The American Menu

We d n e s d a y, M a r c h 2 0 , 2 0 1 3

What Jackie Liked to Eat

The White House
1961-1963

Flashbulbs popped on the night of the Pre-Inaugural Gala, when Jacqueline Kennedy emerged from a
townhouse in Georgetown into the swirling snow, dressed in a shimmering, winter-white satin gown by Oleg
Cassini. It was the country’s first glimpse of Jackie in the role of First Lady, revealing the grace, elegance and
unique style that she would bring to the White House.

On the inaugural stand, she appeared in a simple fawn-colored suit with a muff and trim of sable, also by
Cassini, and a matching pillbox hat by Halston. A few hours later, she looked regal at the ball in a silk chiffon
gown and matching cape. Expressing herself through the clothes that she wore, Jackie captured the imagination
of modern America which would soon begin to emulate her “good taste” in fashion, interior design, and French
cuisine.

Although the Kennedys embodied the spirit of American optimism, Jackie’s tastes were decidedly French, strongly influencing how she would approach her new
position. In addition to being fluent in French, Jackie was well-versed in French art, architecture, and history. Even when she undertook a major project to restore
the historic integrity of the White House, gathering outstanding examples of American art and furniture from around the United States, she quietly hired a French
designer to redecorate the rooms. However, one of the first things she did as First Lady was hire a French chef named Rene Verdon who was then working in New
York.1,2
Soon after Rene Verdon died in 2011, items from his estate began appearing at auction, including a seemingly-random group of
twenty-six presidential menus from luncheons and dinners held during the Kennedy administration. The White House kitchen had
previously been the purview of caterers and Navy stewards known for their five- and six-course meals, making up in quantity what
may have been lacking in quality. Collaborating with her new executive chef, Mrs. Kennedy introduced a more straightforward and
elegant style of dining that was expressed in three courses. The sophisticated cuisine generated a lot of interest and excitement, setting
the stage for a culinary revival that would spread across the nation when a colorful disciple of French cooking named Julia Child burst
onto the scene.

The menus recall the world leaders and key events of the Cold War era. This luncheon for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany was held on April 12, 1961,
marking the day that the Soviet Union launched an astronaut into low Earth orbit.3 It was the first time that a human had been sent into outer space.

In mid-April, the U.S. sponsored the ill-fated invasion of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. Although the military operation was a fiasco, JFK’s popularity soared to 82% that
month, an all-time high. After seeing the opinion polls, the deeply-embarrassed president remarked, “The worse you do, the better they like you.” The popularity of
the Kennedys has remained high for more than fifty years, even though the reputation of the administration declined among historians and political scientists. Like
an enduring work of art, blending opposite elements into a coherent whole, the Kennedys combined the casual sophistication and elegance of the European
aristocracy with American traits like youth and energy. By all accounts, they were a glamorous couple who knew how to turn on the charm, and a real team when it
came to entertaining, each marveling at the others ability to captivate their guests.

On May 3, the Kennedys hosted their first state dinner, honoring President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia. The menu below features carre d’agneau bouquetière, a
rack of lamb covered with parsley, garlic, and bread crumbs. One of surprising things about the menus is the degree to which they reflect what Jackie liked to eat at
that point in her life. Of course, it is not unusual for the meals at the White House to be in sync with the First Lady’s tastes, nor is it surprising for things to follow a
certain pattern when entertaining at a high frequency. Still, the dishes on these menus fall within a particularly narrow band. Her favorite meal was described as
cold poached salmon, followed by a lamb entrée served with potatoes and string beans, and a dessert made with ice cream. As it happens, lamb was served on ten of
these twenty-six occasions. Potatoes and string beans also appeared often. Perhaps it is not surprising that the cuisine closely followed her preferences since JFK
had no real interest in food. Writing to the wife of the British Prime Minister in June of 1963 about an upcoming visit of the president, Jackie advised, “Just do
whatever you would do in your own home—His tastes are distressingly normal—plain food—children’s food—good food—He likes anything.”4
While President Kennedy may have been indifferent to food, he did care about which language was used to describe the dishes after the White House was accused of
becoming “too French.” To avoid such criticism, he asked that French only be used when necessary. The resulting tug-of-war can be observed in the green beans.
While they appear in English on this menu from the Senate Ladies Red Cross luncheon, they are later called haricots vert au beurre, haricots vert aux amandes,
string beans amandines, and green beans aux amandes. By the fall of 1963, this vegetable had gone full circle name-wise, making its tenth and final appearance as
“string beans.”

The First Couple looked happy and relaxed as they waited for Prince Rainier III and Princess Grace of Monaco to arrive for lunch the next day. Jackie was thirty-one
years old, just a few months younger than the former actress Grace Kelly.

In addition to being the same age, the two women had a few other things in common. Both were Roman Catholic
and had a daughter named Caroline. They were also photogenic and adept at using haute couture to create the
image they wanted to project. On this occasion, Princess Grace wore a green dress by the Parisian designer
Hubert de Givenchy that the press described as a “red-hot moment.” JFK certainly noticed the dress, turning to
Grace during lunch and asking, “Is that a Givenchy you're wearing?”
“How clever of you, Mr. President!,” she responded. “However, did you know?”
“Oh,” he replied, “I'm getting pretty good at it—now that fashion is becoming more important than politics and
the press is paying more attention to Jackie's clothes than my speeches.”5
 Princess Grace also looked happy and relaxed that day, having downed two double Bloody Marys to calm her
nerves before going over to the White House. One of the eleven people who attended this luncheon remembered
her as being “bombed” when she arrived.6

The soft-shell crabs on the above menu were reportedly cooked to a nice crispness. They were followed by lamb loin on skewers with a
garnish of oven-braised spring vegetables. To prepare the strawberries Romanoff for dessert, Verdon “lightened” a classic French
recipe by folding whipped cream into softened ice cream. “I designed this menu with a warm afternoon in mind,” the chef later
recalled. “It was touching to learn that Princess Grace, in an interview…four years later, was able to recall exactly the dishes she had
eaten at luncheon that day.”10 Her memory may have been aided by the menu she saved as a memento.

Chef Rene Verdon

In 1961, there were about eighteen official luncheons and dinners for foreign leaders, such as this one for Prime Minister Ikeda of Japan in June.

The cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking was published in August 1961. Written by Julia Child, in collaboration with Simone Beck and Louisette
Berthold, it quickly became a best seller. “I was lucky the Kennedys were in the White House…and Jackie hired French chef Rene Verdon to cook for them,” Child
recounted. “Suddenly everyone was interested in French cuisine.”

On August 15 (coincidentally, Child’s 49th birthday), East Germany began construction on the Berlin Wall, sparking a confrontation between the super powers. In
response to Soviet moves to cut off allied access to Berlin, President Kennedy ordered 140,000 reservists to active duty. The luncheon below was held in mid-
September for the foreign ministers of France, Britain, and West Germany who came to Washington to discuss the crisis.

The above menu opens with Cream Senegalaise, a rich curry soup that was a specialty of the “21” Club, a celebrity haunt in midtown Manhattan then at the height of
its popularity. President Kennedy gave the restaurant a model of PT-109, the torpedo boat he commanded in the Second World War, so that it could be could hung
from the ceiling along with the many other items on display.

Jackie appointed Oleg Cassini as her exclusive couturier in 1961. The French-born American fashion designer later wrote, “All I remember about those days are
nerves, and Jackie on the phone ‘Hurry, hurry, Oleg, I’ve got nothing to wear.”’7 While the appointment provided Cassini with a position of prestige, it did not
constrain the First Lady from wearing the work of other designers. At the first state dinner of the season honoring President Mañuel Prado Ugarteche of Peru, she
wore a black silk velvet and Chinese yellow silk satin evening dress by Chez Ninon. The fashionable wife of the Peruvian president was dressed in a gown by Dior.
 During the Kennedy years, the White House became known for its “luxurious air of informality” in showcasing
the best of the performing arts. After this state dinner, Metropolitan Opera stars Roberta Peters and Jerome
Hines performed selections from The Barber of Seville and Porgy and Bess in the East Room.

On September 21, the Kennedys hosted a luncheon for director Otto Preminger, and the cast of the movie “Advise & Consent,” a political thriller that was being
filmed on location in Washington, D.C. The ensemble included Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton and Peter Lawford, the president’s brother-in-law. The movie was a
screen comeback for actress Gene Tierney who had had a romance with JFK in mid-1940s and was seated next to him at lunch. Although the singer Frank Sinatra
was not in the film, he also attended this lunch, calling out “Hey, Chickie baby” when the President arrived, using the nickname he coined for Kennedy, much to the
annoyance of the First Lady.
After several long stays at the family summer home in Hyannis Port, Jackie returned to Washington in October of 1961 and once again became active in planning
social events at the White House. “She crawled on the floor among diagrams as she arranged the complex seating,” recalled journalist Hugh Sidey. “She went over
the menus minutely.” To make the dinner conversations more stimulating, she mixed politicians and statesmen with artists, writers, and entertainers. Actors from
the American Shakespeare Festival Theater of Stratford, Connecticut performed after this state dinner for President Ibrahim Abboud of Sudan.

With press secretary Pierre Salinger in tow, President Kennedy hosted a number of lunches for out-of-town editors and publishers, confidant in his ability to handle
the press. The one below was held for newspaper executives from Missouri.

On October 16, the luncheon shown below was held for Urho Kekkonen, President of Finland.
The Peace Corps was signed into law in the fall of 1961. Competing with communism for the hearts and minds of the developing world, the president often
entertained leaders from South American and Africa, such as this luncheon for President Sékou Touré of the Republic of Guinea, a former French colony in West
Africa.

The menu below is printed entirely in French, even though the luncheon was attended by a group of newspaper executives from Texas. It is one of four meals in this
series that fell on a Friday and feature fish as the main course in keeping with the spiritual practice of Catholics who once abstained from eating meat on that day
each week. Six years later, Pope Paul VI decreed that the discipline commonly referred to as “Meatless Fridays” was no longer obligatory, except during Lent.
A small dinner party was held for the Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky in January of 1962. The nineteen guests came from London, Paris, and New York and
included such notables as composer Leonard Bernstein and novelist Vladimir Nabokov.

Everyone was disappointed when the guest of honor had to leave early that evening. According to the official
explanation, the seventy-nine-year-old was “weary” after a long day of rehearsals, failing to mention that the
maestro became so drunk that his assistant had to carry him out.6

A luncheon was held for leaders of the Democratic Party on January 20, marking the first anniversary of the Kennedy inauguration. Salade mimosa would appear
more often in 1962. Chef Verdon dressed this classic green salad with a light vinaigrette and tossed it with finely chopped hard-cooked egg yolk.
It was on that day that the New York Times reported the First Lady was transmitting “upper-crust habits” to the “common woman.” The commoners received
another tutorial on Valentine’s Day in 1962 when Jackie gave a televised tour of the newly-restored White House. Over forty-six million people (75% of the viewing
audience) watched as she moved from room to room, describing the new acquisitions in her distinctive low, soft voice. With the help of many experts, and some of
the country’s richest families like the Henry Fords, the Walter Annenbergs, the Marshall Fields, and the Henry Francis du Ponts, she had transformed the Executive
Mansion into a living museum of the nation’s heritage.

In March, a group of newspaper editors from Michigan attended this luncheon that opened with boula-boula, an
American concoction made by combining green pea soup and turtle soup. It was seasoned with sherry and
topped with unsweetened whipped cream. Named after a Yale football cheer, it was a popular dish in the 1930s
at luxury hotels like the Plaza and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. In fact, the first dinner that Verdon
prepared for the Kennedys comprised boula-boula, leg of lamb, roast potatoes, and corn on the cob. “When it
came to the menus served to her family and friends,” Vedon recalled, “Mrs. Kennedy was no less attentive than
for a state dinner. She preferred simple meals prepared with the freshest seasonal ingredients.”

The press tended to be unabashedly friendly in those years. A few hours after this luncheon, the headline of the evening edition of the News-Palladium in Benton
Harbor declared: “JFK Charms Our GOP Boss!”
 Luncheon for Michigan publishers (March 16, 1961)

The luncheon shown below was held for President Sylvanus Olympio of Togo on March 20, 1962.

In early April, JFK hosted this luncheon for João Goulart, President of Brazil, without the First Lady who was still on spring vacation in Palm Beach.

The President and Mrs. Kennedy hosted this luncheon for Prime Minister and Mrs. Gerhardsen of Norway on May 9. Petits fours sec, the bite-size pastries often
served at the end of such meals, were made without a cream filling but sometimes dipped in chocolate.
The luncheon honoring Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia in June of that year featured tournedos Rossini, comprising filets mignons topped with hot foie
gras, sliced truffles, and a rich sauce finished with Madeira. Once a mainstay of French restaurants in the United States, this classic dish faded from the scene in the
1970s when nouvelle cuisine came into vogue.

The luncheon below was held for President-elect Guillermo León Valencia of Colombia on June 25, 1962.
Jackie was an introvert whose need for privacy prompted her to spend long periods away from the White House. During the summer of 1962, she spent three
months at Hyannis Port and traveling abroad. Family matriarch Rose Kennedy acted as the hostess for this luncheon on July 23 of that year honoring President
Carlos Julio Arosemena of Ecuador.

Three days later, Julia Child made her debut on educational television in Boston. Describing her first cooking show, Child recalled, “There was this woman tossing
French omelets, splashing eggs about the place, brandishing big knives, (and) panting heavily as she careened around the stove.” The three pilots were so successful
that they were turned into a series the following year.

Jackie returned to Washington in mid-October, a week before a dinner dance was to be held to to thank the Maharaja of Jaipur and his wife for their help during
her recent trip to India. However, the Cuban missile crisis caused the dinner to be cancelled; the menu below was never used. Instead, President Kennedy signed
Proclamation 3504 on October 23, authorizing the naval quarantine of Cuba. Seemingly on the brink of nuclear war, the White House staff received pink cards that
allowed them access to the presidential bomb shelter below the Catoctin Mountains near the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. Fortuitously, historian Barbara
Tuchman’s masterpiece The Guns of August had been published two months earlier, providing a narrative of the misconceptions and miscalculations that resulted
in the First World War. The new book weighed heavily on President Kennedy’s mind as he maneuvered for thirteen days, looking for a peaceful resolution of this
confrontation with the Soviet Union.
War was averted and the dinner dance was rescheduled for November 9, only this time without the Maharaja and his wife who had by then gone home. The new
guests of honor were Ambassador James Gavin and his wife who recently returned from a posting in Paris. In fact, the Gavins were on the original guest list along
with usual family members, old friends, and administration insiders who regularly attended such events. Switching “honorees” was not all that unusual. The dinner
dance was “the signature event of Jackie’s social calendar—formal only in their requirement of black tie and gowns,” recounts historian Sally Bedell Smith. “To
make such frivolous occasions ‘more publicly acceptable,’ the trick was finding a ‘beard’—friends or relatives whom the Kennedys could ‘honor’ with a party.”6
(Although he did not attend, the president’s brother Edward Kennedy had just won his first race for the U.S. Senate three days earlier, giving the family cause for
celebration.)

There was political pressure to serve American wines at White House events, which in those years primarily meant wines from the California vineyards of Almaden,
Inglenook, and the Wente Brothers. However, this stricture was ignored when it came to the dinner dances, since these were essentially private affairs. The menu
shown above includes two first-growth Bordeaux wines—Château Margaux and Château Haut-Brion, a prestigious estate owned by the family of Treasury secretary
Douglas Dillon. (In 1961, Dillon turned over ownership to his children in compliance with rules preventing Treasury officials from owning alcohol beverage
companies.) The wines of Château Haut-Brion appear on five of these twenty-six menus.

Julia Child’s television series “The French Chef” premiered on February 11, 1963. At the time, eating well at a restaurant of note in the United States usually meant
eating French. Synonymous with the most cultured dining experience, French cuisine was an intimating subject until Child convinced Americans that cooking did
not need to be fancy to be good. Before long, people were turning out dishes like coq au vin and beef bourgonoine in their own kitchens.

The state dinner in February for President Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela was one of the few White House
events that Jackie attended in 1963. The menu below includes potatoes Anna. In Child's 107th show titled “More
about Potatoes,” the French chef explained that this buttery cake needed to be crisp and brown on the outside
without having it stick to the dish.
On March 8, the Kennedy’s sixth and final dinner dance honored Eugene Black, the banker who helped JFK build support in Congress for the foreign aid bill. The
dishes shown below refer to various aspects of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1963. Although it sounds like an inside joke, the entrée named “breast of IDA”
(International Development Association) may have been a fish dish, since the dinner was held on a Friday night.

A dozen violinists played Viennese and Hungarian music during dinner in the Blue Room. Afterward, society bandleader Lester Lanin and his orchestra played
dance music until the early hours of the morning. Although Jackie made some sly comments to friends that evening, she was not ready to reveal, even to her
mother, that she was three-months pregnant. After the announcement was made in mid-April, Jackie significantly reduced her participation in official events, even
canceling previous commitments. As a result, she came to be regarded as capricious and unreliable. On August 7, 1963, the Kennedy’s son was born prematurely
and died two days later.

Still grieving, Jackie was not yet attending public functions on October 1 of that year when Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia came to Washington. Nevertheless,
she went to the train station with the President to greet the legendary monarch who she later entertained at tea. Rose Kennedy acted as the hostess at the state
dinner that night. Just as the first guests were beginning to arrive, Jackie slipped out of the White House and headed for the airport.8 Although JFK had repeatedly
asked her not to go on this trip, she decided to join her sister Lee Radziwill and others for a two-week cruise around the Greek islands on the Christina, the opulent,
325-foot yacht owned by shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. (Tabloids romantically linked Lee Radziwill with Mr. Onassis, a notorious womanizer.)
The state dinner for Haile Selassie was the fifteenth and last such dinner of the Kennedy administration. After returning from Greece, Jackie made her first official
appearance that fall, accompanying her husband on a political trip to Dallas in the third week of November.

Epilogue
In 1966, shortly after leaving the White House, Rene Verdon received a call from Rachel “Bunny” Mellon, wife of wealthy banking heir Paul Mellon. She was
planning to host a luncheon at her home on Cape Cod for her friend Jacqueline Kennedy and wanted the chef to prepare the meal. When they later met to plan the
large event for sixty-nine people, Mellon began by asking Verdon what Jackie liked to eat. He suggested that cold fresh salmon be served as the first course. (When
the five- to six- pound size he preferred was not available, the chef settled for rock bass.) The recommended entrée was a rack of lamb, accompanied by short shoe-
string potatoes with truffles and sliced string beans with almonds. Following the main course, a Bibb-lettuce salad would be served with Brie cheese on the side. For
dessert, he proposed glace Alexandra, a vanilla-ice-cream creation similar to strawberries Romanoff, only made with fresh peaches poached in heavy syrup, and
covered with a raspberry sauce. Petits fours sec would be served at an end, just as they had been at the White House.10

Notes
1. Jackie’s first choice was Bui Van Han, the tiny (5 ft.) Tonkinese chef of French Ambassador Jean Chauvel in London. Bui, who was regarded as one of the world’s great chefs, turned down the job which was

fortunate for the Chauvels who had grown particularly fond of his Pauppiette de Sole à la Richelieu and Cotelettes de Pigeone à l'Espagnole.
2. Rene Verdon was recommended by Chef Roger Fessaguet at La Caravelle, a French restaurant that opened in New York in 1960, quickly becoming a favorite of the Kennedy clan. Verdon had already been
working at the White House on a part time basis to help with the inaugural festivities. He was an experienced chef with a long resume that included Le Ronceray, La Calvados, and Cercle Hausmann in Paris, the

Normandy Hotel in Deauville, and the French liner S. S. Liberté. He had also worked in New York, first at the Carlyle Hotel, where the Kennedys maintained an apartment, and most recently at the Essex House. On
25 March 1961, Verdon arrived at the White House gate, suitcase in hand, ready to assume his duties as the executive chef for the next five years.

3. This less formal format, printed on regular 5- x 7½-inch paper embossed with the presidential seal, was used for eight of these luncheons; the other menus shown here were printed on 4⅛- x 6½-inch heavy card

stock with a beveled gilt edge and embossed presidential seal, reflecting the traditional format established during the Eisenhower administration.

4. Alistair Horne, Macmillan, Vol. 2, 1957-1862, 1989, p. 513.

5. Oral history, 19 June 1965, JFK Library and Museum

6. Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power, 2004.

7. Oleg Cassini, A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing Jacqueline Kennedy for the White House, 1995.

8. Barbara Leaming, Mrs. Kennedy: The Missing History of the Kennedy Years, 2002.

9. Letitia Baldridge, In the Kennedy Style, 1998.

10. Rene Verdon, The White House Chef Cookbook, 1968.

Henry Voigt at 6:15 PM

8 comments:

Deana Sidney March 21, 2013 at 9:21 AM

Absolutely brilliant. I learned so much, even after researching this myself. I love the way you dig into the topic and come up with such
gold. The menus are amazing. Our Jackie did love her lamb, didn't she?
I love the way you tied Julia Child' s success to Jackie's tastes and the desire of American women to emulate her style (as if a mortal
could do that successfully).

Well done.
Reply

Andrea March 21, 2013 at 11:50 AM

Love the way you tell a story and am amazed that Grace Kelly needed to stready here nerves with two double Bloody Mary's before
meeting the Kennedys.
Reply

ephemeralist March 21, 2013 at 4:04 PM

It seems as though you have an insider's view about who had a few too many drinks!
Reply

Jeanne Schinto April 30, 2013 at 10:17 AM

What a feast, Henry! What a great piece of work!
Reply

Anonymous July 22, 2013 at 12:11 PM

wow. such an interesting and informative post. i love it.
Reply

sharon December 11, 2014 at 3:37 PM

Loved reading about Rene Verdon, WH chef during the Kennedy administration. What a great collaboration between this much sought
after chef & our Queen of Camelot. Highly informative! Great job, thank you!
Reply

Anonymous December 21, 2017 at 8:02 AM

well Jackie certainly wasn't into a healthy diet. Tons of saturated fat..I am not surprised she died of cancer. She also smoked..those
were the days...

As for Grace Kelly, I had read she had a drinking problem. this certainly attests to it. The marriage was a joke - neither took their vows
seriously. But that's a whole other story.

What did Jackie and Grace really have in common? Daddy issues. Read up on it.
Reply

Charlotte March 26, 2018 at 12:20 PM

Wonderful article, thank you so much! One question: do you have any idea what "roast beef Brabant style" is? Never heard of that.
Reply
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About Me

Henry Voigt
My collection of menus and related ephemera provide evidence of American social and food customs of eating outside the home. I
am a member of the Grolier Club, Ephemera Society of America, Library Company of Philadelphia, and Delaware Bibliophiles. You
can contact me at Henry.B.Voigt [at] gmail.com
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