ThisNext Blog

Don’t you want to know what they eat in the White House? I do! And so, evidently, do lots of other people. How else can you explain the recent release of not one but two tell-all books from former White House chefs?

In White House Chef: Eleven Years, Two Presidents, One Kitchen, former White House executive chef Walter Scheib III takes you on a behind-the-scenes tour of what the leaders of the free world, and their families, supped upon over the past several years. The book, which has garnered quite a lot of press (Scheib himself landed a spot on The Daily Show recently), toes a respectful line, eschewing both bitterness and salacious juiciness, focusing instead on the culture and cuisine of the First Kitchen. Under Scheib’s reign and with the respective First Ladies’ guidance, the presidential diet migrated from classic French to a modernized American menu, inflected with worldly touches reflecting America’s place in the modern international landscape.

The book includes 105 recipes from Scheib’s kitchen, all accessible to the home cook, from a classic Tex-Mex Chex party snack to Hillary luncheon fave Orange, Jicama and Red Onion Salad with Cilantro Dressing.  

On the other side of the dish, former White House pastry chef Roland Meisner serves cuts through the treacle in All The Presidents’ Pastries: Twenty-Five Years in the White House.  US News and World Report peeks between the covers of the exposé:

The fave [Clinton] Christmas dessert is an “atrocious concoction” of Coca-Cola-flavored jelly served with black glacé cherries; Bubba ignored his allergies and ate chocolate cake, barking, “I’m the president around here” and Hillary used to don disguises to walk around Washington. Oh, and a hint to anybody serving sweets to the current first family: Laura Bush is sick of chocolate-covered strawberries.