Will a bundle like this become the Presidents Day equivalent of Thanksgiving turkey? Probably not.

Photos of our Presidents Day Meal can be found at the bottom of this post.

Why are some of our holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween) laden with traditions and celebrations, while others (Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Columbus Day) generally amount to nothing more than a three-day weekend? Not that we have anything against three-day weekends, mind you.

You probably don't recognize this president. But he was the first to declare George Washington's birthday a Federal Holiday. In fact, that just might be the most memorable thing he did. (It's Chester Arthur.)

In the calendar of holidays, Presidents Day seems particularly moribund. It falls during the bleakest time of year, so picnics are pretty much out of the question for most of the nation. Ditto fireworks, water skiing, or sack races.  In fact, “Presidents Day” doesn’t really even exist on the Federal Holiday calendar. The U.S. government still officially only recognizes Washington’s Birthday, even though in reality, the holiday will never again fall on his actual birth date. (Feb 22nd.) That’s because of a pair of muddled congressional bills enacted in 1968 and 1971 which consolidated most federal holidays to Mondays.  Add into this mish-mosh of holiday evolution the fact that several U.S. states also traditionally celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s birthday (Feb 12th) and were forced to consolidate both birthdays into one date. All in all, it’s no wonder that there’s no special Presidents Day Cake, or Presidents Day Tree, or Presidents Day Turkey Egg Hunt.

As a result, we don’t have much to look forward to each February other than a good Presidents Day Snowblower Sale.

Our well-worn edition of the White House Cook Book

So we decided to do something about that. We thought that food might be a good place to start a tradition, and where better to draw recipes from than the “White House Cook Book,” first published in 1887? Coincidentally, the book was also partially penned by Hugo Ziemann, who was the White House Steward Chef to President Chester Arthur, who happened to be the President who first declared Washington’s Birthday a Federal Holiday. (For more on the history of this bestselling cookbook, read our post here.)

Let’s just admit right now that we don’t think we’ve discovered the next Easter Ham. Or Christmas Goose. In fact, we likely won’t make most of this meal ever again. But it was fun to try, and we’ll attempt some more “White House” dishes next year. And most importantly, we did something to honor the men who have helped lead our great country other than purchase a La-Z-Boy at 50% off.

Presidents Day Menu:

Spiced Beef
Baked Tomatoes
Potato Snow
Lemon Toast

Below are actual scans of the recipes as they appeared in our White House Cookbook. You can see there is much left open to interpretation in each one. At the bottom of this post are photos of the preparation and the resulting meal.

You have to love a recipe confident enough to declare itself “Excellent.” We wound up modifying this dish fairly significantly for several reasons. One: who has a 24 pound round of beef in their freezer? And two: trying to buy a pound of saltpetre these days could likely land you on some sort of Federal Watch List (it’s used in explosives.) So we used a small 4lb roast, covered it in salt and spices, and let it sit for three days, instead of eight. Also, who knows what “broad tape” is? We assumed it must have meant some sort of ribbon, so we substituted strips of cheesecloth.  Check out the photos at the bottom of this post for the full process.

This baked tomato recipe seemed easy enough. In fact it seems downright plain. Which it was. Exactly as advertised.

Who could pass up a recipe that sounds as pretty as Potato Snow? We hoped the authors meant something different by “mealy” than we understand it to mean today. We also love that they added a postscript about how French cooks prepare mashed potatoes. Because when we think of French cuisine, we think of mashed potatoes.

For dessert we decided to prepare this lovely recipe – Lemon Toast. Sounds dainty and First Lady-ish, right? It’s also a bit misleading. The toast itself has no lemon, and the lemon sauce was, well, a disaster. Check out the photos below of the sauce-that-wasn’t and the solution we came up with.

Below are some photos of our meal (click on any photo to begin the slide show) :

If, after all this, you still think you’d like to experiment with more recipes found in the White House Cook Book, we recommend this re-printed edition.