A trove of never-before-seen notes and correspondence from Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has hit the auction block — and reveals what she and husband John F. Kennedy regularly ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The items in question are currently being sold to the highest bidder by Boston-based RR Auction and date between May and August 1958, when the couple lived in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood while Kennedy was serving as a Massachusetts senator.
Onassis penned many of the handwritten notes to personal chef and housekeeper Tania Herbst in French in order to maintain her fluency, according to the auction house. In an English note regarding the daily breakfast, Onassis was rather clear.
“Mr. K—2 poached eggs on Pepperidge toast rounds, crisp over broiled bacon, orange juice-pepperidge white toast-coffee-marmalade. Mrs. K—orange juice coffee toast-skim milk (order toast with no calories) 4 minute boiled egg,” the note said, according to RR Auction.
She continued: “1 envelope Knox gelatin on breakfast tray. Mr. K can eat nothing fried—He likes all these creamed foods, so just give me a salad + raw fruit in place of his desserts + vegetables.”
Other requested meals included: cream soup, elbow macaroni salad, broiled chicken, baked potatoes, steak, hamburgers and “a raw pear for Mrs. Kennedy.” Onassis also wrote out a homemade egg muffin recipe in a mixture of French and English.
The Francophile was famously diligent about running the Kennedy household and supporting her ambitious husband. She notably encouraged him to write “Profiles in Courage” while he recovered from his postwar surgeries, only for the book to win the 1957 Pulitzer Prize.
Among the dozen papers at auction was one correspondence that praised her chef as “a good cook” who “has been with us 11 months” and “is completely honest, sober, reliable and trustworthy.” But Onassis did also urge Herbst to keep their food costs down.
“After the gentleman has left watch out for the expenses for food, the ‘bills’ feel way too high—you have to economize,” she instructed Herbst. “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.”
Some of the correspondence even includes personal letterhead for “3307 N Street,” where the couple lived until Kennedy announced his candidacy — and later moved into the White House. The 35th president of the United States, he was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963.
His nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who is currently running for the presidency himself — recently reiterated his belief that the CIA was involved in his uncle’s murder. Onassis became a professional editor until her death at 64 on May 19, 1994, from non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The auction also includes various photographs of the couple posing with a baby, Kennedy patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., and Kennedy’s brother Ted and his then-wife, Joan. The auction ends July 12 at 7:30 p.m. ET and has amassed more than a dozen bids reaching more than $2,300 as of Wednesday morning.