President Hoover's Favorite Dish Was A Family Recipe

There have been 46 American Presidents, each with a different favorite food – and from turtle steak to fannie daddies and something called "resurrection pie," it's been a wide-ranging menu, to say the least. In the case of 31st President of the United States Herbert Hoover,  his favorite dish couldn't be more tame, comforting, or American: sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows. In fact, his preferred version came from a family recipe. (For the record, JFK's favorite dish, New England fish chowder, was also a family recipe from his childhood.)

Luckily for contemporary foodies, the U.S. government has cataloged Hoover's personal recipe via the National Archives. To make it, mashed sweet potatoes are swirled with butter, nutmeg, salt, and cream for a luscious, rich casserole folded with crunchy walnuts and topped with browned marshmallows. It pairs well with a glass of port and roasted turkey, or these pan-seared pork chops with parsnip-apple purée.

Hoover was born in Iowa and spent most of his childhood in Oregon, but his favorite dish is neither Midwestern nor Pacific Northwestern in origin. Marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes have enjoyed a lush history of their own, and an identity that is broadly "American" rather than regional. The dish started as a marketing ploy by a marshmallow company and quickly gained popularity, cementing itself as a staple dish of American Thanksgiving. 

It's also worth noting that President Abraham Lincoln established Thanksgiving as a holiday in 1863. By the time Herbert Hoover was born in 1874 and subsequently enjoying his family's recipe for the dish, both marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes and an annual Thanksgiving would still have been relatively new American creations. Today, modern foodies in America purchase at least 50 million pounds of sweet potatoes during the week leading up to Thanksgiving every single year, per Business Insider.

Admittedly, Hoover's reputation surrounding food would go on to become muddied when the Great Depression struck the U.S. during his Presidency. The thrifty "Hoover stew" was even named as a jab at the sitting figurehead. But before that, Hoover was a global relief advocate with a special focus on food accessibility (so it's perhaps fitting that his go-to dish was about as accessible and American as they come). He was appointed U.S. food administrator during World War I by then-President Woodrow Wilson for his humanitarian efforts heading the Commission for Relief in Belgium, during which he helped feed nine million displaced civilians who were without food. 

As he later remarked during his time with the American Relief Administration helping folks in war-torn Europe during 1921-1923, "20 million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed" (via Britannica). Hoover also invented and organized "wheatless" and "meatless" days as a collective effort for domestic citizens to help make sure U.S. troops had sufficient rations on the battlefield.