Special Culinary Exhibitions at the USPCM

QUOTE: "It is furnished more like a Fifth Avenue mansion than a ship’s cabin, containing as it does a piano, settees, lounges, writing tables, etc. The work is executed in oak, carved, and painted white in Louis XVI style. Adjoining this apartment is a stairway that leads to six commodious staterooms for guests. Next to these is the library, finished in oak in Louis XV style and containing 2,000 volumes.” The Daily Republican

UK NEWS ABOUT THIS EXHIBIT: In the Lincolnshire News, UK, Executive Chef Lee Ping Quan is mentioned by name and shared to over 300 news outlets in 2024.

UPDATES: Our July 2023 Starting Committee for this exhibition consists of Alya Lei, Fong Chua, Marti Mongiello, Stormy Mongiello, Michael Chen, Barry Mongiello, Johnson Hor, and others considering helping with Chinese American history. In 2024, we traveled to Chinatown in San Francisco on a historic journey to host a dinner with Steven Lee and his brother-in-law at the famous Sam Wo's Restaurant, where Chef Stormy ordered and had Chop Suey. Chef Quan made his the unique way with a chicken gravy using cornstarch (invented in 1842 by Thomas Kingsford and originally, in New Jersey, was used for laundry services). An epic cross country journey to study Chop Suey, the true Chinese American contributions to creating and building this country, and visiting the first dim sum restaurant in US history led us to the famous Sam Wo's Restaurant (samworestaurant.com) and Hang Ah Dim Sum House Restaurant (hangah1920.com)!

1. See 50+ photos and videos on Facebook here.
2. See the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum here.
3. See the Chinese Railroad Workers History Center here.

Tilted up and down in cable cars ringing with bells and squeals from children we used the steep San Francisco hills like a gymnasium to meet with American hero Steven Lee and his brother-in-law who teamed with friends to save Sam Wo's Restaurant some years back. The 100+ year old recipes were amazing!!! They are actually based on many thousands of years of Chinese knowledge and cooking secrets. Now, as Johnson Hor, Barry Mongiello, and Stormy Neal Mongiello know - the Chef of 45 years working career will retire and Sam Wo's needs new blood to move to San Francisco and accept a salary to continue this epic journey and add new ideas to it. Epic Chefs apply now!

On days two and three we visited with the famed Hollywood actress Alya Lei and Eric Lei to tour the Chinese Historical Society of America Museum and Learning Center and Hang Ah Dim Sum House Restaurant as mind-blowing history class University lessons instructed us about the truth and tastes of excellence. This was America's first-ever Dim Sum House.

We hope you enjoy these videos and photographs (links above) as we use these interviews and lessons taught to us to continue to build upon our Chinese American Executive Chef to the President of the United States exhibition. Few have ever heard of Executive Chef Lee Ping Quan and his love of working for the White House Military Office (WHMO) - and to further exhibits at the US Presidential Culinary Museum (uspcm.org) we knew this journey to Chinatown in San Francisco, CA must be done. Now, this will further be shown in the Asians of the American Revolutionary War Gallery inclusion who fought in Captain John Paul Jones (later a Russian Admiral) Navy and in land forces via the American Revolutionary War Living History Center (arwlhc.com)! See their journey to create the United Colonies mentioned in my latest film short directed and produced at the ARWLHC.

We have nominated Steven Lee for the Distinguished Service Medal from the United States Presidential Service Center (uspsc.org) and we hope to celebrate his contributions to American history soon for all of his work at Sam Wo's, the Chinese American Railroad Workers Memorial Statue and the Chinese Railroad Workers Museum.

HISTORY: Amidst the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, the US Navy acquired the vessel Mayflower from the famed Goelet estate. The yacht became a part of Admiral Sampson's fleet stationed in Havana harbor, engaging in activities such as capturing enemy ships, engaging in naval confrontations, and aiding in enforcing the blockade. Following the conflict, Mayflower assumed the role of Admiral Dewey's flagship before transitioning into a presidential yacht.

In August 1905, the USS Mayflower played a significant role in another notable global event: the Portsmouth Peace Treaty. President Theodore Roosevelt intervened to mediate peace negotiations with the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which reached a standstill.

Notably, the USS Mayflower served as the initial meeting place for Russian and Japanese envoys in Oyster Bay, off the Long Island coast near Roosevelt's residence. The parties then traveled separately to Kittery, Maine, with the Russians aboard the USS Mayflower and the Japanese on the USS Dolphin. Accommodations were arranged at the Hotel Wentworth in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, while negotiations persisted at the Portsmouth Navy Yard in Kittery. Throughout the process, Mayflower hosted various social gatherings. Fortunately, the two nations reached a consensus, ultimately ending the conflict and earning President Roosevelt a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. He is also the only President in history to receive the Medal of Honor.

You can learn more about the USS Mayflower‘s role in the Portsmouth Peace Treaty here and about Roosevelt’s Nobel Prize here. Also, see the New York Times article featuring Chef Quan of the USS Mayflower and President Coolidge for his 58th birthday cake and party here!

After enlisting into the US Navy in the early 1900s, this 1880s-born horse and carriage, candle-using homestead family would see their son become so famous by 1922 in the American Navy that he would be appointed to its highest position of what we now call the White House Staff Mess (WHSM) working for the White House Military Office (WHMO) essentially first created under President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877 to 1881). He would wait many years to finally be able to see trans-Pacific cables laid under the keel of his ships before being able to call his loving family. 

After retiring from the Navy, around April of 1929, Quan moved to New York City and rebuilt the inside of the yacht underground, like going down into a ship, complete with red leather upholstered wall seats and brass portholes, a green light on Starboard and a red lantern for port and holystoned floors they said you could eat off of - he designed it to resemble the luxurious yacht at #28 West 51st Street! What a fascinating and creative brain of genius design, all while serving the same stories and dishes to world leaders. Each story had a dish, and President Coolidge loved Curry of Veal, made by dicing a lean Veal Chop into small pieces and, rolling it with a beaten egg, salt & pepper, and fried in hot, deep fat for three minutes. Later, the rice and curry sauce would be added. The Coolidge's also enjoyed Caviar in Eggs on Toast, Almond Cookies, anything with Walnuts, homemade candies, Fried Shrimp with Russian Sauce, Cantonese-Style Chop Suey, and Roasted Chicken with Currant Jelly. And that's just getting started. The President and First Lady sent a lovely letter on opening day that brought cheer to everyone's hearts. It was a super kind act. By December, Lee Ping was bankrupt across the newspapers, and when the furniture repossession began with threats - he told the reporters, "All I want in here is the letter the President and First Lady sent me!" His next major chessboard move? By 1939, he published his masterpiece book that took the papers by storm. Today, a single copy sells for $1800.00 on the internet. You can read his book only in the finest of libraries.

While cruising on the USS Mayflower down the Potomac to Mount Vernon with guests cheering, the Navy chefs would roll out the Lichee-Nut Fruit Cup as an elegant first dish. This was often the beginning of the Chef's 20-course, mind-blowing dinners that left guests stunned and shocked. But Lee Ping was not a stickler for Chinese food; he made people so happy by cooking what they loved, and that often meant large, dinner-plate-sized griddle cakes (something that angered the President finally one day at the White House due to the Chef making cute, small, matching pancakes) with Vermont Syrup shipped in monthly by five-gallon tins (Chef Quan respected and loved the stories about Calvin being the best syrup maker in his family) and thought these things were fun to learn and make his guests happy. Vermont Country Pickles, Coolidge Pickle Sauce for Ham, Chicken Chow Mein (with a hint of mint due to his growing chickens mistakenly on top of Teddy Roosevelt's former Mint Garden, oops!), and Sailors in Hammocks (an outrageously funny lobster, mushroom, celery, onion, shrimp mixture laid down to sleep in a pancake and the rolled up for night-night and finished by broiling). It's all about getting onto your employer's agenda - not your own, like some snotty Chef. That means his fave of Pork Apple Pie (a dessert), Custard Pie, Grace Coolidge's Lemon Pie, Maple Walnut Cookies, and Apple Pie. Of great note are President Coolidge's famous antics and rude comments about food (sometimes), his wife's and the White House Chef's cooking, during meals - or after. He had the long-term Estate Manager at the White House fired (Mrs. Jaffray). Once one begins studying, one will notice some anger-based episodes and jokes delivered stone cold and deadpan - like the time Grace made an apple pie with handmade crust and the President commented loud enough for the servants to write it down, TO GRACE IN FRONT OF THE FAMILY: "Don't you think a road commissioner would be willing to pay something for this pie-crust recipe?" (1) These are the type of comments some wives would punch a President in the throat for.  A reporter asked him if he had any hobbies. To which he responded: “I hold office.”

Grace was the educated woman light of his life who designed the Sky Parlor on the third floor (we now call this the Solarium at the White House) and always brought kindness and happiness upon every stone they tread. The staff adored her. The First Lady, Grace, adored cooking Chinese food with Chef Quan, which is one of the main reasons they shipped out so often! It was a cooking class with friends! He was so accommodating and filled with joy that he always got things right for the President. And therefore, Calvin, at 5' 10", a Cancer, was all quite happy to head out onto the water, where eating was also fun. Sometimes, the ship would catch a slew of fish and cook them up! This was a bonus joy for guests. Despite the deaths of his mother at an early age, his sister when he was 18, and losing a son, Calvin, with a blister due to no socks on - infected on the White House tennis courts (he would die, regrettably), the President and Secret Service agents would enjoy a pet raccoon on campus as well as riding a mechanical bull for exercise (much to the servants' joy, as well).

President Coolidge brought forth his version of what he stated America needed, "A solemn-ass President." And Chef Quan never minded. He ushered in one of the greatest periods of economic and financial boom, flappers, dancing, speakeasies, joy, women's rights taking hold, and massive prosperity, silencing the scandals of President Harding (which included open sex in broad daylight in Central Park with Nan Britton and DNA-verified evidence of having sex all over the White House, including claims of in a closet, and fathering a child with her that despite "lunatic, pervert woman, and smear scams" that included massive denials by the party and President - were proven in 2015 to be true with grandchildren and medical testing via Ancestry). As soon as Coolidge arrived - he put a stop to this level of filth and disgrace. Once he left and Hoover took over - things were NOT the same. Lee Ping saw it all.

The Coolidge Foundation reminds us of what the well-fed and cared-for President echoed: “In these days of violent agitation scholarly men should reflect that the progress of the past has been accomplished not by the total overthrow of institutions so much as by discarding that which was bad and preserving that which was good; not by revolution but by evolution has man worked out his destiny. We shall miss the central feature of all progress unless we hold to that process now. It is not a question of whether our institutions are perfect. The most beneficent of our institutions had their beginnings in forms which would be particularly odious to us now. Civilization began with war and slavery; government began in absolute despotism; and religion itself grew out of superstition which was oftentimes marked with human sacrifices. So out of our present imperfections we shall develop that which is more perfect. But the candid mind of the scholar will admit and seek to remedy all wrongs with the same zeal with which it defends all rights.” (2) (2.a.)

Chef Lee Ping Quan's overarching legacy can rarely be shadowed by President Coolidge and his unique gifts to the world. As an immigrant, veteran, blue-collar worker, and Chinese American, we now know his entire entrepreneurial story. It is one of backbreaking, hard work that caused pain in the spinal cord, legs, and arms during his entire life of working on his feet. He certainly was not a desk job, a paper pusher who gave speeches for a living behind podiums and on stage. 

The 35 years of lost money he poured into his family and property in Canton was completely erased when the Japanese Officers raped women from the country clubs and wealthy families in society. The middle and lower classes were given to the enlisted soldiers to rape as "comfort women physically," and their homes were lost in fire and destruction. He would never forget this legacy. The giving of himself to the American people and country to become a military veteran and citizen helped build our land into what it is today. In celebration of America250, it is notable to see he re-volunteered at the outrageous onset of WWII for Americans and the unprecedented bombing of Pearl Harbor. Appearing at the recruiting office at 61 years old was covered across the USA newspapers and radio. His zest for hard work, business opportunity, and ethics in opening a restaurant business risked everything to excel at his craft and publish a book about his life in the human race. His resolve and family values taught to him by his uncle's and father's restaurant staff allowed him to succeed beyond bankruptcy, failure, and collapse in the "city that never sleeps" of New York, New York. His power came from the poetry of his bloodline and famed Chinese writer, Ling Po, as Chef Quan wrote a legacy that re-exploded across the news in 1972, some 30 years after his death! As an enduring and timeless visionary - Chef Quan will undoubtedly reveal some of his additional recipes with photographs of finished dishes in the coming years. His star upon all American citizens is far from finishing the business of his life as an inspiration to everyone.

Professor Martin CJ Mongiello, MBA, MA, MCFE - copyright 2023 ©

A minor set of references:

(1)  Cannon, P., & Brooks, P. (1968). The Presidents' Cookbook: Practical Recipes from George Washington to the Present. Funk & Wagnalls. 

(2)  Coolidge, C. (1919). Have Faith in Massachusetts: A Collection of Speeches and Messages. Houghton Mifflin. 

Addl: Commencement Address, Holy Cross College, on June 25, 1919. 

A minor bibliography (not comprehensive of Chef Mongiello's typical six to ten pages of end notes, footnotes, references, and bibliographies at university studies) in APA format:

Chen, Y. (2014). Chop suey, USA: The story of Chinese food in America. Columbia University Press. 

Chen, Y. (2017). The rise of Chinese food in the United States. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. 

Coe, A. (2009). Chop suey: A cultural history of chinese food in the United States. Oxford University Press. 

Colman, E. M. (1927). White House Gossip: From Andrew Johnson to Calvin Coolidge. Doubleday, Page. 

Coolidge, C. (2021). The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge. Open Road Media. 

Coolidge, C. (1924). The price of freedom: Speeches and addresses. C. Scribner's sons. 

Hicks, G. (1997). The comfort women: Japan's brutal regime of enforced prostitution in the Second World War. WW Norton & Company. 

Gilbert, R. E. (2003). The Tormented President: Calvin Coolidge, Death, and Clinical Depression. Greenwood Publishing Group. 

Johnson, R. E. (2013). Far China station: the US Navy in Asian waters, 1800-1898. Naval Institute Press. 

Lee, J. B. (2008). The fortune cookie chronicles: Adventures in the world of Chinese food. Twelve. 

Lee, P., Miller, J. (1939). To a President's Taste: Being the Reminiscences and Recipes of Lee Ping Quan, Ex-president's Steward on the Presidential Yacht, U. S. S. Mayflower, as Told to Jim Miller. United States: Rodale Press.

Liu, H. (2015). From Canton restaurant to panda express: A history of Chinese food in the United States. Rutgers University Press. 

Lu, S., & Fine, G. A. (1995). The presentation of ethnic authenticity: Chinese food as a social accomplishment. The Sociological Quarterly, 36(3), 535-553. 

McLean, B. D. The US Lighthouse Service and the Spanish American War. 

Pell, J. (1930). The Enigma of Calvin Coolidge. The North American Review, 229(5), 513-517. 

Solomon, P. (1933). A Study of Calvin Coolidge. Law Soc'y J., 5, 3. 

Yoshimi, Y. (2000). Comfort women: Sexual slavery in the Japanese military during World War II. Columbia University Press. 

Weekly, A. S., & God, H. L. A. (2012). An active life. 100 American Crime Writers, 315.