Description
Product Description
An NAACP Image Award Finalist for Outstanding Literary Work—Non Fiction
James Beard award–winning author Adrian Miller vividly tells the stories of the African Americans who worked in the presidential food service as chefs, personal cooks, butlers, stewards,and servers for every First Family since George and Martha Washington. Miller brings together the names and words of more than 150 black men and women who played remarkable roles in unforgettable events in the nation's history. Daisy McAfee Bonner, for example, FDR's cook at his Warm Springs retreat, described the president's final day on earth in 1945, when he was struck down just as his lunchtime cheese souffle emerged from the oven. Sorrowfully, but with a cook's pride, she recalled, "He never ate that souffle, but it never fell until the minute he died." A treasury of information about cooking techniques and equipment, the book includes twenty recipes for which black chefs were celebrated. From Samuel Fraunces's "onions done in the Brazilian way" for George Washington to Zephyr Wright's popovers, beloved by LBJ's family, Miller highlights African Americans' contributions to our shared American foodways. Surveying the labor of enslaved people during the antebellum period and the gradual opening of employment after Emancipation, Miller highlights how food-related work slowly became professionalized and the important part African Americans played in that process. His chronicle of the daily table in the White House proclaims a fascinating new American story.
Review
Miller opens a door into a fascinating world that few ever think about: the White House kitchens. There, he brings to light a realm shaped by an often-ignored group of African Americans who have nurtured the first families so they could lead a nation.--
Booklist
A compelling combination of history and cookbook, as it is not only filled with fascinating anecdotes and photos, but includes a score of mouth-watering recipes you just might like to try out yourself.--Kam Williams
Shines a light on the role of African-American cooks and their recipes.--
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Satisfies our voyeuristic curiosity into the lives of celebrated men, yes, but it also tells the sometimes even more interesting tales of the men and women who fed them.--
Denver Post
Rich in stories, biographies, illustrations, and, of course, recipes.--
Durham Herald-Sun
An intriguing glimpse into the inner workings of the White House kitchen and the chefs who have made its wonderful cuisine possible.--
Library Journal
Meticulously researched, with touching stories.--
Flavors Magazine
Miller makes it lively through quick, interesting, and sometimes humorous vignettes that dash back and forth through history. . . . Whether it'll sit with your cookbooks or on a shelf with other history tomes, it's a book you'll savor in more ways than one.--
Philadelphia Tribune
Dissects the social and political considerations that saw African-American contributions to the White House minimized.--
Mailonline.com
The time is ripe to explore [this] history, much of it previously untold.--Michael Floreak,
Boston Globe
Review
The President's Kitchen Cabinet brings history alive by tracing the people and foods that appeared at White House events large and small, personal and formal. The research is impeccable, the stories are vivid and thrilling, and the food detailed and delicious. If you love the history of our nation's first home as I do, you will devour this book.-- Bill Yosses, former executive pastry chef at the White House and coauthor of
The Perfect Finish
Adrian Miller details the many subtle and not-so-subtle contributions of African American culinary professionals to the food history of the White House. The people, black and white, in
The President's Kitchen Cabinet come across as real, engaged, and accurately placed in their own history, and the White House is refreshingly portrayed as a livin
Features
- NORTH CAROLINA