At the table with
Warren G. Harding.

THE HISTORICAL TABLE

Knockwurst before the cards

The Presidents’ Cookbook describes knockwurst and sauerkraut at Harding’s White House stag dinners before poker. The source is a later culinary history, but it preserves a specific domestic association: sausages and cabbage in a setting far less formal than a state dinner.

It is an exceptionally practical presidential supper. Warm the sauerkraut slowly, brown fully cooked sausages, and put mustard and rye bread on the table. The contrast between rich sausage and sharp cabbage does most of the work.