Etiquette, Menus in White House Book

Many of the menus, recipes, and health, household and beauty hints in the new book were in the original, published in 1887. The authors were White House steward Hugo Ziemann and Mrs. Fanny Gillette, a domestic science expert. On the etiquette question, they wrote: “Absolute suppression of emotion, whether of anger, laughter, mortification, or disappointment, is one of the most certain marks of good breeding.” On avoiding wrinkles: “The best advice is to go on a diet of milk, beer, and cake in order to grow fat and thus extend the skin to its full tightness.” Presumably, the same end could be accomplished if one received invitations to Martin Van Buren’s “small, beautifully appointed and snobbish dinners” prepared by the chef he’s brought from London.

Cook’s White House Tour and 

The White House Cookbook

NEW YORK (UPI) — Calvin Coolidge was so thrifty a president that he limited the quantity of ice water and the number of paper cups in which to serve it at official White House receptions. “Silent Cal” told an aide he took this step so guests would not stand around all evening drinking instead of going home. Coolidge was by no means the only penurious president, according to Janet Halliday Ervin’s “The White House Cockbook” (Follett). James K. Polk’s first lady, Sarah, served no refreshments at all at twice weekly White House receptions, but set a good table at home in Tennessee. A Christmas dinner menu for the Polk menage there consisted of oyster soup, celery, turkey, homemade wafers, ham, spiced round salsify (a root vegetable), caramel sweet potatoes, pickles, rice, cranberry sauce, blazing plum pudding, wine jelly, charlotte russe, grapefruit salad, fruit cake, nuts, raisins, wine and coffee. 

Old But Good

Many of the menus, recipes, and health, household and beauty hints in the new book were in the original, published in 1887. The authors were White House steward Hugo Ziemann and Mrs. Fanny Gillette, a domestic science expert. Some of the health and etiquette advice would give nightmares to modem physicians and psychiatrists. On the etiquette question, they wrote: “Absolute suppression of emotion, whether of anger, laughter, mortification, or disappointment, is one of the most certain marks of good breeding.” On avoiding wrinkles: “The best advice is to go on a diet of milk, beer, and cake in order to grow fat and thus extend the skin to its full tightness.” Presumably, the same end could be accomplished if one received invitations to Martin Van Buren’s “small, beautifully appointed and snobbish dinners” prepared by the chef he’s brought from London. Even this didn’t satisfy some guests. One winter, guests were said to have complained about the monotony of the menus and entertainment. 

Official entertaining reached what the author calls “a new high” during the Buchanan administration. It began with this menu at the inaugural ball: 400 gallons of oysters, 60 saddles of mutton, 4 saddles of venison, 125 beef tongues, 75 hames, 500 quarts each of chicken salad and jellies, 1,200 quarts of ice cream, a four-foot cake and $3,000 worth of wine. The Ulysses S. Grants also lived well. Among three menus included from Grant’s administration was one for a birthday dinner for the president. It began with clams, continued to crab soup, assorted appetizers, fish, beef filet, chicken, veal sweetbreads and squab, each with appropriate vegetables or fruit; several desserts, coffee and four different wines with the first four courses. The Grant family’s interest in food didn’t stop with their White House days. After the Russian Revolution, the president’s granddaughter and her husband, a former Russian count opened a restaurant in London.

Fit for a President, Chicken a la Russe, a favorite recipe of Princess Cantacuzene, granddaughter of President Grant, is not for weight watchers. “Take two to four spring chickens plucked and cleaned, cleaned. Rub them over with flour and salt and fill them with the following stuffing: 24 tea rusks, well crushed; 2 or 3 tablespoonfuls of butter, 1 or 2 egg yolks and 6 tablespoonfuls of parsley. All these ingredients well mixed together. Then roast the stuffed chickens in a half pound of butter. When ready, serve them with melted butter in which a good quantity of tea rusk crumbs have been mixed. This butter is poured over as a sauce. Serves six persons.” – By Jeanne Lesem, UPI Food Editor, 1964

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