"Bush Family Cookbook"

[Bux]

Just what is it that many of us find so offensive about some of these foods? I'd be really interested in the social history of, say, the Jello salad, or the green bean casserole. How did these get into the culture, since we now agree they (mostly) taste awful. Maybe this spins out a separate thread.

I think there are several issues:

a) The use of a manufactured product where fresh are available, often better, cheaper and with no more hassle. Canned green beans, for example. Kool whip instead of cream. Margarine instead of butter.

It may have been that there was a time when that was all there was available, but not now.

It must also be derived from a fairly specific social environment. I'm not enough of a social historian to be specific, and I guess there will be some on this list who can correct me, however  before, say, 1940 the beans would be home grown, and possibly salted or otherwise home preserved,  and after, say 1980 distribution will have improved to ensure frozen or even fresh beans are as far as your nearest supermarket.

There is a fine tradition of excellent "peasant" food that has been supplanted - poor people have cooked delicious things from their own produce the world over. Where did this notion that manufactured food is somehow better? Was it a cynical promotion by the big food companies?

b) Nutritional values. Vegetables cooked until soggy and grey sadden partly for this reason. Its only quite recently that we have started worrying about the nutritional value of the food we eat. Partly its because we can now afford to, and partly its increased knowledge. That in turn derived from WWII research into feeding the population.

c) Travesty. Another thing that rankles is that the food is a travesty of what, perhaps, was once a great dish. Most dishes can be traced back to a court or a grand restaurant or patron, that then were adapted by cooks, and spread by migration, and later by books and newspapers and the like.

Seafood in aspic, or seafood mousse served cold and jellied has a long tradition - for example jellied eels, or even gefilte fish, and can be delicious. I've not tracked down how that evolved to a jello ring, and thence to jello salads, but I feel the ring shape is significant. Why is it almost always a ring?

Green or French beans date from about the 18th century. Before that only the seeds were eaten, not the green pods. Often they were just dressed with butter.

I have a copy of John Farley's "London Art of Cookery" of (my copy is 1796) where he gives a recipe for "French Beans ragooed" . The recipe could be made today, except I would use less nutmeg.

"Put into the pan a quarter of of a pint of hot water and let it boil. Take a quarter of a pound of fresh butter rolled in a little flour, two spoonfuls of ketchup, a spoonful of mushroom pickle, four spoonfuls of white wine, an onion stuck with six cloves, two or three blades of mace, half a nutmeg grated and a little pepper and salt. Stir all together for a few minutes then throw in the beans (quarter of a peck boiled). Shake the pan for a minute or two, take out the onion, and pour into your dish. This is a very pretty side dish, which you may garnish with what you fancy, particularly pickles."

←

It is interesting that those who treat "ethnic" foods with respect, seem unable to consider this sort of "distasteful" food with the same detached respect. I, and Jackal, it seems, are both guilty here. Well worth a thread.

Are tinned, preserved or even manufactured food inferior to fresh, or should they just be considered alternative foods? Spaniards are enamored of tinned foods. Even fin bec anglophones, who seem to have the greatest disdain for canned goods, seem to agree that a good tinned San Marzano tomato makes a better sauce than a winter hot house tomato from Holland or one shipped from Mexico in a refrigerator car. The notion that manufactured food is better is no more false than the one that says they are inferior. There are more cultural and class prejudices here than we might suspect. Again this is not personal criticism, I share those prejudices.

Nutritional value may be a red herring. There are all sorts of proponents of raw foods that cite nutrition in the face of all evidence that cooked vegetables often offer more nutrients to the body. Nutrition is just one of the things we hope to get from a good meal and some of the ingredients may not offer much, if anything, in the way of nutrition.

Travesty is a more interesting subject. Dishes can degrade over time in a number of ways. There's an interesting article about Basque settler in Boise, Idaho in the current American Saveur. My first thought was that it would make a trip to Idaho worth the effort and then I read about how a famous boarding house cook adapted recipes using Mazola margarine and Del Monte tomato sauce in the days before olive oil and fresh tomatoes were available in Boise. I wonder about the state of the local palate, even now that Boise has an import shop.

The difference between aspic and Jell-o is clear to me. It's in the flavor. There's nothing wrong with coating cold food with gelatin or suspending quality ingredients in aspic. There is something repugnant about the artificial flavor of the Jell-o I've had. Other tastes may vary and some may rhapsodize over the combination or red and yellow flavors that make orange Jell-o.

As for the "review," I was as put off at the first concern over cream and butter as I am when Bruni, the NY Times critic, gets hung up on cholesterol. Egg yolk, as has been mentioned is both a classic and great thickener, it's just not an appropriate thickener for chowder which should have salt pork or bacon and potatoes. Lokshen, or noodle kugel, with the raisins, but without the cornflakes, was often served as a side dish in American Jewish households, though without cream or cheese if accompanying meat dishes. I doubt Mrs. Wynn claimed credit of invention. Still it's the Bush family recipes that are in the book and it tells us nothing about the American diet. I doubt you could find a single cookbook that tells us an awful lot about cooking in the UK and you have a lot more territory and population to cover in the U.S. Come to think of it, I supsect Terry and her tablemates are probably not all that representative of U.K. tastes either.

[Bux]

What I found most perplexing about the article is why you would get a chef to prepare things from convenience foods for you - I can sort of understand cooking it for yourself if that's all you have available or you aren't a confident cook, but paying someone to do it for you?

←

He's the cook, not a chef. Busy people with considerable disposable income hire others to do work they can't do, find distasteful to do, or simply don't have the time to do possibly because they are out making more per hour than the person they hire.

[Adam Balic]

I doubt you could find a single cookbook that tells us an awful lot about cooking in the UK and you have a lot more territory and population to cover in the U.S. Come to think of it, I supsect Terry and her tablemates are probably not all that representative of U.K. tastes either.

←

True, but I suspect that as Bush is an elected representative of the nation and therefore would be expected to represent a majority view, it is easy to make the leap that the food of the Bush's is also representative in some way. Not nessarily true obviously.

Also, some elements of the UK food press love pointing out how vulgar Americans are (and at the same time wallowing in the glory of any USA based praised for the the 'UK food revolution'). An article that went through the menu arranged for a Bush vist to the UK that included pumpkin soup, commented that 'Pumpkin was bland and tasteless - like Americans'. An odd comment as I doubt that the writer involved was so ignorant that they were not aware of flavourful pumpkin, so they obviously couldn't stop themselves from making a dig, even though the same press tend to go all purple in the face and wobbly if somebody suggests that the standard of the food in the UK just isn't very good over all.

[Busboy]

Eating this way isn't really as dreadful or horrifying as some (possibly overdramatizing) folks on the forum might think. Making things from scratch or knowing where your food comes from doesn't automatically make you a better person than someone who doesn't.

Very true. I think that part of the reason this cookbook creates such a discussion is because the Bush family has always had money. We tend to expect such people to be curious and adventurous, to travel and experience new things, and perhaps to develop sophisticated tastes. If the Clinton family chef wrote this cookbook, I doubt anyone would blink an eye at the recipes that begin with condensed soup and mayonnaise. But I guess even the very rich are not exempt from finding comfort in comfort foods.

←

Indeed, the Clinton family chef from his days as Governor of Arkansas did write a cookbook, which may still be lurking in my basement. It was called "Thirty Years at The Mansion," and was written Eliza Jane Ashley. Clearly, only 12 of those years were Clinton years, but I recall the book being issued in 1993 with a lot of Clinton tie-in surrounding it.

As I recall, (I will hunt for it tonight) it was full of recipes every bit as god-awful as the Bush Cook Book, but with a Southern flair, as opposed to the Bush's New England tastes. A lot of marshmellows, if memory serves me. There was a bit of smirkery around the President's bad taste,then, too. Perhaps it's the similarity in their food tastes that have allowed 41 and 42 to successfully become the dynamic duo of disaster relief, while the rest of the nation splits along partisan lines.

Maybe if we all had a little more mayo in our lives, maybe the healing could begin.

In the mean time, if some guy on a Navy pension (note that Jacques Pepin was in the Navy when he served as President de Gaul's personal chef -- different Navy, obviously, but is this some sort of tradition?) or a woman who started her career as a domestic worker in segregated Arkansas can pick a few bucks with an off-beat cookbook, I got no beef.

[Bux]

. . . .

Also, some elements of the UK food press love pointing out how vulgar Americans are (and at the same time wallowing in the glory of any USA based praised for the the 'UK food revolution'). An article that went through the menu arranged for a Bush vist to the UK that included pumpkin soup, commented that 'Pumpkin was bland and tasteless - like Americans'. An odd comment as I doubt that the writer involved was so ignorant that they were not aware of flavourful pumpkin, so they obviously couldn't stop themselves from making a dig, even though the same press tend to go all purple in the face and wobbly if somebody suggests that the standard of the food in the UK just isn't very good over all.

←

The UK food press is an interesting lot. No further comment necessary. The French food press is probably even less likely to show appreciation for UK food than the UK press is likely to show for American food. On the other hand, the Spanish are far more likely to show some appreciation for American food and the Spanish are probably on top of the heap themselves.

[Pan]

I doubt you could find a single cookbook that tells us an awful lot about cooking in the UK and you have a lot more territory and population to cover in the U.S. Come to think of it, I supsect Terry and her tablemates are probably not all that representative of U.K. tastes either.

←

True, but I suspect that as Bush is an elected representative of the nation and therefore would be expected to represent a majority view, it is easy to make the leap that the food of the Bush's is also representative in some way. Not nessarily true obviously.[...]

←

Obviously not. If election returns are the basis for judgments on who the current occupant of the White House might represent culinarily, he would generally tend to represent residents of rural and exurban areas rather than cities, the South rather than the North, the interior rather than the coasts (especially not the Pacific coast or the Atlantic coast starting with Maryland and points north), whites rather than blacks, and Christians rather than Jews or Muslims. Of course, these are all gross overgeneralizations, but they do point us to the idea of discussing the extent to which the dishes in the cookbook actually do represent Southern/Midwestern/Southwestern/Rocky Mountain states exurban/rural white Christian cooking. And note that we already have been discussing that...

[Busboy]

I doubt you could find a single cookbook that tells us an awful lot about cooking in the UK and you have a lot more territory and population to cover in the U.S. Come to think of it, I supsect Terry and her tablemates are probably not all that representative of U.K. tastes either.

←

True, but I suspect that as Bush is an elected representative of the nation and therefore would be expected to represent a majority view, it is easy to make the leap that the food of the Bush's is also representative in some way. Not nessarily true obviously.[...]

←

Obviously not. If election returns are the basis for judgments on who the current occupant of the White House might represent culinarily, he would generally tend to represent residents of rural and exurban areas rather than cities, the South rather than the North, the interior rather than the coasts (especially not the Pacific coast or the Atlantic coast starting with Maryland and points north), whites rather than blacks, and Christians rather than Jews or Muslims....

←

I don't know how closely you follow politics, Bux, but you might note that the Presidents of the last 30 years or so pretty much fit you description: white Christians from Georgia, California (but raised in a small Midwestern town and made his first big career move in Iowa), Texas, Arkansas, Texas...

Maybe Adam is on to something

In other news, I found my copy of Thirty Years in The Mansion , by Liza Ashley -- autographed by the Liza herself. It 's actually not just a Clinton-era cookbook, but covers all the governors under whom Ashley cooked. Of course, The edition I have is the "Clinton White House Edition" and has Ashley posed with the Clintons on the cover, so it appears she and her collaborator repackage the book after Bill came to Washington.

I wouldn't call it a must read, but for someone who likes politics and food, it's a fun book to flip through:

[Legendary Segregationist] Orval Faubus: "In 1957, when the integration crisis started, it was really hard on us...The Mansion staff had been off, but we were called back in. I watched out the window and and saw the federal people come and serve the warrant on Governor Faubus...Eisenhower sent in the troops...There were people coming and going all the time and we had a lot of people to feed through the crisis."

Winthrop Rockefeller: "I did not cook for the Rockefellers much, because they brought their own cook...the Rockefellers didn't eat the same kind of food that Southern people eat...First time I ever heard of artichokes was when the Rockefellers lived here."

Dale Bumpers: "Now it was back to cornbread, blackeyed peas and green beans again...The Bumperses were attended church every Sunday, and so, for the first time, we had Sunday off too..."

David Pryor: "Governor Pryor had a burger called the Pryorburger, two patties he grilled himself with cheese and pickle relish in-between...he would get up and clear the table; he was about the only one who would."

Bill Clinton: "The Governor and Miss Hillary liked different food to what the previous governors liked. They loved lamb, veal, fish, Mexican food...they didn't want to eat too much, because they were afraid they's get fat. So we were on lots of diets."

Frank White: "Governor White loved to eat, too. He loved Mexican food...Every Sunday he cooked steaks on the grill for his family and the troopers."

Clinton redux: "Since Chelsea has been back at the Mansion, we have all enjoyed celebrating her birthday...she always has me make a carrot cake for her."

After reading this book, I'd beware the selective recipe-slagging of some of the Bush book's critics. There are some truly awful recipes, like the Clinton's Jello Pineapple 7-up Salad, with and there are enough calls for canned green beans, mayonaise margarine to horrify any self-respecting gourmet. And I don't care what Perlow says about folk-cooking: nasty food is nasty food. But there are a lot of perfectly fine recipes too, as I'm sure there are in the Bush book.

The book also reminds us that not everyone who has the means to eat "well" has any desire to do so. I remember being disappointed at wandering through the house of a hi-tech millionaire in Seattle and being disappointed that the quality of his art and his sound system; they just weren't his "things" (though he seemed to like food: Tom Douglas was catering and it was the only political event I've ever attended where I had a choice between port and Sauterne at the end of the meal). I think we all project our own desires and priorities on others, so it's odd for an eGulleter to see someone as wealthy as George Bush (or as powerful as a governor) and see how "poorly" he eats, when we'd make good dinners well our first priority.

And reading through Thirty Years also reminded me that, in a paranoid age full of web-rumors and skepticism, there are still people out there who are proud to work for someone whom the respect, and who treats them with respect, without regard to larger agendas (and who frankly couldn't give a rat's ass about the foreign food press). Sometimes a cookbook is just a cookbook, not a political tactic or the window to anybody's soul.

[Megan Blocker]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale. He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

[Busboy]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

Duh. (a long-term sore point for me personally, from back in my political hack days)

But, anyone who recalls Bush's pork-rind eatin', Lee Greenwood playin' and cowboy boot wearin' 1988 presidential campaign knows that he certainly branded himself as a Texan and not as a New Englander.

[Megan Blocker]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

Duh.

But, anyone who recalls Bush's pork-rind eatin', Lee Greenwood playin' and cowboy boot wearin' 1988 presidential campaign knows that he certainly branded himself as a Texan and not as a New Englander.

←

Ah, yes. But branding does not a Texan make. That's all I was trying to say.

ETA: I thought this was a really good point, one that had been rattling around in my head for a while where this thread was concerned:

The book also reminds us that not everyone who has the means to eat "well" has any desire to do so...I think we all project our own desires and priorities on others, so it's odd for an eGulleter to see someone as wealthy as George Bush (or as powerful as a governor) and see how "poorly" he eats, when we'd make good dinners well our first priority.

Edited November 30, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[JohnL]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

I doubt that by studying the pages of this "cookbook" we are going to learn anything about the Bush family.

I am often uncomfortable with the gossip element induced by these tomes.

whether the subject is Bill Clinton, Elvis, the Carter family (remember Billy?) or the Bush family.

What one does learn is something about how people react to their preconceived notions about these famous people.

Books about family recipes and or family pets etc are not the equivalent of well researched biographies (and even those are suspect).

So--I prefer to deal with the recipes at their face value.

I must admit that I have a fondness for some foods from my childhood:

Creamed Chipped Beef

Campbells Tomato soup with ritz crackers crumbled into it

Spam--baked in the oven with pinneapple rings on top

Stouffers Mac and Cheese

Swansons TV dinners-especially the fried chicken

Meatloaf with mushroom gravy made from cream of mushroom soup

PBJ on Wonder bread

Rice R Roni

and so on.....

These were comfort foods.

In the fifties and sixties it was what's for dinner!

I also do not recall many overweight kids then--we were out playing all sorts of sports (without adults around) and physical games. I believe we were a lot healthier than today's kids.

(I would also point out that the Bush family seems to be in pretty good physical condition).

Today we seem to be obsessed with food and nutrition--yet we seem to have as many or more problems than earlier generations.

I, for one, am not sure things were quite so bad in the fifties nor am I sure that things are so much better today.

It's all relative!

[Pontormo]

In other news, I found my copy of Thirty Years in The Mansion , by Liza Ashley -- autographed by the Liza herself.  It 's actually not just a Clinton-era cookbook, but covers all the governors under whom Ashley cooked. 

I wouldn't call it a must read, but for someone who likes politics and food, it's a fun book to flip through...

And reading through Thirty Years also reminded me that, in a paranoid age full of web-rumors and skepticism, there are still people out there who are proud to work for someone whom the respect, and who treats them with respect, without regard to larger agendas (and who frankly couldn't give a rat's ass about the foreign food press). 

Sometimes a cookbook is just a cookbook, not a political tactic or the window to anybody's soul.

←

Charles: What you write about this book is fascinating...and seems to me to suggest that the book has great value as a cultural and historical document.

I personally don't think a cookbook is ever just a cookbook, nor a cigar merely a cigar.

This particular book, as you say at the beginning of the post, does seem to be especially interesting because it links political history to food and (arguably--I haven't seen the book) probably has more value regarding the former than the latter. Certainly, it is interesting to me because you are starting to answer some of my early questions about the context in which the Bush cookbook was published. I was ignorant of this particular genre (?) of cookbooks written by chefs to political leaders in the U.S. I wonder if the practice is international...and how far back it goes. 19th-C France? Earlier? Elsewhere?

[Busboy]

And reading through Thirty Years also reminded me that, in a paranoid age full of web-rumors and skepticism, there are still people out there who are proud to work for someone whom the respect, and who treats them with respect, without regard to larger agendas (and who frankly couldn't give a rat's ass about the foreign food press). 

Sometimes a cookbook is just a cookbook, not a political tactic or the window to anybody's soul.

←

Charles: What you write about this book is fascinating...and seems to me to suggest that the book has great value as a cultural and historical document.

I personally don't think a cookbook is ever just a cookbook, nor a cigar merely a cigar.

←

If not a cigar, I'd suggest that the books are more about their writers than their subjects, that a poor African American woman and a poor (one assumes, as he went into the Navey because he was unable to afford school) Filipino who are pleased to write a little hardback letter to the old neighborhood and the various relatives saying: "look at me, I worked hard, I done good."

[JohnL]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

Duh. (a long-term sore point for me personally, from back in my political hack days)

But, anyone who recalls Bush's pork-rind eatin', Lee Greenwood playin' and cowboy boot wearin' 1988 presidential campaign knows that he certainly branded himself as a Texan and not as a New Englander.

←

He certainly has indicated he sees himself as a Texan. That's how he should be viewed.

I suppose he could go either way!

There are plenty of people buying expensive western clothing and listening to country western music here in New York City!

People love to "reveal" that Ralph Lauren is just a Jewish kid from the Bronx as if he is somehow "not a real WASP."--some sort of poseur.

But hey this is America! We can be anyone we want to be!

[Megan Blocker]

But hey this is America! We can be anyone we want to be!

←

Just take it from Madonna!

[JohnL]

But hey this is America! We can be anyone we want to be!

←

Just take it from Madonna!

←

I just saw an interview with her--Isn't she "British?"

[Pontormo]

I'd suggest that the books are more about their writers than their subjects, that a poor African American woman and a poor (one assumes, as he went into the Navey because he was unable to afford school) Filipino who are pleased to write a little hardback letter to the old neighborhood and the various relatives saying: "look at me, I worked hard, I done good."

←

Ah, you're Chaucerian! The tale is about its teller!

How about BOTH, though? There must be something in those recipes and pages that is about the powerful families that employed the cooks. The book would not have been published if they had worked exclusively as personal chefs for one wealthy but obscure family. The authors derive pride from the nature of the families who ate the meals...and exchange of respect that ignores partisan issues, a major point of your post.

Barthes would say the voice in the text is yours or ours, i.e. that of the readers, since it is what we bring to the book that defines its meaning. The legitimacy of that position seems to be proven in the different positions taken by those who are posting here.

P.S. Cute, Megan. Cute, JohnL.

[pterostyrax]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

I will point out that most people who live in Texas for any length of time, from thereon generally refer to themselves as a Texan - deservedly so.

[Megan Blocker]

George H.W. Bush grew up in Connecticut and attended Greenwich Country Day, Andover and Yale.  He moved to Texas and lived there for a good part of his adult life, but he's certainly not native stock.

←

I will point out that most people who live in Texas for any length of time, from thereon generally refer to themselves as a Texan - deservedly so.

←

Ah, see, in New York, we have standards for this sort of thing...

[anzu]

I'm probably lowering the tone of the discussion by moving it down from the meta-level, but I have a practical question here:

I've never come across Jello salad (whether green or of any other color) with cottage cheese, and I have a hard time imagining it.

So my question is the following one: the cottage cheese is mixed homogeneously into the Jello, or there are lumps of cottage cheese within the Jello?

(Just trying to get a better image here of what it actually is)

[Megan Blocker]

So my question is the following one: the cottage cheese is mixed homogeneously into the Jello, or there are lumps of cottage cheese within the Jello?

←

Eeeeww...I think we should be thankful that we don't know.

My guess, though, is that there are lumps (dollops, if you will). What fun is a Jello salad if stuff isn't suspended in it, right?

Pontormo, that's a good point about the chefs having worked for the families...I guess I'm not enough of a cynic to see this as a purely political thing, and suppose that these recipes were (at least at some point) part of the Bush repertoire. Perhaps pre-Laura?

Edited November 30, 2005 by Megan Blocker (log)

[jackal10]

Escoffier, in his Christmas menu for 1906 lists

Gelee de Pommes de Amour aux Ecrivisses

(tomato jelly with shrimp)

[BubbleheadChef]

A friend of mine, who is genuine Boston Irish -- certainly not WASP but a real New Englander -- has told me that during the 1950's, 1960's and 70's, it was extremely difficult to get fresh vegetables of any kind during the winter months, so they mostly ate canned or frozen. New Englanders use a lot of convenience product for that very reason, and I guess even though good veggies and fresh foods are now avaliable that time of year, they have a "taste" for canned vegetables and canned goods now, if you want to call it that, its now part of their DNA.

←

Jason

You are ABSOLUTELY correct. The best cooks in the military are Submarine Cooks. BTW, Bubblehead is the slang term for Submariners...not self promoting or anything!

[BubbleheadChef]

The very best chefs in the Navy come out of the Submarine corps. Actually, I'd love to get one of those guys onto the site and learn some of their recipes.

←

Sorry abou that last post...still trying to figure out this reply to a specific quote thing.

[Jason Perlow]

Welcome to the site Bubblehead, do you serve aboard a boomer or a Los Angeles class sub?