Taste Trendsetters: First Ladies In The Kitchen

No other housewife role may be quite as honorable or prestigious as that of First Lady of the United States. While the President is busy delegating issues within our country and handling business with foreign nations, many people look to the First Lady to see how she handles life as the President’s wife and what kind of contributions she makes to The White House.

The White House kitchen is one component that has evolved with each presidency and the decisions that the First Lady makes in this area affect the diets of the First Family, and sometimes even the whole nation. Now that president-elect Donald Trump is set to take office in 2017, the public is wondering how his wife, Melania, will handle her duties and what she will do that will affect the way The White House will eat. One thing is for sure, though — there were a lot of precedents set before her.

Eleanor Roosevelt

First lady to Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression, Eleanor Roosevelt was known as the longest-serving first lady and is revered as a great human rights activist. However, one thing she is not praised for is her cooking. At a White House luncheon in 1933, she reportedly served plain stuffed eggs, thinly covered by tomato sauce, with a side of mashed potatoes and wheat bread. And for dessert? Prune pudding.

After being invited to dinner at the White House in 1937, Hemingway wrote to his mother-in-law that they “had rainwater soup followed by rubber squab, a nice wilted salad and a cake some admirer had sent in. An enthusiastic but unskilled admirer.”