At a White House Thanksgiving, tradition is a presidential thing

Taft’s Thanksgiving turkeys competed for attention on his holiday tables with chubby Georgia possums, each with a potato stuffed in its mouth. Taft was a Cincinnatian by birth but a Southerner in his tastes, the newspaper accounts of the day noted. His Thanksgiving meal in 1910, thusly, was prepared by three cooks, “all Negro women, the very best of southern culinary artists,” the Detroit Free-Press observed. Sadly, the names of these artistes do not appear, this being long before the era of White House chefs appearing on “Iron Chef America” and becoming nationally recognized advocates for healthful cuisine.

In the not-so-calorie-conscious early 1930s, Eleanor Roosevelt talked about President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s love of oyster stew and browned sausages as Thanksgiving Day mainstays. The Roosevelts’ Thanksgiving chestnut stuffing recipe called for roasting the nuts in “fat” (though it doesn’t say what kind), sauteing celery and onions in bacon fat, then tossing it all in melted butter: an artery-clogging trifecta.

Gallery

Thanksgiving recipes from the White House: First-family favorites like Laura Bush’s green beans or Mamie Eisenhower’s pumpkin pie add personality to the holiday spreads in America’s most famous home.

Video

With Thanksgiving just days away, Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia drops in to tell us how the Obamas and first families before them have carried out Thanksgiving traditions.

More on this Story

• At a White House Thanksgiving, tradition is a presidential thing
• Thanksgiving recipes from the White House
• Taste Test: Heritage turkey breeds
• Thanksgiving food science: Mix-and-mash spuds

View all Items in this Story

• Thanksgiving turkey prep primer
• First comes Fakesgiving
• Six for sipping on Thanksgiving
• Extravagant spirits to give thanks for
• Invite a big squash to the Thanksgiving table, and stuff it with precision
• How to make a stuffed squash: The layered approach
• Where to pick up Thanksgiving dessert
• Thanksgiving leftovers repurposed
• Garlic-studded roast pork, yuca and flan; hold the turkey

But by 1946, in the fresh aftermath of World War II, a measure of caloric restraint was restored. Come Thanksgiving, Harry Truman’s housekeeper, Mary E. Sharpe, was said to be counting presidential calories, and the White House menu kicked off dutifully with clear bouillon and curled celery.

For Ronald and Nancy Reagan, the dutiful requirements had to do with scheduling. Their Thanksgiving wasn’t the extended feasting and football-watching fest of the Obamas, who have celebrated each year at the White House, making them the first presidential family to have their Thanksgiving meal at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue since Gerald Ford’s. The Reagans wanted family members to arrive at their Santa Barbara ranch at precisely 5 p.m., their son, Michael Reagan, says. Dinner was served at 6, followed by coffee and dessert, and all but one or two overnight guests would be out by 8 p.m. No lingering.

Joke swapping was a Reagan family Thanksgiving tradition, Michael Reagan says. While his father was running for president, Michael says, he told his father a joke that made fun of Poles and Italians. Reagan liked it so much that he retold it to a group of reporters who did what reporters do — they reported it — leading to a brief but intense flash of controversy and a hasty apology.

The Reagans’ meal was always prepared by Ann Allman, the family’s longtime California housekeeper and cook, rather than the White house chefs or — certainly not — the first lady. “Nancy didn’t cook,” Michael Reagan says. “Nancy? We didn’t let her boil water.”

Along with the traditional items, Allman almost always served persimmon pudding, using a recipe from Carolyn Deaver, the wife of Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, Michael Deaver. And there would be a Reagan favorite called monkey bread, a sticky glob of dough segments smushed together in a Bundt pan. Always red wine, too, a logical choice for the former governor of America’s biggest winemaking state. “My father got a lot of people drinking red wine,” Michael Reagan says.