Even President Eisenhower advocated for meat thermometers on steaks!

[Michael_in_TX]

Hi all,

I am currently reading this fascinating book, Inside Camp David written by Rear Admiral Michael Giorgione, USN (Ret.) published in 2017.

It is the story of Camp David, focusing on the history and operations of the presidential retreat. (The author was commanding officer there for three years spanning the Clinton and Bush 43 administrations.) It is a fantastic book, well worth checking out.

(For those not in the United States, Camp David is a presidential retreat about 100 km from Washington DC in a very secure, private, rustic, wooded area. It has been used by presidents since FDR in 1942. Its solitude and idyllic setting has even been used strategically, such as during the Middle East peace talks during the Carter and Clinton administrations.)

In the chapter on food, the author recounts President Eisenhower’s love of steaks. This sent me on a bit of research and I discovered a letter President Eisenhower wrote to a friend, explaining his tastes in steaks, and advocating for the use of meat thermometers.

Here it is:

THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

May 6, 1958

Dear Barry:

I have delayed giving you my personal opinion about the excellence of the steaks you sent to me from Chicago, primarily because I wanted at the same time to answer a question you posed, "How do you cook good meat, especially this particular type of steak, to avoid ruining it?"

In my opinion the first requirement is a meat thermometer and the second is the avoidance of "excessive" heat. The adjective excessive is a variable one. For some cuts and under particular conditions a very considerable heat is quite satisfactory, but by and large most people use too much.

As a general rule the thicker the steak, the greater the distance it should be from the broiler. In the present instance I had them bring the rack in the oven down to the point where the top surface of the steak was at least 7 inches below the broiler (I personally think it could have been 8 inches without hurting it). The broiler was turned on full, and the temperature of the oven itself should not show anything over 300 degrees.

The thermometer should be inserted into the steak from the heavy end, with the point of the thermometer reaching as near to the middle of the steak as you can gauge.

The exact temperature of the interior of the steak at the time of its removal from the oven is a matter for the individual taste. One hundred and forty degrees is normally stated as rare. I personally take off steaks or roasts as the pointer is passing the 130 mark.

As usual, when you take a steak off, salt and pepper it -- but I do not think with steaks of this excellence you need to put any butter over them.

Under separate cover I am sending you a meat thermometer. While it is not exactly the same type as I have normally used, the instructions on the box and in the little booklet give you a perfectly good method of testing its accuracy.

I trust this all works for you, because I assure you that Mamie and I had the best steaks the other evening that I can remember.

As ever,

[Dwight Eisenhower signature]

So there you go, the 34th President of the United States, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe during WWII, and a five-star general says to use a meat thermometer. If that doesn’t banish using the poke test, I don’t know what would.

[jhapka]

I love that he called BS on 140F being rare

[rlozinak]

That's pretty cool!

[Bogy]

Interesting to me that he considers putting salt and pepper on the steak AFTER it is cooked as normal. Many of us consider a dry brine of at least a few hours, if not a day or more, to be best practice. Otherwise, outside of cooking the steak under the broiler of an oven, it sounds like he would have been on the same page as most of us. Of course, that was when the White House chefs were cooking to his specifications. I have no problem at all envisioning Eisenhower at a charcoal grill.

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Well cooking the whole time in your oven via the broiler would create quite the toxic cloud if the pepper and seasonings were preapplied. One of our pubs in the UK had the hot rock steaks, and if a guest put seasoning on the meat before instead of after cooking that slice on the hot rock, the whole pub got fumed out.

[Murdy]

Seems like he was sniffing around reverse sear too.

[Michael_in_TX]

I have no problem at all envisioning Eisenhower at a charcoal grill.

Here he is cooking at a small charcoal grill on the third-floor solarium at The White House in 1959.


(Source: Eisenhower Library)

And here he is with former President Herbert Hoover grilling steaks in Colorado in 1954. Note the suits.


(Source: White House News Photographers Association)

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

hmmm.... https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fi...5&d=1662417916

[ItsAllGoneToTheDogs]

Draznnl I actually had my comment loaded up before yours was showing, just took me a bit to find the full size pic

[Bogy]

A tongue in cheek book my aunt gave my dad when he was ordained in 1952 gave advice to pastors. One chapter discussed the pastor's wardrobe. He was to buy a couple of new black suits each year, some new white shirts, and a couple of black ties. You never threw the old ones away, they just moved down the rack and the ones on the other end were worn when the pastor fished or gardened. The BBQ suits were probably somewhere in the middle.

[FireMan]

The dude belongs in the Pit! Posthumously of course.

[jfmorris]

I like it that a President actually knew how to cook steaks, and that he took them off as the temp passed 130, way back when the rule of thumb was to cook them much much higher than that.

[FireMan]

I do believe he was a Texan, yessir.

[Bogy]

FireMan Dwight may have been from Texas, but Mamie was an Iowa girl, so we know who the real commander was.