The Great Archival Cooking Challenge

As you may remember from NARA’s exhibit “What’s Cooking Uncle Sam“, there are records related to food throughout the holdings of the National Archives! As a spring treat, Special Media staff decided to try out some of these historical recipes. We thought about sticking to the recipes in series from the Still Picture Branch – including Photographs of Food Conservation Activities and World War II Posters. But in the end, we couldn’t resist some of the treats described in the holdings of the Presidential Libraries – Nancy Reagan’s recipes from the Samples of White House Handouts, Queen Elizabeth’s Drops Scones from the holdings of the Eisenhower Museum and a recipe we found in Gwendolyn B. King’s Files from the Nixon White House. The food was delicious! Some of the results are pictured below.