White House chef made food, kept secrets

Henry Haller, the longest-serving executive chef in the history of the White House, who fed five presidents, died Nov. 7 at home in Maryland. He was 97.

Haller was a Swiss-born French chef who joined the White House in 1966 after impressing President Lyndon B. Johnson with his cooking at New York's Sheraton-East Hotel.

A consummate professional who was known not to gossip, Haller catered to the tastes of the first families.

Johnson liked Texan food and tapioca pudding. For the Nixons, it was classic French dishes, red snapper and broiled lamb chops. The Fords enjoyed roast beef cooked with whole onions as well as red cabbage with pork chops; Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter liked fried chicken, ham, okra and string beans; and Ronald and Nancy Reagan valued variety and beautiful presentation.

Haller came to the White House after René Verdon — the French-born chef brought in by the Kennedys in 1961 — quit in 1965 in a dispute with Johnson over the arrival of frozen and canned vegetables in the pantry.

His biggest challenge came from Nancy Reagan. She insisted the planned meal be cooked before important functions so she could suggest changes.

Haller was also summoned to see Johnson after a dinner in which he had failed to remove the strings from the green beans.

“I went in, and he had some strings from the beans in his hand,” Haller said. “He handed them to me and said, `I saved these for you.'”

In 1973, he produced a dinner for 1,300 people honouring returned Vietnam POWs. In 1978, after the signing of the Camp David Accords, Haller had a week to create an event for 1,300 guests of the Carters.

One of his greatest triumphs was a lobster mousse made from his own mould — thanks to a sheet-metal worker on staff — for French leader Jacques Chirac.

Henri Haller was born in Altdorf, Switzerland, on Jan. 10, 1923. At 16, he apprenticed at the Park Hotel in Davos, studying French, German and Italian cooking.

At 25, he moved to Montreal's Ritz-Carlton, then to New York City in 1951.

He left the White House in 1987 after 21 years.

His wife, Carole Itjen, survives him with four children and five grandchildren.

On the day Nixon resigned, Haller said, the president walked into the kitchen in pyjamas, and asked for corned beef hash and a poached egg. Nixon then shook Haller's hand and said, “Chef, I have dined all over the world, but your food is the best.”

Henry Haller