Julia Child wasn’t the only person to introduce America to French food.  Often when something is suddenly in vogue, it’s a combination of events that contributes to the cultural sea change.

René Verdon, June 29, 1924 – February 2, 2011

Chef René Verdon died two weeks ago at age 86.  I knew who he was.  I knew he owned a successful French restaurant in San Francisco called Le Trianon.  I may have met him in San Francisco when I worked at Stars restaurant in the early ’80s.  What I was reminded of while reading his obituary in the Los Angeles Times is that he was also White House chef during the Kennedy administration.  I was fascinated reading the details of his life, specifically how he ended up at the White House, and the influence he had on American cooking and eating.  There is so much more to that part of his story.

First Professional Chef in the White House

Verdon was the first professional chef to work in the White House.  First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy being a Francophile herself interviewed him in French.  As White House chef he was way ahead of his time: he cooked with the freshest ingredients he could find; he planted an herb garden on the White House grounds; he designed a new kitchen for the first family’s quarters.  He also broke tradition by serving as President Kennedy’s private chef.  During prior presidential administrations a housekeeper was in charge of feeding the first family.

Verdon was born in 1924 in a small French village, Pouzauges, in western France.  His parents owned a bakery and pastry shop.  Deciding he wanted to be a chef at age thirteen he apprenticed first at a hotel in Nantes followed by several apprenticeships in Paris and Deauville. He emigrated to the United States in 1958 and found work in New York restaurants the Essex House, and La Caravelle as well as the Carlyle Hotel.  La Caravelle head chef, Roger Fessaguet, recommended him for the job when the Kennedys were looking for a chef.

America’s Interest in French Cuisine

His arrival as White House chef ushered in a period of great interest in French food and cooking.  In an interview with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in 2002 Julia Child said she was “lucky” the Kennedys hired Verdon because soon “everyone was interested in French cuisine.”  Child’s French food bible “Mastering The Art of French Cooking – Volume 1″ was published in 1961 the same year that Verdon started cooking for the Kennedys.  It all makes sense.  Becoming the White House chef put Verdon on the international stage.  Mrs. Kennedy was considered the height of chic.  She didn’t hire any old chef, she hired a French chef.  It was the early ’60s.  Naturally the rest of the country, and the world, followed suit.  All of this brought at least as much if not more attention to French cuisine as Child and her book.  Verdon actually had a bigger more popular stage than Child’s.

French Food in the White House

While White House chef Verdon became known for such dishes as chicken in Champagne sauce, and “incomparable quenelles de brochet” (according to Time Magazine).  President Kennedy favored Verdon’s New England clam chowder.  His first official White House meal was an April 1961 presidential luncheon honoring then-British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.  Verdon served a menu of trout in Chablis and sauce Vincent, beef filet au jus and artichoke bottoms Beaucaire, and meringue filled with raspberries and chocolate.  Verdon’s favorite state dinner took place in July 1961 along the banks of the Potomac River honoring the President of Pakistan.   He served “simple yet elegant” food that included avocado, crab meat cocktails, and raspberries in Chantilly cream.

I asked Chef Jeremiah Tower to comment on his friend, Rene Verdon, “A very sympathetic man who devoted himself to what he knew best, the best of classical and country French cooking and standards of service.  A very fine chef.”  Tower and Verdon were San Francisco restaurateurs during the same period in the 1980s.  Verdon owned Le Trianon from 1972 to 1987.

Verdon wrote a total of five cookbooks including “The White House Chef” (1967), “French Cooking for the American Table” (1974), and “The Enlightened Cuisine” (1985).  An unsung hero of American cooking, light years ahead of many of his chef brethren, and an integral part of introducing French cuisine to America, rest in peace Chef René Verdon.

Sources for this article: Los Angeles Times, and Wikipedia.

100 Miles Shout Outs! Local events, mini-reviews, and mentions of things happening in the world of food:

#1  – The Good Neighbor Cookbook – consider submitting your, or somebody else’s, good-neighbor story to the Meet This Grateful Recipient or Meet This Good Neighbor Cook features on The Good Neighbor Cookbook blog by e-mailing authors Sara Quessenbery and Suzanne Schlosberg at: cooks@thegoodneighborcookbook.com. Let us know if you do by leaving a comment below!

My Status:  Still enjoying winter in So Cal and the lovely winter produce: amazing citrus, kale, broccoli, collard greens.  Continuing to blog, cook, and eat.

I’m published!! My recipe “Chef Wally’s Baked Papaya” was selected to be in the cookbook: “Foodista Best of Food Blogs Cookbook: 100 Great Recipes, Photographs, and Voices.”  You may order it here.

Upcoming Posts: More on my great-grandmother’s garden, and my California childhood.  A visit and tour of Ojai Valley citrus grower Friend’s Ranch. Cookbook Reviews: “The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook” by Rachel Saunders, “Quick-Fix Southern” by Rebecca Lang, and “Italy Dish by Dish: A Comprehensive Guide to Eating in Italy” by Monica Sartoni Cesari.

I first heard mention of a garden at the White House in the Alice Waters biography ‘Alice Waters And Chez Panisse’ by Thomas McNamee. Apparently she and the Clintons were quite chummy — Bill had eaten at Chez Panisse, Alice’s Berkeley restaurant, a few times and was quite impressed. Based on their connection, she began a letter writing campaign trying to get the President to plant a vegetable and fruit garden on the White House lawn. Her efforts came to naught, the Bush administration came to power, and the idea sat fallow until the Obamas arrived.

My first reaction to the idea was that it was elitist and beneath the dignity of the White House, and the President, to have carrots and spinach poking out of the South Lawn. After all, less than 1oo miles away, there is surely local, organic produce that can be delivered to the White House within a few hours. But as I came to understand, the garden is not just food for the First Family; it’s a symbolic gesture, to show the rest of us that we too can be self-sustaining. And this is always a good thing, no matter what the current economic vicissitudes. Alice should be proud, her patience and doggedness finally paid off.

Gardens have a long history at the White House especially in the early days when they were planted to feed its occupants. The last vegetable garden planted at the White House was a Victory Garden that Eleanor Roosevelt planted in 1943 as part of the war effort. She planted it as an example to encourage the nation to plant their own Victory Gardens. The result worked prodigiously: In 1943 there were 20 million Victory Gardens in the country, and the produce they generated accounted for 1/3 of all vegetables eaten that year.

In my travels around the blogosphere I have read about a chef in Washington state who is turning her front yard into a garden in hopes that the neighbors will contribute to and take from it; and a man in Boulder, Colorado who convinced several neighbors that they should all plant gardens in their front yards and share the bounty. Those are two of many stories out there. There seems to be a ‘get-back-to-the-garden’ movement afoot with our new President leading the way.

Final comment: Alice wasn’t alone in persuading the Obamas to plant America’s Garden. Roger Doiron started his own campaign called Eat The View on February 6, 2008. He and his supporters had a big hand in making the First Garden happen. Michael Pollan writer of ‘In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto’ and ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals’ put a call out for a White House Farmer in November 2008 by writing to President-elect Obama in a New York Times article. These are only a few. There are other heroes of the movement out there as well.

Happy Gardening!