The Bizarre Way President Eisenhower Cooked His Steaks

We can never get enough presidential fun food facts. People love knowing that Thomas Jefferson was a huge mac and cheese fan (although he didn't actually invent the stuff). Then there are the rumors that the real-life Chef Boyardee catered Woodrow Wilson's second wedding. (This may or may not be true, but either way, it's unlikely that canned ravioli was on the menu.) Some presidents have been real meat-and-potatoes men, including Donald Trump, who likes his steaks well done with a side of ketchup. While this preference got some food critics in a tizz, they'd really have been clutching their pearl onions had they been around during the Eisenhower administration; he liked his steaks cooked on top of burning coals.

If that doesn't seem so strange, we direct your attention to the words "on top." The usual term, when speaking of grilled steak, is "over coals," since generally there are grill grates and an inch or so of air separating the meat from the coals. President Eisenhower, however, would build a campfire right on the White House lawn – apparently presidents could do that in the 1950s — and throw the steak directly onto the coals. If he was going for shock value, he apparently succeeded, since contemporary accounts report guests attempting to save the meat from its fiery fate. Once they tasted the results, though, they soon learned there was a method to Eisenhower's apparent madness. The steaks, odd though it may seem, were always perfectly cooked.

The Eisenhower steak, also known as the caveman steak or outdoor steak – the last one being the term President Eisenhower preferred to use — isn't some weird fad that died out in the '50s but a respected technique that's still popular with grill enthusiasts today. It works best with steaks at least an inch and a half thick, although President Eisenhower preferred to cook and serve 4-inch steaks.

If you want to cook steaks like President Eisenhower, the method is pretty simple: Make a fire using lump charcoal (not briquettes, as these are much too ashy). Spread the coals in a single layer once they're red hot. Season the meat, then right before you plop it onto the coals, fan them to blow away any surface ash. Don't worry about the steak getting too ashy as it cooks; its outside is sufficiently wet that it will prevent the coals underneath from forming any more ash. Keep flipping the steak every minute to a minute and a half until it's as done as you like it. Since the meat will have been in direct contact with the flames, the surface will be so hot that the residual heat will last longer than meat grilled the conventional way. This means that for a medium-rare steak, you'll need to take it off the grill when the internal temperature hits 115 degrees Fahrenheit.