Nesbitt reported that the staff was overwhelmed by the latest technological innovations. Stainless steel storage and counter tops were installed throughout.

New equipment included six roasting ovens, a sixteen-foot-long stove, eight refrigerators, five dishwashers, a soup kettle, a meat grinder, waffle irons, multiple mixers, a thirty-gallon ice-cream storage freezer, and a deep fryer that held five gallons of fat. The renovation, planned by the White House staff and engineers from General Electric and Westinghouse corporations, reconfigured the working space, replaced rusted pipes, put in a whole new electrical system with all-new electric appliances, and installed more efficient dumbwaiters to transport the food to the State Floor dining rooms above. During the Depression, the jobless rate was exceedingly high and Franklin Roosevelt insisted relief workers be employed for the reconstruction whenever possible. 634 was instituted demolition and new construction on the kitchen began in the summer of 1935. “There is only one solution,” she told Mrs. Even the electric wiring was old and dangerous. The refrigerator was wood inside and bad-smelling. Dark-looking cupboards, a huge old-fashioned gas range, sinks with time-worn wooden drains, one rusty wooden dumb waiter. Roosevelt and I poked around, opening doors and expecting hinges to fall off and things to fly out. This was the ‘first kitchen in America,’ and it wasn’t even sanitary. No matter how you scrub it, old wood isn’t clean. In her book White House Diary she describes her first inspection of the premises-“I can’t work up any charm for cockroaches. When she toured the White House kitchen in 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt’s housekeeper Henrietta Nesbitt found cockroaches crawling in its cupboards. Discussion Questions for Young People at Home and in the Classroom.A Sampling of Recipes from the First Ladies and a Few from the Presidents, too!.A Taste of the Past: White House Kitchens, Menus, and Recipes

Amadine rose tea