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Zephyr Wright was great home cook, and a cook in a great home: the White House.
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, the college-educated Wright once thought her future would be limited to doing a lifetime of domestic service in her hometown. That changed when Claudia "Ladybird" Johnson came around in the early 1940s looking for a cook. Some friends recommended Wright, and her successful interview began a thirty-plus year career of making superlative meals for an enduring power couple.
Wright's traditional Southern cooking was an immediate asset for Ladybird and her husband, Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson. Wright kept the Johnsons well-fed on specialties likefried chicken,hash,peach cobbler, andpopovers, and helped them quickly make their home a hot ticket on Washington, D.C.'s dinner party scene. Few passed up an opportunity to sup at the Johnsons' table, and such meals were the perfect platform to build relationships with key staffers in the White House, fellow members of Congress, reporters, and other movers and shakers in Washington, D.C.
Once LBJ became president, he and Ladybird retained White House Executive Chef René Verdon, a French national, who was hired during the Kennedy Administration. But a clear division of labor developed: Verdon prepared all of the VIP meals in the White House's basement kitchen while Wright did all of the home cooking in a private kitchen on the White House's second floor. Chef Verdon's very French cooking didn't mesh well with the Johnson's Texas palate, and he soon resigned. Wright cooked all of the White House meals until Verdon's replacement, Henry Haller, was hired.
Wright's influence extended beyond the White House kitchen. Back when LBJ was in Congress, the Johnsons would drive back-and-forth from Washington, D.C. to central Texas during legislative recesses. Wright suffered so many indignities on those trips due to segregation customs and laws that she ultimately refused to travel by car and stayed in D.C. year-round. While LBJ built support in Congress for the 1964 Civil Rights Act, he used Wright's Jim Crow experiences to shame reluctant legislators into supporting the landmark legislation. After signing the landmark legislation, LBJ gave Wright one of the signing pens. “You deserve this more than anyone else,” he said.
Adrian Miller is author ofThe President's Kitchen Cabinet: The Story of the African Americans Who Have Fed Our First Families, From the Washingtons to the Obamas.
