Secrets from the White House Kitchen, According to the Chefs: 'For the First Two Weeks I Was Scared to Death'

MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty First Lady Michelle Obama discusses the menu for the 2009 Governors� Dinner February 22, 2009 as White House Chef Cristeta Comerford (2nd R) and White House Pastry Chef William Yosses (R) look on in the kitchen of the White House in Washington, DC

The smells of roast buffalo, smoked suckling pig and chargrilled chicken wafted through the balmy air in May 1979 when Japanese Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira arrived at the White House to greet then-President Jimmy Carter.

The over-the-top menu - created in a scramble after White House Social Secretary Gretchen Poston discovered that Ōhira had long desired to sample American-style barbecue - set the tone for the evening, spurring important diplomatic agreements and resolving lingering issues surrounding a trade dispute.

When the press caught wind of the meal, a new term was coined: barbecue diplomacy.

"A menu might seem inconsequential," White House historian Lina Mann tells PEOPLE.
"But there is a lot of thought that goes into it - particularly when it's being served to some of the most powerful people in the world."

Those who work in the White House kitchen have remained largely in the background for decades, just out of the spotlight but always close at hand to cater both state dinners and snacks as simple as a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Chef Andre Rush first began cooking at the White House in 1997, after serving as a cook and trainer in hand-to-hand combat and food service for the U.S. Army.

"The first time I stepped foot inside the White House, I didn't even look anywhere," Rush, a retired Army master sergeant, tells PEOPLE. "I didn't look left, I didn't look right, I just asked what I had to do."

He has since cooked for the administrations of Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

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White House Historical Association In this photograph, taken May 2, 1979, a group including President Jimmy Carter, Social Secretary Gretchen Poston, and White House Executive Chef Henry Haller inspect the preparations on the West Terrace for a State Dinner to be held for Prime Minister Masayoshi Ōhira of Japan.

Rush earned his culinary stripes cooking for a host of other powerful people, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was during that time that he grew to understand the responsibility and stress so often a part of his job.

"My head chef at the time made this puzzle cake, which takes two days to make," Rush remembers. "The first day I was there, he went to cut the cake and, for the first time in his life, it fell apart. He went into shock."

Eager to earn his place in the kitchen, Rush said he would fix it.

"I ran down to the mezzanine in the Pentagon and begged for four frozen cakes and some praline and other things," he says. "I ran back up and put it all together within five minutes of serving. I cut it, and it came out perfect."

Six months later, he was working in the White House.

"I don't ever remember it being intimidating; just a very humbling experience. I'm here in front of the world leader - regardless of who they are, or what side they are on - and just imagining what he or she goes through every day," Rush says.

While preparing meals for presidents and other dignitaries may have seemed like the most exciting part of the job, Rush says he most relished time spent with first ladies.

"I'm actually even more impressed by them, because I know behind the scenes [it's] FLOTUS," he says. "It's like a military spouse. They get the residuals. They're guilty by association. And a lot of people don't know that responsibility is on FLOTUS to hire the chef."

Indeed, the first ladies' differing influences on the White House's culinary evolution can be traced throughout history.

In 1961, Jacqueline Kennedy hired French-born Chef René Verdon to preside over sophisticated, three-course affairs. Come 1993, Hillary Clinton tapped chef Walter Scheib from The Greenbrier, an upscale West Virginia, resort, to focus on American ingredients with a healthful slant.

Upon her move into the White House in the 2000s, Michelle Obama prioritized healthier national eating habits, establishing a kitchen garden in 2009.

Shealah Craighead/White House via Getty First lady Laura Bush (6th R) poses with Rabbi Binyomin Taub, Rabbi Hillel Baron and Rabbi Mendy Minkowitz and the kitchen staff as they make the White House kitchen kosher December 6, 2005 in Washigton, DC

While many modern White House chefs are no longer hired by the first lady (instead remaining in the kitchen even as administrations turn over), the food prepared there still serves as an illustration of a particular place in history and time.

"During the Roosevelts' time in the White House - because it was during the Great Depression and World War II - they didn't serve elaborate meals," says Mann, the historian. "So people weren't exactly thrilled with the food. It was very simple and not considered particularly tasty, and that was a reflection of the time."

Other presidents simply craved the simpler things.

"Richard Nixon loved cottage cheese and that was served to him all the time," Mann says. "His last meal in the White House was just a dish of cottage cheese."

Ronald Reagan, she adds, loved jelly beans and would have a dish of them on the table during meetings in the Oval Office.

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State dinners and parties, on the other hand, were and remain an all-hands-on-deck affair in which nearly every member of the White House staff is involved.

As Rush explains, staff receives a "syllabus" outlining all that will be needed to prepare for the event.

"You have to know all the nooks and crannies to understand how it flows," he says. "There are some foods that could be insulting to other cultures. If they have a sacred animal that they cherish, you have to be cognizant of that."

Then there's the matter of plating, which Rush says can be problematic due to overcrowding in the kitchen, which is often full of priceless antiquities.

"You can't drop or break anything; no rushing," he says. "Everything has to be premeditated so it will go smoothly."

He continues: "Food can start wars and food can end wars, literally. People don't realize how important it is, especially in the White House. There's no second chances. You can't make mistakes."

Monica Schipper/Getty

Though the everyday cooking that goes on in the White House isn't as involved as all, it's still subject to many rules and regulations.

For one thing, security is a major precaution, with all of the members of the kitchen staff vetted and background-checked before ever setting foot in the building. "It took about 14 months before I could even come to work," Martin Mongiello, who has cooked for six U.S. presidents at both the White House and Camp David, tells PEOPLE.

Though he eventually grew comfortable being "in the president's bathroom, his bedroom, and the kitchen," Mongiello says there was a steep learning curve.

"For the first two weeks I was scared to death," says Mongiello, now the CEO of the United States Presidential Culinary Museum.

One thing that helped him grow more comfortable in the role, he says, was learning that, beneath the pomp and circumstance of the presidential title, these were just regular - hungry - people.

"Bill Clinton would come in the kitchen and say, 'Oh hey Marti, how are you?' " Mongiello says. "He would sit down with us while we had a movie on in the kitchen and just talk to us for an hour. The first time he pulled that stunt, I almost cut my damn fingers off cutting carrots. it was like, 'Gosh this dude is a really affable person.' He just wanted to relax."

Mongiello says Mrs. Clinton was just as casual, often coming into the kitchen with a bright green facial mask - "all you could see were two perfectly round areas around her eyes, where the cucumbers had been" - to grab a snack.

"She was a fun person to be around," he adds.

If Clinton or any other president wanted something in particular, Mongiello says, they would utilize one of a few "mahogany boxes with gold presidential seals" scattered around the White House.

"If you push the red button, a guy would show up with a Diet Coke on a silver platter," he says, adding that it was usually a military valet or butler who brought the president their treat.

"The staff kind of follows around the president or vice president with the box," Mongiello says. "We had a couple of the boxes that would be moved around and when they pressed the button, the chime goes back into the main office and kitchen, so you could hear it in a couple of different places. We were hyper-attentive waiting for it to chime."

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Of course, there's also the matter of procuring the food that will feed the first family - and doing so safely. At the White House, groceries are purchased throughout the week, generally at a different store each time, without much fanfare, so as not to raise any eyebrows. "We do have shoppers that would go out clandestine every day," Mongiello says.

And then comes the issue of storage - a challenge in a kitchen that's smaller than what some might imagine.

"You have to over-anticipate what a family might want," Rush explains. "If FLOTUS or the president or the kids want something, it's usually already in-house. It's not like you can just go to the store real quick to pick something up."

That means the personal preferences of the president's family are kept in mind when shopping so that favorite foods are always on hand when a craving strikes.

"I've seen a couple of the presidents sneak an unhealthy treat up to their quarters or pass through the kitchen, grab something and keep going - like a piece of candy. Or maybe they have a quirk where they only eat one color of M&Ms," Rush says.

"And we had a president who banned broccoli from the White House," he adds, a subtle nod to a comment made by George H. W. Bush in 1990, when he told reporters, "Just as Poland had a rebellion against totalitarianism, I am rebelling against broccoli, and I refuse to give ground."

Though Rush is mum on which presidents had a certain hankering for which types of junk food, he says there was one who was known to have staffers scout out fast food restaurants while he was traveling, making "drive-bys to get food and eating it while driving from one place to the next."

Mongiello echoes that story, noting that President Clinton in particular "loved McDonald's."

The kitchen itself has gone through a several renovations, transitioning from wood-fired cooking to gas ranges in the 1860s and then undergoing a dramatic renovation in the 1950s, under the Truman administration.

In the 1960s, a small "family kitchen" was added to the executive residence to allow for the easy preparation of snacks and breakfasts without the need for a full staff.

As the White House kitchen has evolved, so have culinary trends - with some presidents requesting specific meals based on what their guests might be interested in.

That was the case during one meal of Mongiello's tenure, when he got a call with a unique request: "Bill and Hillary Clinton were going to have the Gores over for dinner, and I was told that Tipper [Al Gore's wife ] was on the Pritikin diet."

With a few days to plan, Mongiello settled on a seed bread-stuffed capon - a sophisticated dish that wouldn't break the rules.

There was just one problem.

"This dish had a weird ingredient in it, called millet. Whole Foods didn't exist back them, so health food ingredients weren't easy to find," Mongiello says. "We sent four shoppers out for two days, and they went to 10-15 places and couldn't find it. I finally wound up buying it at a hardware store, in a bag marked 'bird seed.' I cleaned it, prepped it and served the capon, and no one was the wiser."