So recently I got to go on what was essentially a field trip for adults
to the Dallas Fort Worth area to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the JFK assassination.
And while you're probably thinking well that doesn't have a lot to do with food
it actually does because we know exactly what he had for breakfast on that last day.
So I thought I would share the story of that morning with you as I recreate the last meal of President John F. Kennedy.
So thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video as I make breakfast for the president
this time on Tasting History.
So the reason I got to go on this historic field trip is because National Geographic has a new documentary coming out
called 'JFK One Day in America'. It comes out this Sunday
but they wanted me to see it a little bit ahead of time and not only did I get to watch the documentary
in the very theater that Lee Harvey Oswald was apprehended
but I also got to visit other sites associated with that day and stayed in the Fort Worth hotel where the president spent his last night.
He was staying in room 850 at the Hotel Texas which is now the Hilton Fort Worth,
and while he was attending a big breakfast with nearly 2,000 guests
he actually did most of his eating in his room before the event,
and the man who took his order for breakfast was named Marvin Love and there is actually recording
of Mr. Love talking about the order.
"The president's breakfast was ordered by his valet which told us that he would want 5 minute egg boiled,
crisp bacon, orange juice fresh, coffee with hot milk.
He wanted hot milk with preference to cream. Toast with butter on the side,
and he particularly wanted orange marmalade.
So the breakfast is pretty simple, pretty basic not a lot of cooking to do mostly just kind of
assembling a breakfast, so I didn't expect that there would be any kind of historic recipe to follow
but as it happens part of this trip took me to the Ruth Paine House.
This was the house where Lee Harvey Oswald stayed the night before he assassinated the president.
It's really cool because using photos they've recreated the house to look as close as possible to the way that it would have
that November of 1963. This included the kitchen having details
like several cookbooks from the period, one of which the Metropolitan cookbook includes a recipe for 'Eggs cooked in shell.'
"For soft-cooked eggs, place in boiling water and simmer gently from 3 to 7 minutes
depending on consistency desired. Hard cooked eggs require from 15 to 20 minutes simmering."
Unfortunately there were no other recipes in the books for any components of this breakfast
but we can get some more specifics on how Jack liked his breakfast from none other than his wife Jacqueline Kennedy,
because in 1958 when Jack was still a Massachusetts senator
Mrs. Kennedy wrote down instructions to their private chef Tanya Herbst saying
"Mr. K can eat nothing fried... Breakfast, Mr.K - ...
crisp oven broiled bacon, orange juice - pepperidge white toast - coffee - marmelade."
And she used the French spelling for marmalade and in fact all of the rest of the instructions pretty much are
all in French because she was a huge Francophile and wrote a lot of letters in French.
Also she emphasized that the bacon was to be oven broiled, underlining it on the page.
And while I can't underline a video I do want to emphasize that
this channel is getting dangerously close to hitting 2 million subscribers and it'd be really awesome if we did so by the end of the year so
if you haven't subscribed to Tasting History or hit that little notification bell make sure to do it now
and check if you're still subscribed if you had subscribed in the past cuz sometimes YouTube just unsubscribes people.
So since she underlined oven broiled and since Marvin Love did say that it was supposed to be crisp bacon,
we know how to make the president's bacon and it's in the oven.
Now I have baked bacon before but I've never broiled it.
I'm actually very afraid of broilers because
when I first started baking I tried to darken up the top of a pie by putting it
under the broiler and in 30 seconds the house was filled with smoke,
but I am going to use the broiler today because the president says so,
so to make oven broiled bacon set the oven rack to the top position and then turn the broiler on high.
Then line a baking pan with some foil. This will stop the bacon from sticking and it will help catch
a lot of the grease that invariably will be in that pan and it will make clean up a lot easier.
Then set 7 or 8 strips of bacon on the pan making sure they aren't touching.
Then set the pan in the oven under the broiler and broil for 3 minutes or so, and then take it out,
flip the bacon over and return it broiling it for about another 3 minutes
but you'll want to keep a sharp eye on this bacon at this point because it can go from crisp to burnt very quickly,
see the story about the pie.
Once it's cooked remove it from from the oven and immediately place the bacon on a plate lined with paper towel to soak up any grease.
Then when it comes to the bread Jackie says it should be pepperidge white toast that is Pepperidge Farm bread
which is cut pretty thick. Unfortunately of all the things that Pepperidge Farm remembers
selling it in my neck of the woods was not one of those things
so I'm just using a generic white bread,
and after it's done toasting it'll be served with some butter and marmalade.
As for the president's beverages it's just some freshly brewed coffee with some milk that has been warmed on the stove
and some fresh squeezed orange juice so I'm using this cool orange reamer
that my nana used to have. It's not the same one but she had one just like it that she used back in the day
so I reamed some oranges.
That doesn't sound right.
And then finally bring some water to simmering and carefully drop a few eggs in,
and let them boil for exactly 5 minutes.
And Marvin Love did specify 5 minute eggs so that's all you're going to boil them for.
And it should be just enough enough time to let me tell you a bit more about that morning of November 22nd 1963
in the hours before America changed forever.
So what brought President Kennedy to Texas in the first place?
Politics mostly. See he had won a narrow victory in 1960 in Texas and
in the subsequent years he'd become quite a bit less popular mainly due to his stance on civil rights,
and perhaps no city was more hostile to the president than Dallas itself.
In fact he had been warned by multiple people not to travel to Dallas.
It had a reputation recently for being a very unfriendly city to visit.
Only a month earlier the Kennedy appointed ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson visited the city
and the following day newspapers said
"Anti- United Nations demonstrators shoved, booed, beat and spat in the face of Adlai E. Stevenson...
following a speech he made here marking United Nations Day...
they shoved him about repeatedly. A woman rushed forward and struck him on the head with her picket sign."
But despite this and security concerns from his own Secret Service
he did visit Dallas. He insisted on it because it was so important to mend fences all over Texas
should he have any chance of reelection in 1964.
What made this trip extra special was the presence of his wife Jackie Kennedy who very rarely joined her husband on campaign related trips.
And it was actually her first time out in public in several months
as in August of that same year their newborn son Patrick passed away.
So that morning November 22nd 1963 after breakfasting in his room
the president got dressed and went downstairs to attend the formal breakfast held by the Chamber of Commerce.
There is footage of this entire breakfast,
and there is a commentator in the room talking about what's going on,
and before the president arrives he's saying what the president had planned that day.
He says that right after the breakfast "There had been plans for him to leave from here in an open car.
A convertible is parked outside but with the rain falling the way it is it's fairly certain that the top will be up."
But it would stop raining and so the top wasn't up,
and it's just crazy to think that something as trivial as a little drizzly rain stopping
completely changed the course of American History forever.
Another part of the commentary is when he's talking about
when the president arrived at the hotel breaking some security rules.
"He went out into the crowd and of course Secret Servicemen find this the most nervous time of any presidential appearance
as long as the Secret Servicemen can keep the crowd away from the president they have a good chance of protecting him."
He then talks about another time that a president broke this rule,
and that was on September 6th 1901 and the president was William McKinley.
The commentator says "As in many important occasions of the world no one seemed to sense that anything different was going to happen."
Of course something different did happen,
Leon Czolgosz shot President McKinley. That was the last president to be assassinated
until that day that the commentator was making the remarks about
nobody realizing that anything different was going to happen that day.
So at 9:10 a.m. President John F. Kennedy and his entourage went through the kitchens and entered the Crystal Ballroom
where he received a standing ovation as the Eastern Hills High School band played 'Hail to the Chief'
but there was someone conspicuously absent.
"As you may have noticed Mrs. Kennedy did not enter with the president. So far we have no indication of where she may be,
and I can tell you from where we are standing there are quite a few ladies who appear to be quite disappointed that Mrs. Kennedy is not here.
I am sure that if she does not appear the president will explain the reason for her absence."
Jackie was still upstairs and she had no intention of coming down to attend this breakfast
but it seems that her husband seeing the empty space right beside him thought it was not a great look,
and so he told one of his Secret Servicemen to call up to her room and and get her down here.
Well Jackie's agent who was actually interviewed for this upcoming documentary
said that he got the call and said well no Mrs Kennedy had no intention of coming down.
She's actually getting ready to leave the hotel and
Jack Kennedy the president's Secret Service man said no, no, no, you didn't get the message.
TELL HER to get down here NOW.
And so he said okay she's on her way.
And 20 minutes into breakfast Jackie Kennedy in a classy raspberry colored suit and pillbox hat
entered the ballroom to absolutely uproarious applause because while Jack popularity may have waned
Jackie's had absolutely not.
So at this breakfast President Kennedy gave a speech which was followed by something
that I think is is actually more interesting than the speech itself.
Raymond Buck the president of the Chamber of Commerce there in Fort Worth
presented Kennedy with a Peters Brother's hat
but Kennedy was famous for not wearing hats.
"We know that you don't wear a hat.
But couldn't let you leave Fort Worth without providing you with some protection against the rain."
It's said that the reason that Kennedy rarely wore hats unless it was part of his outfit
like he wore a top hat at his inauguration
is because he was afraid that an ill-timed photo
wearing a certain hat might make him look like a bit of a buffoon because there was evidence that that had happened before.
See Calvin Coolidge's photo wearing a Native American headdress from 40 years earlier.
It was a lesson not learned by Michael Dukakis in 1988 when he had a famous photo
in a tank wearing a helmet that many say kind of ruined his bid for presidency that year.
So no hats for Kennedy and he refuses to put it on there but he does
allow Buck to try it on in his stead.
But then he says "I'll put it on in the White House on Monday if you'll come up there you'll have a chance to see it there."
And then following the breakfast the hatless president and his wife fly to Dallas.
Now if you know the Dallas Fort Worth area you'll know that you don't fly from one to the other.
It's like 30 miles apart so you don't fly but that day they didn't have enough people
to close off all of the on-ramps on the freeway so they needed to fly. They also wanted the airplane there at Lovefield
so right after the motorcade and a luncheon they could fly off to Austin for dinner that night.
There was a lot of eating on this presidential trip.
So the Kennedies arrive at Lovefield to meet Texas Governor John Connally and his wife even though they were both at the breakfast with the Kennedies,
and then they get into the limousine.
Now it had stopped raining so there was no weather related reason that the car needed to have the roof on
but the Secret Service urged the president to keep the roof on
for security reasons but the president refused and wanted it to be a convertible
so there would be nothing between him and the people on the parade route.
Now today the Secret Service would just say well too bad Mr. President it's our job to keep you safe but
in 1963 there seemed to be less of a concern that someone would try to assassinate the president
especially from afar so the limo was left as a convertible.
10 miles the motorcade went driving through the streets of Dallas which were absolutely packed
with people vying to catch a glimpse of the president and Mrs. Kennedy.
Through downtown Dallas it went where surrounded by high-rise buildings there was the most danger of something going wrong
but they made it through that part of the city safely without incident and so the Secret Service could kind of let out a bit of a sigh of relief
as they turned onto Houston Street going into Dealey Plaza.
The crowds were cheering for the president as they turned left onto Elm Street,
and Nelly Connally, the governor's wife
well Mr President you can't say Dallas doesn't love you and he replied
no you certainly can't.
And then three shots rang out from the very last building on the route
from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository.
Now I'm not going to go into detail about what happened after.
First of all I think a lot of people know the story,
and second of all this would be a 2-hour episode if I did
but if you don't know much about the Kennedy assassination
the story is is fascinating, what happens over the next 48 hours.
Like I said there's a documentary from National Geographic coming out this weekend about it.
It's a pivotal moment in American history really worth looking into,
but while I'm not going to cover the assassination itself there are two more food related aspects
to the assassination that that I did want to cover because I found them just so interesting.
I saw both when I visited the Sixth floor Museum which is
as the name would suggest on the sixth floor of the School Book Depository where Oswald was when he assassinated the president.
In the museum you can see the spot where he sat looking out the window,
and it's set up just as it was that day surrounded by boxes of books
so he couldn't be seen by anyone coming up to that floor or looking in any of the windows,
but one thing that's missing from the recreation or at least I didn't see it
was some fried chicken because it turns out that when police swarmed the building
they also found the remnants of fried chicken and an empty Coke bottle
presumably the meal that Lee Harvey Oswald ate just before he assassinated Kennedy.
Also as haunting as it is to be there in that spot
where American history changed forever, world history really,
it's even more haunting if you just turn around and see a place setting never used.
It was the actual place setting from the Dallas Trademark luncheon
which was where President Kennedy was headed before the motorcade had to change course to Parkland Hospital.
This was the actual place setting that had been reserved for President Kennedy
and there's even a photo on the wall of attendees of this luncheon
as they hear the news that the president was dead.
A sobering thought to keep in mind
as I eat this the last meal of President John F. Kennedy.
And here we are President Kennedy's last breakfast.
So I don't exactly know what to try first but I think I'm going to go with the egg
because it's going to get cold real fast.
Unfortunately I do have an egg white allergy
so I'm just going to get some of the yolk.
It's definitely a lot more runny than than I like my eggs.
Sorry, I just I don't want to go into anaphylactic shock. X_X
Tastes like egg yolk. I don't like-
I don't really like like sunny side up eggs or anything with that runny yolk.
It's not my cup of tea but um it was JFK' clearly.
The next thing I'm going to try is the bacon because I'm hoping I got it nice and crisp per the president's request.
Yeah. Hm! Bacon is just the best thing ever.
I made a whole pound.
I'm not going to eat a whole pound...
right now.
Then I'll take a bite of this toast with marmalade and butter.
I could have toasted it more. It's a little soft. It's very thick.
Probably the problem.
Coffee.
Tastes like coffee.
And finally the fresh squeezed orange juice.
Now that's delicious. I do love some fresh squeezed orange juice. Honestly,
the meal is very simple so the tasting is very simple but
the idea behind it, the history behind that morning anything but simple.
What is simple is making your own website using today's sponsor Squarespace.
Squarespace is the easy way to build a website.
With drag and drop tools like their new fluid engine you can customize the site to make it your own,
and with a huge selection of website templates you can be sure your own is streamlined and easy to use.
Perfect for your personal website or for your business website,
and Squarespace is perfect perfect for business and customers.
They make it easy for your customers to navigate your site and keep them up to date with new products via their blogging tools
and their email campaigns and Squarespace helps you track orders manage inventory and everything else that has to do with bookkeeping,
the least favorite part of any business owner.
So if you're looking to build a website go to squarespace.com for a free trial,
and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com/tastinghistory
for 10% off of your first purchase of a website or domain,
and I will see you next time on Tasting History.