By Samantha Pak
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Ideas can come when one least expects it. This was the case for Adrian Miller and Deborah Chang and their new book, “Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History: Cooking to the President’s Taste.”
It was 2015 and Miller was doing some research for another book he was writing at the time—about the history of Black chefs in the White House—at the University of Denver’s Special Collections & Archives. As he was looking for information on Black presidential chefs, he found a cookbook memoir called, “To a President’s Taste: Being the Reminiscences and Recipes of Lee Ping Quan, Ex-President’s Steward on the Presidential Yacht, U.S.S. Mayflower,” written by Lee Ping Quan.
“I about fell out of my chair because it was published in 1939,” Miller said about this discovery. “So I had the librarian bring it out. It’s in beautiful condition. And I started flipping through it, and at that point I realized it was gold, because it was the most detailed memoir we’ve ever had from somebody who cooked for the president.”
While there have been detailed memoirs from other people who have been part of presidential hospitality, such as stewards and housekeepers, “we’ve never heard this much from somebody who actually cooked for a president,” Miller said.
Quan was a Chinese-born U.S. Navy steward who served on the presidential yacht for Presidents Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover, but his story had fallen into obscurity. Miller wanted to bring Quan’s story to a broader audience. So he filed the idea away for another day.
125 years of Asians in the presidential kitchen
That day has finally come as “Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History” was published earlier this month. Miller initially wanted to do a simple reprint of Quan’s original memoir, but said nobody was interested in that. Eventually, he connected with the White House Historical Association, who were interested, but also wanted to update and expand the book. So this new book is the first-ever history of the many chefs of Asian heritage who have prepared meals for the president—whether that was in the White House, at state dinners, on the presidential yacht, or at Camp David—and whose service dates back more than a century. (The earliest person Miller found was a Japanese immigrant named Yoji Row, who was the head cook on the U.S.S. Mayflower under President William McKinley in 1900.)
The book names 37 chefs, with roots in China, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand, and goes in-depth and tells the story of about 10. Miller said because of space and a word budget, they couldn’t profile everyone they mention. Instead, they took a representational approach, finding one or two people who represent certain lines of presidential cooking: yacht chefs, retreat chefs, executive chefs, staff chefs, and state dinner chefs. In addition, the book is organized similarly to Quan’s book, with the first half featuring the stories and the second half featuring the recipes.
Updating historical recipes for the modern home kitchen
While Miller researched all of the chefs to tell their stories, Chang was in charge of the recipes.
The first part of that job was figuring out which recipes from Quan she wanted to include since he had more than 400 in his book, and then figuring out which recipes from the other chefs to include. In the end, there are about 60 recipes in “Asian Heritage Chefs in White House History,” primarily from Quan, but also from the other chefs.
“How I approached that was, which ones people would eat today,” Chang said. “There’s just some pretty funny ones, like turtle soup. And then [Quan] had strange combinations, like banana salad. Lots of things stuffed in other things, which you kind of see—you know, stuffed mushrooms, stuffed peppers—the fillings were kind of weird. He’d do a lot of walnuts in things. So all those didn’t make it in.”
Chang focused on including recipes she felt people could actually cook at home, as well as things they would actually eat. This includes filet mignon, fried chicken, muffins, meatballs, apple fritters, and pies, as well as some Chinese food.
“He started the cookbook section with Chinese food, his Chinese dishes,” she said about Quan’s original book. “I tried to include as many of those as I could without getting too repetitive.”
Chang said there were many recipes labeled as Mrs. Coolidge’s (referring to former First Lady Grace Goodhue Coolidge) favorites, such as her favorite chop suey, and her favorite dish, which was chicken chow mein.
“The Coolidges just liked Chinese food,” she said, adding that the first 20 pages or so are all Chinese recipes.
In recreating these recipes, Chang had to find a balance of modernizing and updating them, without sacrificing historical accuracy. She said that was a judgement she had to make and all of the recipes had to be updated for ingredients and descriptions, especially for modern-day equipment and techniques. Many recipes were sparsely written so she had to fill in the blanks to explain how she cooked the dishes the way she did and why. And in terms of ingredients, Chang said in looking at Quan’s recipes, there just weren’t as many ingredients back then. She also had a hard time trying to figure out what his ingredients were.
“He had this ‘Chinese beans,’ which I still haven’t figured out. And it’s not bean sprouts,” Chang said. “Because he said bean sprouts when he meant bean sprouts. So I could not figure out ‘Chinese beans.’ I’m going to guess it’s fava beans. So there’s a lot of stuff like that where I just had to use my judgment.”
Having tested—and tasted—all of the recipes that went into the book, Chang said her favorite recipe was the chocolate chocolate chip cookie, which was very good and very easy to make. It was originally just a chocolate cookie, which she thought looked a little boring, so Chang added chocolate chips. In addition, she liked the recipes for chow mein, chop suey, filet mignon, tomato soup, and cauliflower mac and cheese.
Serving with distinction and excellence
As Asian Americans face the stereotype of the perpetual foreigner, Chang said Quan’s story—of someone who lived during a time that was not very welcoming to Asian immigrants, but was ambitious, wily, and so good at what he did that he worked his way up to such a powerful position, so close to the president—was amazing and remarkable. She described Quan as an influencer of his time, influencing Chinese cooking into what it is today, and likes that their book elevates him to equal status of today’s modern celebrity chefs. In addition, the book brings these Asian chefs out from behind the scenes and into the forefront.
For Miller, after writing his earlier book on Black presidential chefs, it was so interesting to learn about another group of people of color who had such strong representation in the presidential kitchen, in its various forms—which is a very unique look at the American presidency. And that window goes two ways, because while these Asian culinary professionals had a view of the presidency, they also gave the first families a view on what it’s like to be Asian in the United States.
“We have examples in the book where first families actually acted upon things that their Asian heritage chefs related to them,” Miller said. “So I think that that makes our country richer, right? Enriches our country. Now, not every president chose to open that window, and definitely, even the ones that acted didn’t open it fully.”
This being said, Miller also acknowledged that the American presidency is shrouded in secrecy, especially when it comes to the hospitality aspect, because they want the first families to feel they can just be themselves.
Miller added that he thinks people need to know that people of Asian heritage are a part of American history, woven into the fabric of this country, and that they’ve served at the highest levels, with distinction.
“Because of my experience writing the African American presidential chef’s book, I knew what it was like to have people of color serve with excellence and never have their story told,” he said. “So I think what was notable is the fact that somebody in history paused and said, ‘Let me get this person’s story.'”