'Mr. K can eat nothing fried': Jackie Kennedy meal plans up for auction
Presidential memorabilia-loving foodies have a chance to own a piece of political culinary history, with a collection of Jacqueline Kennedy’s handwritten meal plans up for grabs at auction.
The items being bid on at RR Auctions include letters and notes from Kennedy to Tania Herbst, the future first family’s personal chef when they lived in Georgetown in 1958, when John F. Kennedy was a Massachusetts senator before winning the 1960 White House race.
Written in both English and French by Jacqueline Kennedy, who spoke multiple languages, the messages give specifics on both her and her husband’s eating habits.
“Mr. K,” as Kennedy called her spouse, “can eat nothing fried,” the former first lady wrote.
“He likes all these creamed foods, so just give me a salad [and] raw fruit in place of his desserts [and] vegetables,” she told Herbst in a note.
Breakfast for the soon-to-be president, Kennedy advised, should include “two poached eggs on Pepperidge toast rounds, crisp over broiled bacon, orange juice, Pepperidge white toast, coffee and marmalade.” Kennedy emphasized that the bacon specifically be “over broiled” by underlining it on the paper.
Kennedy instructed that she preferred “orange juice, coffee, toast, skim milk” as well as a “four minute boiled egg, one envelope Knox gelatin on breakfast tray” and that the toast should be ordered “with no calories.”
Other dishes on the couple’s meal plan included: homemade cream soup, broiled chicken, steamed elbow macaroni salad, puree of creamed spinach, orange Jello, a hamburger, peas, meringue and whipped cream and “a raw pear for Mrs. Kennedy.” A card in the collection also includes a handwritten recipe, penned in a mix of French and English, for egg muffins.
Bidding — which ends on Wednesday at 6 p.m. — for the food-filled Kennedy collection topped $2,300 on Tuesday afternoon.