Abraham Lincoln in the Kitchen Read online

  The Lincoln and Taft boys built a fort on the roof of the White House with a small log serving as a cannon and a “few old condemned rifles.” All four boys spent hours up on the roof during 1861 pretending that it was a fort or a man-of-war ship.

  Real troops from Massachusetts fought their way through Baltimore and reached the city on April 19. They arrived “with bands playing and flags flying as they came up to the [White House].” Soon more troops arrived from New York and other states. By early summer “Washington had become a great camp with more regiments arriving daily. Everyone breathed easier and felt that the war was as good as won.”

  Two months later, on July 21, 1861, the first battle was fought at Bull Run. The Union forces were routed. The nation was at war and it would not be over quickly.

  From all accounts, the Lincolns fell into a work- and war-driven routine with chaotic interruptions from the boys. In the morning, President Lincoln was up reading, writing, and working long before the rest of the household or even the city. Mrs. Lincoln would call him in to breakfast about eight o’clock, and by nine he would be back at his desk with doors opened to the throngs. Mrs. Grimsley reported that Mrs. Lincoln frequently “invited well-known friends to breakfast and then sent word to the President we had company [and] breakfast was waiting for him.”

  His breakfasts were simple: an egg and some toast or other bread. If he stopped for lunch around noon, he often had just a biscuit and a glass of milk in the winter, and fruit, grapes, or apples in the summer. His law partner William Herndon later recalled the way Lincoln ate an apple. “His manipulation of an apple when he ate it was unique. He disdained the use of a knife to cut or pare it. Instead he would grasp it around the equatorial part, holding it thus until his thumb and forefinger almost met, sink his teeth into it, and then unlike the average person, begin eating at the blossom end. When he was done he had eaten his way over and through rather than around and into it. Such, at least, was his explanation. I never saw an apple thus disposed of by any one else.”

  In one of her few surviving 1861 letters, Mary Lincoln wrote that she had received a box of delicious grapes from General George McClellan and that they “often received delightful fruit from New Jersey.”

  Mary Lincoln wrote in a letter to her friend Hannah Shearer that entertaining in the White House was “very different from home.” In the White House, “[W]e only have to give our orders for the dinner and dress in proper season.”

  Certainly not every meal in the White House was served with fancy French sauces and fussily fixed vegetables. As I tested a few of the French-inspired entrées, I quickly discovered those dishes are the culinary equivalent of an 1860s ball gown—all ruffled and tucked, decorated with lace and braid, and assembled with a lot of work, specialized ingredients, and skills—elevating something that could be simple and lovely into an extraordinary experience. Many of the dishes highlighted on inaugural-journey menus were designed to be made in restaurant or hotel kitchens, where hundreds are fed at each sitting. (During the pre-inaugural crush, the Willard Hotel sometimes fed 1,500 people in a day.) These fancy dishes called for an array of sauces that required hours to make from cooked-down stocks, only to have a tablespoon put onto the dish as a finishing flourish. Delicious, yes, but not practical for a working household with any number of guests invited to stay at the drop of a hat. Stews, roasts, soups, and masses of simply cooked vegetables made much more sense for the Lincolns to serve in the White House.

  We do have a hint of very ordinary dishes on the menu. As I wrote in Chapter 9, Dr. Henry M. Pierce and his nephew discovered President Lincoln eating leftover baked beans for breakfast. And the Taft boys stayed to dinner so often that their mother scolded them about it. I can’t imagine these active, mischievous boys between the ages of eight and twelve dining on veal cutlets à la Florentine. Julia recounted, “My mother often told them not to ‘make a nuisance of yourselves by always staying at meals.’ When the President and Mrs. Lincoln had distinguished visitors at dinner, the boys would sometimes have their dinner in another room and declared that to be great fun.” All four boys even attended a state dinner, sitting near the foot of the table.

  Fortunately, Illinois friend Orville Hickman Browning visited several times and commented in his diary. Browning was appointed to the senate seat of Stephen Douglas after Douglas died from typhoid fever in June 1861. As was his style in his Springfield diary entries, Browning did not detail menus, but we get the sense that the guests for breakfast, tea, and dinner were often last-minute invitations. If you were in the White House at mealtime, you were invited to sit down. He wrote on Sunday, July 28, 1861: “Got back to the city at 10 O’clock and I went to Dr. Gurley’s Church. President and his wife there, and upon their invitation I went home with them to dinner. I had a great deal of conversation with the present [president], being left alone for an hour or two before dinner. At 5 ½ P.M. Mrs. Lincoln brought me home in her carriage.” His entry for Sunday, December 15, 1861, noted, “At Dr. Gurley’s Church in the morning. At 5 P. M. went with Colman Sympson to call on the President—I remained to tea—Galloway of Ohio & Colfax of Indiana at tea also.”

  On May 11, the president held an impromptu levee for children. Carl Schurz, political ally and ambassador to Spain, ended up staying for tea. I ran across a charming 1860 book, Breakfast, Dinner, and Tea, that describes the expectations for tea. “In fashionable life tea does not deserve the name of meal since it is seldom more than tea or coffee served in the parlor accompanied by cakes. Tea and cakes, bread and butter various relishes and fruits either fresh or preserved.”

  White House staff members needed to eat, too. The 1860 federal census, taken several months before the Lincolns moved in, lists fifteen people living in the White House in addition to the members of President Buchanan’s family. Some of the names were still there in March, including Richard Goodchild and Pierre Vermeren, for whom the Lincolns later wrote letters of recommendation. Additional White House staff would have been present at meal times although they may not have lived there. Mrs. Grimsley mentioned Edward the doorman and [Thomas] Stackpole, in addition to “maids and scullions,” the chef, butler, and waiters. Julia Taft names Mr. Watts, the head of the conservatory, and a “bouquet maker” who worked under him providing floral arrangements for the White House and bouquets for gifts. In the Lincoln personal household, there are the two servants who had come with them from Springfield: Ellen, who helped as seamstress, maid, and nanny for the boys; and valet William H. Johnson. Mrs. Lincoln hired Alexander Williamson as a tutor to teach the Lincoln and Taft boys, as the city schools were closed. And of course, Lincoln’s personal secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay were there for meals.

  Mr. Williamson provided a small homey detail in a reminiscence published in 1869. He wrote of Lincoln scarcely having “time even for his meals. I have found him in the office squatting on the rug in front of the fire trying to heat his cup of coffee, which, owing to early visitors, had been allowed to cool.”

  The White House’s lower-level kitchen was originally located in the center of the ground floor, which could be considered a partial basement. It had north-facing windows. Sometime in the middle of the nineteenth century, the kitchen was relocated to the northwest corner. This may have been one of Mary Lincoln’s improvements to the living conditions of the White House. After the North Portico was constructed in 1830, the kitchen windows were blocked by this new entrance to the White House. Relocating the kitchen to a corner with windows made sense.

  As to what the meals were cooked upon, Thomas Jefferson had a large cast-iron stove installed sometime during his administration—1801–10. The thoroughly modern stove was fueled by coal and had “stew holes, or water heaters, spits, and a crane.” This stove fit into one of the two original large cooking hearths and survived the 1814 White House fire set by the British during the War of 1812. It was repaired by a blacksmith and reinstalled when the White House was rebuilt in 1817.

  Was this the stove used for
cooking President and Mrs. Lincoln’s meals more than forty years later? There isn’t any clear evidence one way or another. But, one of Mary Lincoln’s chief complaints was the run-down condition of the President’s Mansion. The furniture in the family rooms was so “deplorably shabby” that it “looked as if it had been brought in by the first President.” I’m willing to bet the third president’s stove was still being used in the household of the sixteenth.

  With all of these people to feed, it stands to reason that the food would be along the lines of typical home-cooked meals. Ladies’ magazines and cookbooks of the era describe the order of basic dinners and suggest some of the dishes. Begin with a soup or fish course, move on to roasted meat accompanied by appropriate vegetables, perhaps with some pickles or other “relishes” on the side, and then a dessert.

  Who cooked all those meals? We have a few names but no certainty. Mrs. Grimsley mentioned a “chef” on-site who cooked their first White House meal. It may have been that the chef, typically a male, was a caterer brought in to cook the more elaborate meals. William Crook, one of the policemen who served as a White House guard, wrote that this was the case in the later years of the administration. Four women are described as “cook” by various sources. Two of them are named: Cornelia Mitchell, a woman of color, and Alice Johnstone, whom Mrs. Lincoln asked if she knew how to prepare chicken fricassee with gravy and biscuits to tempt President Lincoln’s appetite when the stresses of office kept him from eating.

  As 1861 drew to a close, the war and politics intruded into Lincoln’s social life and even his recreational carriage rides. Often he would stop at military encampments. Frequently he took Secretary of State William Seward along, much to Mary’s frustration. In December a cold snap brought hopes of snow to Willie and Tad. They described the fun of sledding, skating, and “snow-balling” to Bud and Holly, who had never seen snow. But the days only brought a few flurries.

  Lincoln had to deal with another much more serious flurry in the White House: the Trent Affair that threatened to bring England into war against the North. Two Southern emissaries sneaking to England to request diplomatic recognition for the Confederate States of America were forcibly taken off the British ship the Trent by the crew of a U.S. ship. England saw this action as a provocation.

  Orville Browning was at tea in the White House when Secretary Seward burst into the room with “dispatches [from the British] saying the arrests had been a violation of International law.” Diplomatic and political discussions continued until Christmas morning, when the cabinet met at 10:00 a.m. to agree to a solution. Letters from England conveyed that the British “did not want war with us and that if this trouble is settled they will not interfere in our domestic rebellion.” The meeting continued until 2:00 p.m., as Secretary Seward argued for releasing the emissaries without an apology to the British government, laying the groundwork for averting the crisis.

  Christmas Day was bright and warm. Browning reported he “could walk about without his overcoat.” The only thing we know of the White House Christmas holiday celebration was a dinner held sometime after 6:00 p.m. attended by Browning and about fifteen others, including members of the administration; friends from Kentucky; Dr. Jayne, an old Springfield friend; the pastor of the church the Lincolns attended, Reverend Dr. Phineas Gurley, and his wife, Emma; along with Postmaster General Blair and his wife; and Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox and his wife.

  As to Christmas customs, the Lincolns had not put up a Christmas tree in Springfield, although some of their German neighbors probably had brought the custom with them to Illinois. Godey’s Lady’s magazine printed illustrations of candlelit Christmas trees annually and they published a short story in 1860 that practically gave a step-by-step description of how to install a tree on Christmas Eve and keep it fresh for a few days. As to presents, in Springfield shops advertised small gifts for Christmas giving and were even open on the day itself for shopping. Following the holiday custom related in “ ’Twas the Night before Christmas” (1823), the Lincoln boys may have hung their stockings by the chimney to find them filled with gifts on Christmas morning. And maybe they left cookies or some Christmas shortbreads for the red-dressed gentleman.

  As to the dinner, we could do no worse than take a look at the Godey’s suggested menu: “Boiled turkey with oyster sauce, roast goose with apple sauce, roasted ham, chicken pie, stewed beets, cole slaw, turnips, salsify, winter squash, mince pie, plum pudding, lemon custard, cranberry pie.”

  The new year began with a sense of normalcy in the midst of war. Lincoln faced major decisions in 1862 regarding the conduct of the war and, specifically, the need to replace his Secretary of War Simon Cameron. Still, President and Mrs. Lincoln held the traditional New Year’s open house reception. The doors opened at 11:00 a.m. The cabinet members and their families walked into the East Room first, followed by the diplomatic corps in gold-braided formal dress. The members of the Supreme Court and officers of the army and navy shook hands with the president before the doors were opened for the general public between noon and 2:00 p.m. Mrs. Frances Seward, wife of the secretary of state, wrote to her sister that “the carriages are rolling along the streets as they used to in old times.”

  BRUNOISE SOUP

  This soup is a delicious demonstration of a French cooking term. A “brunoise” is a fine and precise dicing of vegetables into tiny, uniform cubes. The soup’s light and elegant look made a sophisticated starting course designed to impress the president-elect and his French-speaking wife.

  3 tablespoons salted butter

  2 medium carrots, peeled and cut into ¼-inch dice

  2 medium turnips, peeled and cut into ¼-inch dice

  1 medium onion, diced

  2 ribs celery, cut into ¼-inch dice

  1 leek, well washed and diced

  3 quarts low-sodium chicken stock

  2 tablespoons sugar

  ½ teaspoon salt

  1 cup green peas (fresh or frozen)

  1 cup green beans, cut on an angle into diamond shapes

  1 cup asparagus tips

  Small toast triangles, to serve

  Melt the butter in a large frying pan. Add the carrots, turnips, onion, celery, and leek. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently until the vegetables begin to turn color and the onion becomes transparent. Transfer the vegetables to a soup pot. Add all but 1 cup of the chicken stock. Pour the 1 cup of stock into the frying pan and cook over medium heat, scraping up the browned bits from the pan. Pour this into the soup pot. Add the sugar, salt, peas, and beans. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Stir in the asparagus tips, cover, and let stand for 5 minutes. Serve with small toast triangles.

  Makes 12 servings as a first course

  ADAPTED FROM PERIOD SOURCES.

  FILET OF BEEF À LA NAPOLITAINE

  This delicious beef dish does take a lot of time and some attention, but it is possible to make this French-inspired period entrée successfully in a home kitchen. The recipe combines braising with baking and then making a sauce.

  1 3-pound boneless beef roast such as eye of round, sirloin, or beef tenderloin

  4 slices lower-sodium bacon

  2 carrots, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

  2 ribs celery, cut into 1-inch chunks

  1 large onion, roughly chopped

  Small bunch of fresh parsley

  Small bunch of fresh thyme

  2 bay leaves

  ½ teaspoon ground mace

  3 cups white wine (one 750 ml bottle)

  1 1.5-ounce packet beef demi-glace (available at gourmet shops)

  1 large shallot, minced

  ½ cup prepared beef gravy

  ¼ cup red currant jelly

  ½ teaspoon grated horseradish (not cream style)

  Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place the bacon over the meat and tie in place with kitchen string. Put the meat, vegetables, herbs, and wine in a roasting pan just big enough to hold it with room to boil. (Or line a roasting pan
with a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil long enough so that you can completely encase the meat, wine, and vegetables in it.) Cover the pan and roast until the meat is cooked to rare or medium (125° to 145°F) as measured by an instant-read meat thermometer. Allow about 30 minutes per pound. (If you use tenderloin, cooking time will be shorter.) Start checking after 45 minutes of braising.

  The braising step is finished and it is time to move on to roasting and making the sauce. Remove the pan from the oven. Turn the oven up to 350°F. Lift the meat from the pan onto a plate. Pour the braising liquid into a large pot, using a strainer to capture the vegetables and herbs. Set them aside to be used for another meal. Put the beef back into the roasting pan. Brush the top of the beef and bacon with the demi-glace. Return it to the oven to “dry” and become lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the chopped shallot to the braising liquid and reduce it by cooking over medium heat until only about one-third of the amount is left, about ¾ cup. When the beef is browned, remove it from the oven and set aside. Cover it with a piece of foil to keep warm. To finish the sauce, stir in the gravy, jelly, and horseradish.

  TIP FOR SUCCESS: The trick for this recipe is to make sure the braising liquid surrounds the meat. If you have a pan that will hold the meat and has just enough room for the vegetables and wine to cook without boiling over—great. I didn’t. My pans were either too small—the liquids would overflow while cooking—or too large, and the braising liquid would spread out too much in the pan. I ended up using a double layer of foil to create a container inside a regular baking pan to hold the braising liquid up against the meat surface.