Richard Nixon's Favorite Breakfast Was Almost As Scandalous As Watergate

Favorite breakfasts of American presidents have ranged from the sumptuous (Thomas Jefferson's coffee, muffins, cornbread, and ham) to the spartan (Joe Biden's Special K), but some of them were, shall we say, a bit unusual. Woodrow Wilson's raw eggs and grape juice combo never seems to have caught on with the general public, but Richard Nixon's preference for curds and whey was shared not only by Little Miss Muffett but by many health-conscious people in the '70s as well as today.

One thing that may have struck some people as odd about Nixon's breakfast is that he'd allegedly eat his cottage cheese topped with ketchup. White House chef Henry Hallett said he never saw any evidence of this habit, but a White House staffer named Stephen Bull referenced the cottage cheese-ketchup combo in a 2007 interview. In his experience, however, the then-POTUS would have this dish for lunch, not breakfast. At a 1969 health conference, Nixon himself admitted that while he ate cottage cheese for its nutritional value (his grandmother, who did likewise, lived to be 93), he never cared for the taste, so the ketchup was meant to disguise it. It mustn't have been too bad, since according to Hallett, ketchup and cottage cheese became quite popular for a while.

It seems that Nixon eventually found a new way to cover up the taste of lumpy curds, because H.R. Haldeman's diaries reference him dining on cottage cheese with pineapple. There's also a cute poem written for Richard and Pat Nixon's 33rd wedding anniversary that includes the following lines: "At lunchtime, they are quite easy to please, they just eat fruit and cold cottage cheese."

While Richard Nixon may have diligently spooned up his daily bowl of cottage cheese, with or without ketchup, he wasn't quite such a stickler for health foods at dinnertime. One of his favorite foods was meatloaf, and he also enjoyed corned beef and cabbage (something he shared with his fellow POTUS Grover Cleveland). Lasagna and spaghetti with meatballs would also appear on the menu, and from time to time, he'd indulge in fancier fare such as beef Stroganoff, beef Wellington, and duck a l'orange.

Besides cottage cheese and ketchup, there is one dish that will forever be associated with Nixon, and no, we don't mean Watergate Salad. It seems that one former Illinois boy scout, who was present at a 1960 barbecue attended by the then-vice president, has been hanging on to Nixon's half-eaten sandwich for over 60 years. The sandwich, which is made of buffalo meat, is something Nixon only nibbled at. While he said nice things about the taste, he was running for office at the time, so this is no indicator of whether he actually liked it or was just being diplomatic. Still, the now-famous sandwich remains live on, while Nixon died back in the '90s.