house chef. he is originally appointed the head chef by lyndon b johnson and he stays on at the white house until 1987. he's a great example of this more modern era of chefs and other residence staff in the white house staying through multiple administrations, not really tied to any presidents, but serving the white house itself. the presidency itself. so henry haller, he has family, donated an incredible collection to us in our white house historical digital library which has a ton of images which show how elaborate these events are. so the image that i have on the left hand side is actually the

wedding cake from lucy baines johnson's wedding reception, which was held at the white house himself, oversaw three weddings. so lucy johnson's as well as her sister, linda bird johnson's wedding at the white house, which also had a very, very similar which required scaffolding to put together. so as you can see, this is quite a quite elaborate. and then he also did oversee the wedding of tricia nixon a few years later as well. you can see on the other side here, here is henry haller in the kitchens themselves. and he is putting together a plate so you can see how large scale it is. they have to create tons of these dishes will all go at the same time. they go out to table. everybody is very well versed in how everything is brought out to the tables. if you have any dietary restrictions, everyone will already know that in advance. you'll be given the correct plate of food. it's all very, very well organized. and then the picture that i have in, the top side here is one of

my absolute favorite photographs in white house history. and this tells a good story about state dinners overall. so one of the things that the presidency tries to accomplish with a state dinner is a show off american in style. so you will have things like american wines on the menu. a lot of the, you know, vegetables, anything that is showing off american culinary style. but also they do make an effort and they work with the state department very closely to make sure the menu has something that the visiting head of state really wants to enjoy. sometimes this takes the form of a lot of fusion dishes, so sometimes they'll fuze two countries together. america and whoever it's a visiting country. but in this case, in 1980, they had a state dinner for the japanese prime minister. the social secretary, gretchen

paxton did go ahead, figure out that the japanese prime minister had really really wanted to try american style. it's something that he had always wanted to try. and so she and the state department and the first lady's office and everybody at the white house decided, let's make that happen. and so that's what we have going on in this photograph here. so this is henry haller standing next to jimmy carter in front of a variety of roasted suckling pigs that they prepared actually on the west terrace of the white house. so they're actually on the roof of that west colonnade. they did a bunch barbecuing and then they served these pigs for the japanese prime minister, who was apparently delighted to experience that american style barbecue. so just little over here. i know we're going to hear lot more about the more modern white house events later this afternoon. add the wedding cake we have in our collection. piece of cake from that cake as as a piece of cake from tricia nixon's wedding cake. they no longer nearly as

appetizing. yeah, well. may i ask, is it frozen? how is it. it's just dried. our oldest piece of cake. it's from a birthday party for franklin, so it just looks totally like mummified, is what it looks like. wow. delicious. fascinating. all right, we have a bit of a rapid section for each of you. so, john, i heard is it true that the white house used to have a stable. absolutely. and that it didn't smell great. yeah, absolutely. yes. so as we discussed before, most of the 19th century, much of the white house essentially functioned as a farm and the first white house stable was built directly attached to the white house by none other than, again, thomas jefferson and it continued to grow and develop over the years. more and more animals were added. horses, dairy cows. and as anybody who spent any time at all on a farm.

those animals tend to produce lot of let's just call it waste and unpleasant smells and we're about to head to a beautiful luncheon a little while so i think i'll just leave it at that but it was maybe not the best idea to have the stables right underneath the windows of the state dining. so by the 1850s, the stable had been moved a little bit further out, which is what we see here, although it's still awfully close to the white house. and by the 1870s it had been removed from the white house grounds. today, the only visible of there having ever been a stables, the white house grounds is this stone cooling trough that's implanted in the lawn, and that dates to about 1830 or so under president jackson jackson. well, i have four pets in my apartment in new, so i know how animals can smell exactly right. no. uh clear. this is a thing that i find

fascinating before i got into cooking. when was 11, i actually used to be a very picky eater, so i was curious, are there any foods that have known have been known to despise? well, we've the name of thomas jefferson and now we're to get george h.w. bush to almost as many recognitions. and this is the broccoli gate controversy. it was released to the press. bush had banned broccoli, air force one. and this caused the broccoli growers of america to they were going to deliver tons of the vegetables, the white house. and in my rapid fire answer, here is what he said in his first press conference. there are truckloads of broccoli at this very minute descending on washington. my family is divided. i do not like and i haven't liked it since i was a little kid. my mother made me eat it. i'm president, the united states, and i'm not going to eat any more broccoli for the broccoli voters out there loves broccoli. she eats it all the time so she can go out and meet the of broccoli and broccoli.

gate was mentioned 50 times by president bush in administration, mostly in a lighthearted way, although it was never very popular with the agricultural lobbies, as you might imagine. but as far as i like, we have a button again in our collection that said, that combines two famous bush moments that says, read my lips, no more broccoli. well, and broccoli was on the list of that i didn't like either. it's a young kid i know we're almost out of time. would you mind if i talk about a cow? yes. that was my my last question is that i've there's a famous cow, so. absolutely and well, it was president cow. and as we learned he had voracious appetite. the first he ate it, he denied. oh, okay. he wouldn't be much of a story. yeah, you read the what he do is

he was possessed with a voracious appetite. like i said, most people here probably don't initially think of him as the man to have served as both chief justice of the united states supreme court and president of the united states. that facts actually true. the first thing that oftentimes comes people's mind is that, oh, wasn't he the guy got stuck in the white house bathtub, and that was because he was a very large man that stories fact actually apocryphal. but it's a good yarn and it's not true. it's actually not true that he had a custom built bathtub to make sure he didn't get so he did once get stuck in a phone out on the campaign trail. and you had a carpenter to get him out, though, that that is actually what happens. so anyway, back to the cow. this was a gift from senator isaac stevenson, wisconsin, my home state. so i have a particular affinity for this animal. and her name was wayne. the third. and she from cattle royalty.

i don't know if you can read it, but her father's name, the sire, was lord mercedes de coal. paul and her mother was pauline wayne the second and she produced an absolute ton of milk and, butter and cream and cheese for the president while she lived at the white house. she also became something of a reluctant celebrity while she was grazing on the white house grounds. i have no idea who this child is, but she's obviously having a great time and. who wouldn't if you got to hang out with the presidential cow? but she also was routinely by newspapers about whatever was going on in the day. so if you can believe it, the no less than the washington post actually used to go up to the cow, ask her what was going on. and and this is a place this is a company that won 68 pulitzer prizes for journalism the way

most they want to know what pauline about the then proposed 19th amendment to the constitu option which would legalize women which would give women the right to vote and this is a direct quote from the post that although, pauline, i as a progressive she was not a fan of the suffragette movement. so yes that's exactly the reaction everybody be having to that and. but if you want to hear more about pauline i'm fortunate enough to an article also published in the white house quarterly about her and i swear that was just a coincidence this isn't just a plug to advertise my articles so you for being with me. i'm glad to know i addressed the cow loving, famous cow. now i think we have a few more minutes. do we have any questions? oh, the audience connect. yes. to a michael just going to.

oh hold up the card. yeah. anybody have a question. if not, i'm sure i could come up with another. or treat. me. oh --. the card card. you think you already. okay, so we have was perfectly handwritten. okay. has the white i don't know who this is for. we're going to find out as i ask you, has the white house table etiquette standard shifted throughout the different. from liam? i would say that it has probably keeping kept up with american taste. i style so of course what thomas is going to be serving back in the day and how he sets his tables is going to be very different for example, he used

done waiters in his dining room. his dining room was the location of. today's green room. you would have a lot of small luncheons in there. he didn't want listening to his conversations, so he would bring in carts where people would serve themselves from carts of food rather than having elaborate staff placing the food in front of you. of course, that has changed over time today. if you're attending state dinner, as i mentioned, it is all very, very well structured. everything goes together very nicely people will bring your food to you they clear it out at a certain time. it's a very well oiled machine. so i would say that there has been a bit of shifting over time also shifts in the culinary experience that you're getting at the white house. we've served some interesting items. possum at the white house the past they've also eaten like terrapin soup things that we don't eat today that has also changed and shifted over time. well one way you can place you can see that through our partnership with the association we have an extensive display of

white house china in, our first lady's gallery, and seeing the kinds of dishes that we would no longer to see necessarily like an asparagus fork or, the oyster plates, all of which can still be manufactured but would have been much more standard. a 19th century formal dining in the 20th century. and my favorite china service is actually the hayes chinese service, which is a little weird. most of the rest of the china services are what you would expect, but the hayes's a different idea where they decided each would represent different types of american flora and fauna. so for example, the oyster plate, just oysters. and then he put the oyster on the oyster same with the turkey plate. it just has a large on it. so it's really easy to know you serve on those particular plates. and we have a plate my my colleague curated exhibit likes to point it out where it's a plate where on picture is a buffalo being encircled by hungry wolves and they were always trying to imagine as you cut through your food down to that picture what reaction.

wow. oh, oh, oh, i will choose. okay we oh, we just just flew in a question how the cakes are preserved. oh they are in their original boxes. many of you have been to weddings or fancy events where you're sent home with a piece of cake and our about the cake that we have that the the johnson and nixon cake believe came to us directly from the white house. the cake that we have somebody obviously it home and just put it in the right place in house and so it's just dried out. it just lives in our storage area with other objects i have seen it. it is kind of have you smelled does it smell? i haven't. but i'll get back to you on that. yes, please. i do enjoy using them when i get especially online to 89 year olds who are who love 94 year old birthday cake. all right, next question. uh each president comes the office with different tastes

and. preferences regarding, food. how difficult it for the white house chefs to adapt to them from gourmet to regional preference to potato every day fair. it's a really good question. as i mentioned earlier with dolly johnson, who's brought in to prepare more kentucky style food rather that fancy french style. there are several examples of this throughout time. sometimes you have a president that really wants that really fancy food. examples. that would be, of course, thomas jefferson. the kennedys really liked that fancy cuisine as well. but then there are others that have had a more home style taste. so example is lyndon johnson, although he had these chefs preparing these elaborate meals for the state dinners, he also brought in his own personal chef named zephyr, and she would cook things like tex-mex and chili for the johnson more for their more personal meals.

so you have those types of taste going on as well something that they want to eat in their spare time rather than for these really fancy events. you also see as i mentioned earlier, these cuisine styles sort of shift over time. so that has been some of those 19th century meals are a little surprising. then the other thing that you see is that have to adhere to whatever is going on. so a great example of that would be franklin roosevelt. he into the presidency during the great continues the presidency during world war two. and so the white house is really trying to adhere to rationing systems like john talked about with the victory garden. but the reports i've gotten from the fdr white house is that the food necessary wasn't that good because he was trying to a lot of cutbacks and cut those corners. so kind of interesting their last question actually, which is from myself that i just thought kind of related to he just said

is that i was curious you know with especially earlier you know with the whole concept one of the foundations of the country being that we have a president, not a king has ever been a controversy of the white house or the president serving eating food. that was too fancy or kind of like that. there's there's a little bit of that, i think particularly with that french cuisine, you a lot of characterizations of like the kennedy white house where they're having these elaborate french meals. and then there's also a lot of questions, american made stuff. there's a question about it with the state services and, they start to be made in america. typically, the lenox company, starting with woodrow wilson, i believe and you also see a lot of these debates over like americans wine do you have it brought from another country or are you going to serve what we here in the united states? so that certainly is something that they do regularly. there is a story flips your question it didn't in the white house happened at hyde park when

franklin roosevelt greeted the king and queen england to his home. had an outdoor picnic for them and served dogs, which was not something they were familiar with and caused a sort of opposite controversy. was that too common? a food to have served to the king and queen? i would ask, you know, and i've actually if i at least had little time there, just sort flipping the script again as well. there was at least one point in time where a would be meal came to the white house and became a presidential pet. and this was rebecca the raccoon under, the coolidge administration and. she was originally intended, i believe, a thanksgiving meal. and so there you go that's maybe not everybody's cup of tea but instead the coolidge's think said think you know we'll we'll pass on that so instead they kept her as a pet she had her collar and a leash and she would be walked as if she was a dog.

once even presided over the annual house easter egg roll. well did not know that well, this was really incredible. thank you so, so much for sharing your knowledge with us. hopefully this has what everyone's for a lunch and a little bit i think that serving raccoon this far there's no raccoon or possum i can promise you that but yes thank you so much i think you all so much for listening i into itall right. well, good afternoon, everyone. hope you enjoyed your lunch and i hope you enjoyed hearing more from former white house executive chef chris comerford about everything that goes a meal at the white house. and so we appreciate participation and of course, fred ryan's as well. but as you might