6 US Presidents Who Enjoyed Cooking

White House food is usually associated with White House chefs. But those chefs aren't the only ones doing the cooking for the president and First Family. Over the past couple of centuries, a number of presidents have whipped up some food, too, and while it was sometimes out of necessity, it was also often out of enjoyment. A couple of presidents even became known for certain cooking methods or recipes, inserting their own takes on dishes into the household recipe collections of much of the nation.

Earlier presidents who cooked tended to do so out of necessity, learning to cook as children or learning to prepare food to eat while in the wilderness. They may have really liked preparing the food, but there was an element of life-or-death self-sufficiency behind their being able to cook. Later presidents, however, liked cooking from more of a skill and interest angle. They cooked a wider range of foods, too, as they had access to modern markets and weren't relying solely on what they could hunt or buy at a rural general store. While these six U.S. presidents who enjoyed cooking still had White House chefs prepare their meals once they entered the Oval Office, most of them continued cooking even then.

Abraham Lincoln's name isn't usually associated with kitchens, but he liked to cook. Or, at the very least, he didn't mind it. Lincoln learned to cook out of necessity, rather than interest. He and his sister had to take over cooking duties as children when their mother died, and apparently became so good at it that others were happy to leave the task to him. When he and some family members were hired to build and transport food to New Orleans, Lincoln was the cook throughout the entire construction and boat journey. The food was fairly plain, and their diet consisted mainly of biscuits and fish caught from the river, but no one offered to take cooking duties away from Lincoln. Also, when he was still working as a lawyer in Illinois, he'd help his wife make dinner when he came home. Neighbors reported seeing him help with the shopping and cooking.

During the Black Hawk War in 1832, Lincoln and the soldiers had to cook their own food, often improvising with weapons as utensils or makeshift cooking pans, and whatever ingredients they could find. Meals could consist of bread made only from flour and water to stews made with chickens from abandoned farms. Whether Lincoln loved cooking or merely didn't mind it, there's no doubt that he willingly prepared meals for himself and others.

Theodore Roosevelt was known for loving good food. His meals were huge, with some saying he'd have a full pound of bacon, whole pots of coffee, several cookies, or 12 eggs. However, Roosevelt wasn't just sitting around waiting for others to cook for him. He was known to his family as an avid and very good cook, and knew ways to reuse bacon fat for flavoring when frying up either chicken or beefsteaks, onions, and potatoes. If the family was camping, Roosevelt was the cook, and his son and nephews in particular just loved his food.

But surprisingly, there isn't much more that states what else he cooked. Historians do know that Roosevelt hunted regularly, and it was a bison-hunting trip in the Dakota Territory that influenced him to start cattle ranching in what later became North Dakota. He'd often leave the ranch and cattle in the hands of employees and go back east to work in politics. However, he'd come back to the ranch regularly, and it appears that he provided a great deal of food through hunting. His diary from 1886, for example, shows that he'd shoot sharptailed grouse, prairie chickens, and deer for meals. Given that those bacon-fat potatoes would make a regular appearance, it's not a stretch to think that Roosevelt was also involved in cooking the game that he'd brought back.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's time in office left two distinct marks on the food world. One was Eleanor Roosevelt's reputation for serving terrible food in an effort to show Americans how to make nutritious meals for very little money during the Great Depression. The intent was well-placed, but the actual cooking became infamous among guests and White House occupants.

But the other mark was Franklin Roosevelt's doing. He may have left most of the cooking up to other people, but he would quickly grill up a hot dog when given the chance. The family would gather around a little grill that he'd set up on a stool and have hot dogs. In fact, FDR liked them so much that he turned his grilling skills into clever diplomacy.

In 1939, when the Roosevelts hosted the U.K.'s King George VI and his wife, Queen Elizabeth, FDR decided to serve hot dogs. Keep in mind, something this informal simply wasn't done with royalty, so it got the public's attention — and even newspaper headlines about the royal visit focused on the hot dogs. This picnic, which went very well, is considered one of the events that brought the two countries closer together as World War II began to devour Europe. Had Roosevelt not liked to grill them so much, he might have chosen to serve something else, and world history could have turned out very differently.

If any U.S. president liked to cook, it was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He wasn't just appreciative of good cooking — this was a president who created recipes himself and who turned military kitchen inspections into culinary investigations, impressing chefs with his interest in whatever happened to be on the stove. This love of cooking was lifelong, and even moving to the White House with its chefs didn't stop Eisenhower from firing up a grill on the regular.

The Eisenhower Presidential Library website has links to some of his recipes, but three in particular stood out to home cooks. One has become known as the Eisenhower steak, a thick slab of beef cooked directly on hot coals. The other two were his vegetable soup and beef stew, which became enormously popular with Americans. But these weren't the only things he liked to cook. He'd make breakfast for everyone while on vacation, making cornmeal pancakes so delicious that one staffer reportedly ate either 11 or 17 of them in one sitting, depending on which source you go with. Other recipes he'd make included tamales and chili con carne.

Eisenhower did have criticisms of some foods, especially SPAM, which he had to eat plenty of during World War II. He was also keenly aware of tracking meat temperatures and was an early adopter of meat thermometers — even sending one to someone who had asked him how to cook steaks properly.

Jimmy Carter liked being in the kitchen. He taught his wife Rosalynn to cook, and while they had a housekeeper, the Carters still made many of their own meals until they moved into the White House. The couple ate simply: lunches were invariably sandwiches and soup. The two liked vegetables and weren't fans of sauces; desserts weren't common, though Carter did like peach ice cream.

When the Carters returned to Georgia, they once again made some of their own meals. The rest were left to housekeeper and cook Mary Prince, who told Atlanta journalist Jim Auchmutey that the Carters would cook evening meals and Sunday-morning pancake breakfasts. Auchmutey spoke with Prince while the Carters helped prepare a meal on Paula Deen's show in 2006. When Deen asked Jimmy Carter if he was a good cook, he replied that he used to be. He mentioned cooking quail and grits, and almost took over when the two were cooking grits and Deen hadn't yet added them to the water. Deen sounded impressed with Carter's stovetop skills as they continued cooking.

Speaking of those grits, when daughter Amy Carter was interviewed by a New York Times reporter in 1976 about Jimmy Carter's love of cheese, she said that he'd make grits with two eggs and some cheese. That same reporter also noted that Carter liked to catch and cook catfish, hunt and prepare ducks himself, help out at barbecues, and hold a fish fry now and then.

Barack Obama's administration is remembered for its health policies, including modifying school lunch programs to increase the nutritional value of the meals. Michelle Obama set up a new White House kitchen garden to promote eating vegetables and fresh food. But Obama's cooking habits also got their time in the spotlight when the First Lady revealed that the President excelled at a few recipes.

Apparently, the 44th President makes terrific chili, stir-fries, and omelets. Michelle Obama told E! News in 2021 that before moving to the White House, the couple used to invite people over just to make some of that chili, which contains classic seasonings like cumin and chili powder along with red wine vinegar and turmeric. The recipe isn't without a little controversy, though, because it also contains beans. Keep that in mind if you want to make the recipe for someone from Texas, where traditional chili does not contain beans.

Despite the limited repertoire, Barack Obama didn't mind making other foods. When Jimmy Kimmel asked him in 2015 whether he had to wake people up to get a sandwich in the middle of the night, Obama said he wouldn't wake anyone up for that and could make his own food.