This river [the Potomac] is well supplied with various kinds of fish, at all seasons of the year….[T]he whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery.
—George Washington at Mount Vernon, 1793
As the Potomac bent around Washington’s eight-thousand-acre Mount Vernon estate, it provided him with a ten-mile-long stretch of shoreline, teeming with shad, herring, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, and other fish. In spring, gleaming shoals of herring and shad surged up the river to spawn, and the president loved to fish for sport and profit. The season was short, lasting just five or six weeks in April and May, and intense. Slaves and free men worked day and night in shifts, setting seine nets that ran as long as five hundred feet from shore to boats, or from boat to boat, to trap the silver tide. Their haul was remarkable, bringing in tens of thousands of shad and more than a million herring a year. But that was only the first step. Cleaning, preserving the fish in salt, and packing them in barrels for storage or sale was a major production. Nothing went to waste, and the by-products—fish heads, tails, and viscera—were used in the Mount Vernon gardens as fertilizer. Slaves were rewarded for their work in the fishery with a pint of rum a day and given twenty fish per month to eat, an important source of protein.
Washington often served fish at his table, but the majority of his catch was sold to merchants, bartered, or traded. Though he loved farming his land above all else, Washington’s three fisheries were consistently his most lucrative business. His fish sold widely, from Philadelphia to Jamaica—where his good name commanded prices twice as high as his neighbors’, he was proud to note—and provided an income of up to 250 pounds sterling a year.
To prepare shad or other fish, Washington’s cooks used two methods. In the first, they would cut the cleaned, scaled fillets into pieces and add them to water or stock, carrots, potatoes, and parsley, and slow cook the mixture in pots suspended over a fire to make hearty soups or stews. Or, even better, they would nail shad or striped bass (known as rockfish in Virginia) to a plank of wood and roast them before an open fire.
Inspired by the latter preparation, I recalled how fun and delicious it is to cook fish on a cedar plank. (Salmon is most commonly used.) Shad were once the most valuable fish in the Potomac, but have been decimated by overfishing, pollution, and dams, and are difficult to find in markets. In the spirit of George Washington, I suggest you use striped bass as a worthy substitute. Stripers (rockfish) have firm white flesh that is rich and holds its shape well while grilling.
This is a crowd-pleasing recipe for the grill that is far simpler to make than it appears, and tastes even better if you catch the fish yourself. The cedar planks lend the fish a woodsy flavor, enhanced by the use of hardwood charcoal and nicely counterpointed by a simple garnish of fresh herbs and lemon juice.
1 cedar plank, soaked in water for an hour (available at cookware and hardware stores, or online; the planks will have burn marks after cooking, but can be reused)
Gas grill or hardwood charcoal
Oven mitts or metal spatula
Baking tray
Olive oil
1 pound fillet of striped bass
Sea salt and cracked black pepper
Fresh sage
Fresh thyme
Fresh dill
1 lemon
Garnish with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and ½ lemon cut into wedges
Dry the soaked plank and lightly oil one side.
Clean the fish and lay it on the oiled side of the plank, skin-side down.
Salt and pepper the fillet to taste.
Dice the herbs and mix with a dash of olive oil; then carefully apply to the top of the fillet. Squeeze half a lemon over the fish. Cut the remaining lemon into half-moons, and lay them along the fish, spaced evenly. Cover and refrigerate while you prep the grill.
Heat your grill to about 350 degrees. If using hardwood charcoal, set the fire up on one side of the grill so you can move the fish from cool to hot zones.
Place the fish and plank on the grill, and cover. Watching it like a hawk, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish (the thinner the fillet, the faster it will cook). If the plank catches fire, spritz it with water. When done, the bass’s flesh will be firm to the touch, with a little give when you press your finger on it. If you are unsure, you can cut into the fillet to make sure it is no longer gelatinous inside.
Using oven mitts or a big spatula, carefully remove the plank and cooked fish and place it on the baking tray, which makes it easy to cool and safe to carry. Let it sit under a tent of tinfoil for a few minutes, to allow the juices to flow back into the bass’s flesh.
Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve with lemon wedges on the side.
There are two approaches to presenting this dish. In the first, use a thin spatula to gently separate the bass from its skin, cut the fillet into portions, and serve on plates. In the second, place the baking tray on the table and let people pick at the bass themselves, which is an earthy and fun way to eat.
Washington might have accompanied this dish with wild rice and mushrooms and a green salad, or fresh asparagus in spring. He would likely have paired the meal with a dry white wine, such as a Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio supplied by Thomas Jefferson.
Food myths have always helped cohere America’s immigrant population, and one of the most enduring fables is about a young George Washington chopping down his father’s cherry tree with his “little hatchet,” then confessing his sin, saying, “I cannot tell a lie.” The story was apocryphal and did not appear until the fifth edition of Parson Weems’s fanciful biography The Life of Washington, in 1806. Despite this caveat, there is no question that Washington was extremely fond of cherries.
Thanks to Martha Washington’s recipe books, which she was given as a young bride in 1749 and bequeathed to her granddaughter Eleanor Parke Custis in 1799, we have many of the recipes prepared by the first president’s kitchens in New York, Philadelphia, and Mount Vernon, Virginia.
This is a delicious, adaptable recipe for cherry preserves, which can be used as a condiment for savory dishes or in desserts such as cherry cobbler or as a topping for ice cream. It requires only three ingredients: cherries, sugar, and water.
I give two versions of the recipe here: the original version, which calls for two pounds of sugar and two pounds of cherries, drawn from Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery and Booke of Sweetmeats (edited by the food historian Karen Hess and published in 1981). Just reading that made my teeth ache, so I updated the recipe for modern eaters.
Take 2 pound of faire cherries & clip of the stalks in ye midst. then wash them clean, but bruise them not. then take 2 pound of double refined sugar, & set it over ye fire with a quart of faire water in ye broadest preserving pan or silver basen as you can get. let it seeth till it be some what thick, yn put in yr cherries, & let them boyle. keepe allwayes scumming & turning them gently with a silver spoon till they be enough. When they are cold, you may glass them up & keep them all the year.
Colander
Cherry pitter (optional but recommended)
Medium saucepan
Measuring cup
Long-handled cooking spoon
Bowl or jar to hold your preserves
2 pounds fresh cherries
4 cups of water
¼ to ½ cup white sugar (adjust to personal taste)
Wash the cherries in a colander. Stem and pit them (not necessary, but worthwhile). Boil the water in a medium saucepan; then add the sugar.
When the sugar has dissolved, add the cherries to the pot and boil again. Lower the heat to a simmer. Using a long-handled spoon, stir the cherries occasionally, skimming foam from the surface and discarding it as necessary. When the liquid has been reduced by half and is syrupy, remove the pan from the heat and let the cherries cool.
Jefferson was a prolific lettuce grower and salad nut (as described in Chapter 3), and his favorite herb was French tarragon, which he used to flavor his salad dressing. The species Artemisia dracunculus was found in American gardens before the Revolution (though it may have been Russian tarragon, which is not good to eat), but in 1806 Jefferson ordered a shipment of tarragon roots from a Philadelphia nursery. In France, tarragon is often used in chicken or fish dishes, and in béarnaise sauce. Jefferson steeped his herbs in vinegar for a couple of weeks, and then combined the tarragon vinegar with fine European olive oil to make a snappy vinaigrette. A wormwood, French tarragon is said to stimulate the entire digestive system. This recipe is drawn from Dining at Monticello, edited by Damon Lee Fowler, via Monticello.org.
Medium-large container, such as a jar, jug, or bowl, to steep the vinegar
Screw top or plastic wrap to cover the container
Slim, tall-necked vinegar bottle topped by a screw cap or cork
Label, pen
2 cups fresh French (not Russian) tarragon leaves, loosely packed
2 cups white wine or champagne vinegar (not “white vinegar”)
Salt and black pepper
1 sprig of fresh tarragon per bottle
Rinse the tarragon under cool, clean water and pat it dry.
On a flat surface, lightly bruise the tarragon leaves to release their flavor. (“Bruising” means to gently press or pound the tarragon leaves to release their aromatic oil. You can use the back of a spoon or other implement.)
Pack about 30 sprigs of tarragon into a medium-large container.
Pour the vinegar over the tarragon in the container.
Cover the jar with the screw top or plastic wrap and let sit in a kitchen window for 2 to 3 weeks, allowing the tarragon flavors to infuse the vinegar.
Add a sprig of fresh tarragon to a slim vinegar bottle.
Strain the vinegar into the bottle, and discard the steeped tarragon.
Seal the bottle with a tight-fitting top.
Label and date the vinegar.
Note: The vinegar is shelf stable and will keep for 6 to 8 months.
Serves 6
2 tablespoons tarragon vinegar
6 to 8 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
6 cups mixed salad greens, such as seasonal lettuce, spinach, endive, radicchio, and watercress
1 small handful of fresh herbs (basil, marjoram, mint, savory), finely chopped
6 small whole scallions, cleaned, with ends trimmed
Pour tarragon vinegar into a salad bowl. Add a small pinch of salt and several grindings of black pepper, and beat with a fork until the salt dissolves.
Slowly add about 6 tablespoons olive oil in a steady, thin stream, until emulsified. Adjust the seasoning and oil to taste.
Add the greens and herbs to the bowl, and lightly toss them with the salad dressing until the leaves are coated. Arrange the scallions around the edge of the bowl.
After General Jackson was sworn in as the seventh chief executive on March 4, 1829, he rode his white horse up Pennsylvania Avenue to the President’s House. He was trailed by “King Mob,” a raucous crowd of thousands of his admirers, who surged into the mansion in search of food and drink. As they guzzled orange punch, a standard drink of the day, furniture was scattered, glassware was smashed, and Jackson was squeezed tightly against a wall, until his associates helped him escape out a window.
“What a scene we did witness! The Majesty of the People had disappeared, and a rabble, a mob, of boys, negros, women, children, scrambling fighting, romping. What a pity what a pity!…[T]he whole house had been inundated by the rabble mob,” the socialite Margaret Bayard Smith reported of the mayhem. “Ladies fainted, men were seen with bloody noses and such a scene of confusion took place as is impossible to describe….But it was the People’s day, and the People’s President and the People would rule.” As the crowd grew rowdier, quick-witted stewards lured them outside with barrels of punch on the lawn.
Recently, the cocktail expert Eric Felten scoured nineteenth-century cookbooks in search of an orange punch recipe for The Wall Street Journal. Unimpressed by the overly sweet results—“not anything I’d trample White House furniture to get at”—he tweaked the punch with mulling spices, soda water, and Angostura bitters to make a sprightly rum cocktail.
3 parts fresh orange juice
1 part fresh lemon juice
1 part mulled orange syrup (see note below)
1 part dark rum
1 part cognac
2 parts soda water
Dash of Angostura bitters
Note: For mulled orange syrup, combine 1 cup sugar with 1 cup water in a pan and bring it to a low boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Add a strip of orange peel and mulling spices—2 cinnamon sticks, a few whole cloves, and a few allspice berries. After simmering for 15 minutes, remove from the heat and let it sit for several hours. Strain and add to the punch.
In a punch bowl, combine the ingredients and cool with a large block of ice. Serve in punch cups with a little crushed ice, and add a dash of Angostura bitters to each glass.
Lincoln adeptly used a childhood story about gingerbread men to win over the crowd during his seven debates with Stephen Douglas in the lead-up to the presidential election of 1860 (see Chapter 5). Though Mary Todd Lincoln did not leave her “receipts” (recipes) behind, it is likely she consulted the most popular cookbook of the day, Eliza Leslie’s 1847 opus, The Lady’s Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families, from which this recipe was adapted by Eric Colleary, at the American Table blog (www.americantable.org). It is worth noting that even a common recipe like this one carries historical weight: West Indian molasses was readily available on the American frontier because of the slave trade.
Here is Eliza Leslie’s original recipe for ginger crackers (Lincoln’s mother probably added more flour to her dough to make a firmer gingerbread cookie mix).
Mix together in a deep pan, a pint of West Indian molasses; half a pound of butter; and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar; two large table-spoonfuls of ginger; a teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon; a small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda, dissolved in a little warm water; and sufficient sifted flour to make a dough just stiff enough to roll out conveniently. Let the whole be well incorporated into a large lump. Knead it till it leaves your hands clean; then beat it hard with a rolling-pin, which will make it crisp when baked. Divide the dough, and roll it out into sheets half an inch thick. Cut it into cakes with a tin cutter about the usual size of a cracker-biscuit, or with the edge of a tea-cup….Lay the cakes at regular distances in square pans slightly buttered. Set them directly into a moderately brisk oven, and bake them well, first pricking them with a fork.
Ginger crackers are excellent on a sea voyage. If made exactly as above they will keep for many weeks.
1 pint molasses or sorghum
½ pound butter
¼ pound brown sugar
2 tablespoons ginger, or more to taste
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda, dissolved in a bit of warm water
3 to 4 cups flour
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
Mix the ingredients together, either by hand in a large bowl (as Mrs. Lincoln would have done, using a large wooden spoon) or with a stand mixer (which is much easier).
As the dough comes together into a lump, knead it with clean hands, moving quickly to prevent it from drying. Then beat the lump of dough with a rolling pin.
Divide the dough and roll it into sheets a half-inch thick (be sure to keep them thin, because thick cookies can be hard to eat). Keep the extra dough under a damp cloth. If the dough is too stiff, add extra butter to produce a softer cookie.
Use a tin cookie cutter to cut the sheets of dough into gingerbread men. If your cutter sticks, dip its edges into flour to smooth the way.
Prick the men with a fork, and carefully place them on a baking pan lined with parchment paper, leaving enough space between each man that they can expand while cooking.
Place them in the hot oven for 4 to 6 minutes. Keep an eye on them, and remove them from the oven as soon as they start to brown.
Allow the men to cool before eating.
[Billi Bi is] the most elegant and delicious soup ever created.
—Craig Claiborne, food editor of The New York Times
When not inhaling steak or possum, President William Howard Taft liked to eat fish and shellfish, and one of his favorite dishes was the creamy mussel soup called Billi Bi (a.k.a. Billy By). Based on rustic seafood soups from the coast of Normandy, the recipe was refined by the chef Louis Barthe at Maxim’s in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century. Legend has it that this dish was named after a particularly devoted patron, the millionaire American tinplate tycoon William Brand Leeds Sr.—or perhaps his son, W. B. Leeds Jr.—both known as Billy B. (pronounced “Billy bee”).
To save Leeds and his friends the indignity of wrestling with the mussel meat and shells, Maxim’s served just the cooking liquor, a silky brew of mussel juice and white wine thickened by heavy cream and egg yolk and made fragrant by aromatics. Billi Bi quickly hopped the Atlantic, where it became trendy enough for President Taft to try and fall hard for. The recipe has gone in and out of fashion since then, and in 1961 Craig Claiborne popularized it in The New York Times Cook Book. Further refined by the chef and author Pierre Franey, the dish has been deemed a Times Classic, meaning a “recipe of distinction,” which the paper revives every now and then.
Billi Bi is easy to make. As you piece the dish together, the blue-black mussels, purple-white shallots, and green thyme make a beautiful dish; while softly bubbling on the stove, the mussel-wine-cream broth releases heady aromas that get your gastric juices flowing. As a moule lover who grew up eating mussels plucked from a granite outcropping in Maine, I feel compelled to add the mussels, and a few of their shells for decoration, back into the broth before serving.
The recipe following is based on a 2015 version in the Times, which I slightly altered with less cream, more mussels and wine, and a counterpoint of finely chopped parsley and chives. The result is a beautiful dish that emanates mouthwatering aromas, and is, as Claiborne wrote, “one of the sublime creations on Earth.”
2 plus pounds mussels
2 peeled shallots, coarsely chopped
2 small white onions, peeled and quartered
Sea salt and white pepper to taste
Pinch of cayenne pepper
1½ cups dry white wine (such as Sauvignon Blanc or Pinot Grigio)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (or olive oil)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs of fresh parsley, plus chopped parsley for garnish
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Optional: ¼ to ½ cup clam juice or fish stock to enhance the mussel brine
2 cups heavy cream
1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
Chopped chives for garnish
Carefully scrub and debeard the mussels.
Place the mussels in a large saucepan or Dutch oven; then add the shallots, onions, salt, pepper, cayenne, wine, butter (or oil), bay leaf, and parsley and thyme sprigs.
Cover the pan. Bring to a boil over medium heat; then reduce the heat and simmer until the mussels open, about 9 minutes. (Discard any mussels that do not open.)
Remove the mussels with a slotted spoon; then strain the broth through a large sieve or colander lined with cheesecloth. Reserve the liquid, which is the base of the soup.
Let the mussels cool; then remove the meat from the shells. Reserve the meat and discard the shells and aromatics.
Place the reserved mussel-wine broth in a saucepan (adding a splash of clam juice or fish stock if you wish), and bring to a low boil. Add the cream and return the liquid almost to a boil. Remove from the heat, and cool slightly; then add beaten egg yolk and stir it into the liquid. Return the saucepan to the stove and, watching like a hawk so the liquid does not boil, reheat enough to thicken the soup.
Remove from the heat and cool slightly; then taste (being careful not to burn your tongue) and adjust the seasoning.
To serve: divide the mussels among soup bowls, spoon the soup over them, then garnish with a small handful of finely chopped parsley and chives.
Feeds four as an appetizer, or two as an entrée. Serve with a warmed baguette, or sliced rustic bread dabbed with olive oil and grilled over a fire.
In retooling Wilson’s breakfast, the navy doctor Cary Grayson insisted the president drink a glass of grape juice with a raw egg, or two, every morning. (See Chapter 8.) While this concoction would certainly jolt the leader of the free world awake, and was believed to be nutritious, Wilson said it tasted as if he were ingesting “an unborn thing.”
This morning tonic sounded so unappetizing that I had to try it, for the sake of journalistic integrity. I bought fresh organic eggs and a bottle of Concord grape juice (the recipe can also be made with orange juice), and steeled my gut. Reminding myself that raw eggs are so nutrient dense that people have eaten them for centuries—including Marilyn Monroe, as part of her beauty regimen, and Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky, as part of his training regimen—I cracked two eggs with deep yellow yolks into a glass of purple grape juice, then slurped the concoction down. It went easily, the eggs viscous and creamy tasting, and the sweet tang of Concord grape predominating. In short, it was not nearly as odious as I had imagined, and I suffered no gastrointestinal aftereffects. I was relieved by this, and though I enjoyed the experiment, I have not added Wilson’s “healthy breakfast” to my morning repertoire.
Note: Consumption of raw eggs may increase your risk of food-borne illness such as salmonella.
Tall glass
Long-handled spoon or fork for mixing
1 bottle of quality grape juice
2 very fresh eggs
Pour enough grape juice that it fills your glass one-half to three-quarters full.
Crack the raw eggs into the glass (crack carefully, so as not to drop eggshell into the juice).
Stir and drink.
When is a martini not exactly a martini? When it is a reverse martini, which is sometimes called an upside-down martini or wet martini. The recipe for this tempting cocktail reverses the standard ratios by combining one part gin to five parts extra-dry (white) vermouth, garnished with an enlivening twist of lemon. Smooth, sophisticated, and only vaguely alcoholic, the reverse martini is more of a classic aperitif than a bone-dry James Bond thriller.
Franklin D. Roosevelt traveled to global summits with a special martini kit and liked to add olive brine or absinthe to his cocktails. He once served a standard (two parts gin to one part vermouth) martini—garnished with both a lemon twist and an olive—to Joseph Stalin, who described it as “cold on the stomach but not unpleasant.” Curtis Roosevelt, a grandson, declared the president’s martinis “the worst” tasting, though FDR liked them so much that he was known to have more than one, and burst into college fight songs while Secret Service agents bundled him off to bed.
Julia and Paul Child were also fans of the reverse martini. It was one of their favorite predinner pick-me-ups, which they sipped at all times of the year, though they didn’t sing fight songs afterward. Indeed, Julia appreciated the cocktail’s light touch, and noted, “The best thing about a reverse martini is you can have two of them.”
5 parts extra-dry vermouth
1 part gin
Garnish with a strip of lemon rind
Pour the vermouth and gin over ice in a cocktail shaker. Stir well (“40 times,” some insist). Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, such as a coupe. Twist a strip of lemon over the drink and drop it into your glass. Take a sip and, as James Beard said, “feel the glow.” À votre santé!
President Dwight Eisenhower liked to grill three- to four-inch-thick sirloin steaks, which he’d rub with oil and garlic, and then, “as the horrified guests look on, [he] casually flings the steak into the midst of the red and glowing coals,” a 1953 article in the Miami Daily News reported. I grew up with a friend who cooked steak directly in the coals, but had never tried the technique until I emulated Ike.
Be sure to use lump hardwood charcoal (not chemical-saturated briquettes) and light it with a grilling chimney so that the only thing touching your meat is flame and wood. Use your finger or a thermometer to test the doneness of the meat as it cooks (a meat thermometer should read 120 degrees for rare; 140 degrees for medium; 160 degrees for well done). Have a small spray bottle ready in case of too much flaring. The result will be a really nice piece of steak, charred on the outside with a rosy, juicy interior. I brushed the grit off the steak before slicing; a light dusting of ash didn’t bother me at all.
1½- to 2-inch-thick boneless ribeye steak (about 14 ounces)
Coarse sea salt and crushed black pepper to taste
Olive oil and a brush
2 garlic cloves, finely minced
Optional: a sprig or two of fresh rosemary to taste
An hour before grilling, season the steak with coarse salt and pepper, and place it uncovered on a plate in the fridge. This will dry the surface of the meat, which will help it form a crust in the fire. Fifteen minutes before grilling, remove the steak from the fridge, and allow it to warm to room temperature.
Mix the oil and garlic, and optional rosemary, in a small bowl, and set aside.
Prepare to grill. Remove the top grate because you will not use it for cooking.
Ignite hardwood charcoal in a chimney, and let it burn until the top turns to gray ash; then distribute it evenly in the bottom of the grill.
Brush the steak with the oil-and-garlic mixture on both sides.
Before cooking the steak, blow softly across the bed of glowing coals to remove loose ash.
Then use tongs or a long-handled fork to nestle the steak directly on top of, or in, the glowing coals.
Cook for about 6 minutes on one side; then turn the steak and cook another 4 to 5 minutes on the other side to achieve a charred exterior and medium-rare interior. (For a ¾-inch steak, cook 3 to 5 minutes on each side; for a 3- or 4-inch steak, cook 8 to 10 minutes per side. For a medium steak, let it cook another 2 or 3 minutes on indirect heat.)
Firmly grasp the charred steak with your tongs, and gently lift it from the embers. Place it on a cutting board, tent it under foil, and let it rest for about 8 to 10 minutes to allow the meat to reabsorb the juices.
Cut into ½-inch slices, or hunks, or serve whole.
After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, Lyndon Johnson inherited the presidency, and with it his predecessor’s French chef, René Verdon. But the Johnsons didn’t like Verdon’s fancy cooking, and Verdon didn’t like their “homey” tastes for spareribs and garbanzo bean puree, and he quit. Rather than hire another French chef, the Johnsons promoted Zephyr Wright, the Black cook who had worked for the family for twenty-one years. The story did not make headlines, but Sam Johnson, the president’s brother, wrote that Wright’s food was so good it “made you wish you had two stomachs.” Her most celebrated recipe was for Pedernales River Chili, named after the stream running through the Johnsons’ ranch. As word spread about the chili, there were so many requests for the recipe that the White House had it printed on postcards that were mailed to the public. The cards identified the dish as “Lady Bird Johnson’s Pedernales Chili,” though the recipe was Wright’s.
Two notes: LBJ reportedly preferred his chili made with venison rather than beef. And I found the postcard recipe less inspiring than its backstory, so I have included a version that makes a smaller helping but, with the addition of garnishings, bumps up the flavor.
Dutch oven (a large heavy pot) with a lid
Long-handled cooking spoon
Sharp, medium-sized kitchen knife
Can opener
Measuring cup
Measuring spoons
Serves 8 to 10
4 pounds ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon ground cumin
6 teaspoons chili powder (to taste)
2 pounds canned tomatoes, not drained
Salt to taste
2 cups hot water
Serves 2 to 4
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ teaspoon ground oregano
½ teaspoon ground cumin
2 to 3 teaspoons chili powder, to taste
1 can (14½ ounces) tomatoes, roughly cut into pieces, with tomato liquid
Modest squirt (¼ to ½ teaspoon) of tomato paste
Salt and pepper to taste
½ to ¾ cup hot water
2 to 4 jots of hot sauce
¼ cup grated sharp cheddar cheese
Handful of finely chopped fresh parsley
Smattering of diced raw onion
Brown the beef, onion, and garlic in a Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Add the oregano, cumin, chili powder, tomatoes, tomato paste, salt and pepper, and hot water. Bring to a boil; then lower the heat and simmer. Skim off the fat, and occasionally stir the chili.
For Mrs. Johnson/Mrs. Wright’s recipe, cover and cook for about an hour. They would sometimes add 1 or 2 tablespoons of masa (Mexican corn flour) to thicken the chili and give it depth.
For my adaptation, cook for 8 to 10 minutes uncovered, stirring occasionally. Then cover and simmer on low for another 30 to 35 minutes, making sure the chili doesn’t stick to the pan. If too dry, add a splash of water (or tomato juice, stock, beer, or other liquid); if too wet, uncover, raise the heat slightly, and boil off the excess.
Garnish with hot sauce, grated cheese, and parsley to taste. Some like to add a sprinkling of diced raw onion, as in the original recipe.
I like to serve chili with rice or corn bread, as the Johnsons did.
“Grits is the first truly American food,” wrote Turner Catledge, a native of Mississippi and the first executive editor at The New York Times. “On a day in the spring of 1607 when sea-weary members of the London Company came ashore at Jamestown, Va., they were greeted by a band of friendly Indians offering bowls of a steaming hot substance consisting of softened maize seasoned with salt and…bear grease. The welcomers called it ‘rockahominie.’ The settlers liked it so much they adopted it as a part of their own diet. They anglicized the name to ‘hominy’ and set about devising a milling process by which the large corn grains could be ground into smaller particles….[G]rits became a gastronomic mainstay of the South and symbol of Southern culinary pride….[T]his would be a much happier world if more of its millions had grits.”
Carter was a famous devotee of grits, and especially liked it made with cheese and served with bacon and eggs at breakfast. Grits can be made humbly, with just water, butter, and salt, but at the White House the Swiss chef Henry Haller used a fancier recipe that he included in his book, The White House Family Cookbook.
4 cups chicken bouillon
1 cup enriched white hominy
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 stick (½ cup) butter
2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
4 egg yolks
¼ to ½ cup cold milk
4 egg whites, at room temperature
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Grease the inside of a 2-quart casserole.
Bring the bouillon to a boil in a 2-quart saucepan; gradually add the grits, stirring with a wire whisk. Reduce heat and continue cooking, stirring vigorously, until mixture thickens. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, stirring often.
Remove from the heat and add the Worcestershire sauce, butter, and 1½ cups of the cheese, stirring until well balanced.
In a small bowl, blend the egg yolks with ¼ cup of milk. Pour into grits and mix thoroughly; add more milk if necessary, thinning to the consistency of Cream of Wheat. In a clean, dry bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Fold into grits.
Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish. Sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup of cheese. Bake on middle shelf of preheated oven for 30 minutes or until fluffy and brown. Serve at once.