At the table with
Andrew Johnson.

THE HISTORICAL TABLE

Sweet potatoes from a Tennessee kitchen

Andrew Johnson’s food traditions belong to the Southern cooking of his Tennessee home. Later presidential culinary accounts associate that household with sweet potatoes and other substantial, inexpensive foods. They offer a regional starting point for a dessert made from a crop that could be stored and used well beyond harvest.

This pudding reconstructs the sweet-potato side of that table. Roasting concentrates the flavour before the flesh is mashed with milk, eggs and warm spices. Baked in one dish, it becomes a soft, spoonable dessert that works with an ordinary family dinner.