Here's What Jackie Kennedy Used To Eat In A Day

Jackie Kennedy lived a very different life than most people. She came from a high-society family and ended up marrying one of the wealthiest men in America at the time, not to mention that the first lady and John F. Kennedy's marriage was extremely high profile. But their 10-year union abruptly came to an end when JFK was assassinated in 1963 — just one of the many tragedies in Jackie Kennedy's life. Three years after becoming widowed, she married another wildly wealthy man, Aristotle Onassis. Jackie had a staff of people, multiple homes, and a private plane (and we're not talking about Air Force One). The socialite didn't know what it was like to live like most Americans.

But there's one thing that equalizes us: We all need to eat. Despite her wealth, Jackie's go-to meals weren't unlike what the average American was eating during that era, aside from a few very extravagant items. Travel back in time and see what the culinary world was like through a first lady's eyes in the 20th century.

If there's one thing to know about the Kennedys, it's that they were very wealthy. Jackie had one ritual in particular that was indicative of a privileged life — she ate breakfast in bed. While living in the White House, the former first lady had her breakfast delivered to her while she was still in her pajamas. What was on her plate? According to a handwritten note Jackie gave to the Kennedys' former personal chef, Tania Herbst, the first lady requested orange juice, coffee, skim milk, toast, and a boiled egg for breakfast. Though Herbst was the family's chef prior to their stint in the White House, records indicate that Jackie's breakfast didn't change much throughout her adult life.

There were strict instructions for John F. Kennedy's breakfast, too, though he probably didn't eat in bed. JFK had poached eggs on toast, bacon, orange juice, and coffee, a meal he ate every morning until his very last day. While the Kennedys were extremely wealthy, they weren't spending all their money on food. Jackie once left Herbst a note telling her to spend less on groceries. "After the gentleman has left watch out for the expenses for food, the 'bills' feel way too high — you have to economize. I want to do a rerun of $75 a month — while we're away — it'll start with August ... I'll make up the difference when I get home," Jackie wrote in the note.

Jackie Kennedy was a small woman, and at times her diet reflected that. When she wasn't having coffee and toast in the morning, Jackie was known to eat a boiled egg and drink tea, which was part of a diet plan that she followed throughout the entire day. The former first lady has been criticized in modern times for her diet, with many asserting the meal wasn't substantial enough for a grown woman. In the book "Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family," the author, Kathy McKeon, who worked as Jackie's assistant for over a decade after John F. Kennedy was killed, explained that some of Jackie's food choices were tied to her grief after losing her husband. "She never had much of an appetite, and the toll of the horror she survived was plain to see on her painfully thin frame," McKeon wrote.

Though she had all sorts of people at her disposal to cook for her, Jackie did get in the kitchen herself sometimes. The former first lady had at least one recipe for a classic breakfast item that isn't typically seen as a diet food: waffles. Jackie's recipe for the breakfast favorite was included in the 1960s cookbook "Many Happy Returns: The Democrats' Cook Book, or How to Cook a G.O.P. Goose," which was sold to raise campaign funds and featured a foreword by Frank Sinatra. The waffles were known to be crisp and light, a texture that's attributed to the inclusion of egg whites.

There were times when Jackie Kennedy was actively dieting and times when she wasn't, but she was always cognizant of what she was eating. When it came to lunch, one of the fashion icon's staples was cottage cheese with different combinations. Sometimes she'd have cottage cheese with fresh fruit for lunch, and other times she'd have the dairy product with broiled beef and a glass of skim milk. In one conversation with her doctor, Kennedy also shared, "I eat an apple once in a while when I have lunch with the kids," per the Palm Beach Daily News.

Apparently Kennedy was so famous for dieting that others asked her for advice. It seems that Kennedy was eager to help anyone who asked. As her former assistant Kathy McKeon shared in an interview with Fox News, Kennedy helped McKeon lose weight. "You start your day with a glass of water and you must have eight glasses of water throughout the day. Every time before you eat anything, you need to have a glass of water. The diet was cottage cheese, salad, fresh fruit, and broiled chicken or fresh fish. Lots of fresh vegetables," McKeon said of the daily meal plan she followed, which was essentially the same as Kennedy's.

Although Jackie Kennedy had someone on staff to cook for her throughout her entire adult life, much of her diet was the same from day to day, especially while she was in the White House. At that time in her life, Kennedy usually had a cup of broth with a sandwich for lunch. The exact contents of the sandwich haven't been specified, though she was known to enjoy grilled cheese. "She loved grilled cheese sandwiches. And she loved hot dogs that came right off a barbecue grill," Kennedy's former assistant Kathy McKeon said of the first lady in an interview with Fox News.

Kennedy's lunches also changed as she aged, and they varied based on whether she was eating alone or hosting. Kennedy's former personal chef Marta Sgubin detailed what those hosted lunches looked like in her cookbook, "Cooking for Madam: Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis." "If [Kennedy] was having lunch with one friend in the library ... I prepared something like chicken salad or crab salad ([Kennedy] didn't care so much for shrimp) or some kind of vegetable based salad. Also in the summer [Kennedy] liked mussel salad. And there was always pita bread which was split, then each round cut in half, lightly buttered and toasted under the grill, then sprinkled with dill."

Everyone gets hungry, and from the sounds of it, Jackie Kennedy might have been hungry quite often. As one of her staff members once said, Kennedy dieted "with the rigor of a diamond merchant counting his carats," as reported by The Guardian. But she didn't totally deprive herself. When Kennedy wanted a snack, one of her favorites was plain yogurt.

Apparently, Kennedy didn't always take her yogurt plain. As her former assistant Kathy McKeon shared in her memoir, "Jackie's Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family," Kennedy had a trick for making yogurt taste a little better. "If I got hungry in between, I was allowed to get a yogurt. I didn't like plain yogurt, but she would only buy me plain. Madam then said, 'You know, I have a quick tip for you. Put instant coffee in it.' It tasted way better! It was like eating a chocolate pudding," McKeon told Fox News of the diet Jackie Kennedy helped her with when she was trying to lose weight.

Jackie Kennedy didn't just eat healthy food; she had an appetite for sweets on occasion. The first lady would treat herself to some ice cream, as well as other desserts. "If she went into the kitchen and saw my brownies or chocolate chip cookies she would grab one and eat it right there," Kennedy's former assistant Kathy McKeon shared in an interview with People. McKeon added that sometimes Kennedy would sneak into the pantry at night for a snack. "She was eating ice cream out of the container with a big spoon. Not a teaspoon but a big spoon! She was a lot of fun," McKeon said.

Kennedy had plenty of recipes that she made herself — the woman was somewhat of a professional entertainer, after all — and some of them were desserts. One sweet treat that the former first lady was known for baking was a lemon pound cake, and the secret to the dessert's success was using evaporated milk instead of regular milk. While Kennedy was in the White House, she was known for offering her guests French cuisine, and one of the desserts she served was Strawberries Romanoff.

Birthdays and holidays were as special to the Kennedys as there were for any family, and what Jackie Kennedy ate on those occasions reflected that sentiment. Jackie's former personal chef, Marta Sgubin, shared her meal plans for Jackie and her family in the cookbook "Cooking for Madam: Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis." For Jackie's birthday, "The menu changed. In the early days I made vol-au-vent, either chicken or seafood. Later I made a rolled loin of veal, which was the same meal we had for Christmas."

Thanksgiving weekend was another special time for meals in the Kennedy household, made even more special because both John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Kennedy had birthdays right around the holiday. The family celebrated all three events in one weekend, and there was plenty of food to mark the occasions. On Thanksgiving Day, the family would have a light lunch of minestrone soup, pasta or a frittata, along with bread, salad, and fruit. For dinner, they'd have a classic Thanksgiving meal replete with sweet potatoes, creamed onions, peas, string beans, cranberry sauce, salad, stuffing, turkey, and pie. For the birthday celebrations, Caroline and John F. Kennedy Jr. picked their own meals, and Sgubin made them cakes and special desserts.

It's easy to have opinions about Jackie Kennedy's food choices, but the majority of what she ate was very nutritious, and that includes her typical evening meal. For most of her adult life, Kennedy ate some combination of protein and produce for dinner. While Kathy McKeon was her assistant, Kennedy's evening meal was often chicken breast or fish with either a salad or steamed vegetables on the side. Later on, when Marta Sgubin was her private chef, Kennedy would sometimes have Dover sole or a veal chop as her protein.

The former first lady was always game for vegetables. As Sgubin wrote in her cookbook, "Cooking for Madam: Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis," "[Kennedy] liked all kinds of vegetables, so we always had several ... [She] also liked kale and Swiss chard ... She liked kohlrabi ... She also loved braised vegetables, and in the winter we would have braised endive or fennel at least once a week. We also had braised Boston lettuce." Sgubin noted that Kennedy often had her chef prepare vegetables one way for her and another way for her children. Kennedy also preferred low maintenance food, so when she ate artichokes, Sgubin trimmed the vegetables so Kennedy was only being served the hearts.

Like most people, Jackie Kennedy's daily meal plan varied depending on where she was and what she was doing. When she lived in the White House, she often had cold poached salmon, lamb, potatoes, and string beans for dinner. However, when the Kennedys entertained, the first lady's food was quite different from her norm. 

"A Francophile, Mrs. Kennedy modeled her soirees on the court of Louis XIV, where the Sun King used a heady blend of politics, food, and culture to assert himself as Europe's leading 17th-century monarch," author Alex Prud'homme wrote in the book "Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House." "Fine dining was central to her vision, and the Kennedys proved to be the greatest presidential epicures since Thomas Jefferson," Prud'homme continued.

René Verdon served as White House chef during the Kennedy administration, and his meals for guests were spectacular. On the menu at a dinner for Nobel Prize winners in 1962 was seafood mousse with morel mushrooms and lobster, Beef Wellington, and Bombe Caribbean for dessert. To celebrate John F. Kennedy's birthday in 1963, guests had crabmeat ravigote, noodle casserole, asparagus hollandaise, and roast beef fillet.

Jackie Kennedy lived a very lavish life, and her alcoholic drinks of choice reflected that. While in the White House, Jackie wasn't known to drink alcohol on a regular basis, but when she and her husband hosted guests, they'd break out the good stuff. For John F. Kennedy's birthday dinner in 1963, for example, the group had a 1955 bottle of Dom Pérignon to go with their meal. The couple was also known to serve wine from California while hosting, especially during state dinners.

When the former first lady wasn't drinking alcohol derived from grapes, she enjoyed a good cocktail. One of her favorites was a Negroni with a twist, which she first encountered while on vacation in Italy. She also tasted — at least once — the Femme Fatale, a cocktail made specially for Jackie by the Hotel Le Royal in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, during her first trip to the country. The cocktail is still on the menu, and it's made with a mix of crème de fraise des bois, cognac, champagne, and garnished with a tropical flower.

After John F. Kennedy was killed, Jackie Kennedy entered a second marriage with another incredibly wealthy man, oil-shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, and she lived luxuriously until she died. Kennedy didn't always eat like a woman of her status, but every now and again she'd go through phases of having a baked potato with sour cream and caviar. During these periods, that would be her only meal of the day, which would seemingly cut down on grocery costs, but the caviar she ate was of the Beluga variety, which cost $10,000 per kilogram.

Kennedy often ate another expensive food that comes from the sea: lobster. A true East Coast woman, Kennedy was a huge fan of the fishy food, and served it quite often, especially during summers at her place in Martha's Vineyard — just one of the many gorgeous Kennedy family homes. As Kennedy's former personal chef Marta Sgubin wrote in her cookbook, "Cooking for Madam: Recipes and Reminiscences from the Home of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis," "When a lobster was for [Kennedy] and her friends, I would make warm lobster salad with basil vinaigrette. If the children were home, I made Lobster Fra Diavolo, which they preferred."