Obamas to serve American caviar, steak to French president
February 11, 2014 | 11:04 AM
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will feature food from 13 states tonight when they host a formal state dinner for President François Hollande and 350 guests in a tent on the White House lawn.
Because France has such a strong culinary tradition, the White House staff has traditionally gone to the greatest efforts to present the finest in American food to French presidents.
The White House announced Monday that the dinner will begin with Maine trout during cocktail hour and continue to a first course American Osetra caviar produced in Illinois in tributaries of the Mississippi River and 12 kinds of potatoes grown in New York, Idaho and Pennsylvania.
The main course of dry aged beef will come from a family farm in Greeley, Colo., accompanied by cheese from Vermont. The White House has served beef at four of the five previous state dinners and at the annual dinners for the governors of the 50 states.
Executive pastry chef Bill Yosses, who has undergraduate and graduate degree in French literature and speaks the language fluently, has created a Hawaiian Chocolate-Malted Ganache cake for dessert, Obama Foodorama reported.
At dessert each table will be presented with petit fours in an edible cotton candy bowl spun at the White House. The petit fours will include Vermont maple fudge and short bread cookies made with lavender grown in the first lady's kitchen garden.
The wines will be Morlet “La Proportion Doree” 2011 from Napa Valley, California with the first course, Chester-Kidder Red Blend 2009 from Columbia Valley, Washington with the entree and sparkling Thibaut-Jannison “Blanc de Chardonnay” from Monticello, Virginia with dessert.
For details, follow reports on Obama Foodorama.
