White House chief pastry chef Roland Mesnier, who often produced wonderful sweets for five presidents and their visitors, has away at the age of 78.
The White House Historical Association, which reported that he passed away on Friday after a brief illness, verified his passing on Saturday.
Rosalynn Carter, the first lady at the time, recruited Mesnier, one of the chefs who worked at the White House for the longest, and he resigned during the George W. Bush administration.
Roland Mesnier, the White House’s pastry chef, poses in the State Dining Room on June 14, 2004, in Washington, D.C. (TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Pictures) )
On 2004, while responding to inquiries in an online “Ask the White House” forum, he revealed that he often had to make thousands of pastries when making desserts not just for the first family but also for parties, receptions, and dinners. According to him, he planned the quantity of pastries based on the number of guests.
In the 25 years that Mesnier has worked here, he has discovered that Democrats often consume more food than Republicans. I’ve also noticed that when there are predominantly female visitors, women seem to consume more pastries than males.
He became well-known for the beautiful gingerbread homes he created to help adorn the White House over the Christmas season. Additionally, he said that he needed to prepare more pastries than normal for holiday gatherings since some of them had a propensity to “slip into pocketbooks or pockets” and often turned up as Christmas tree decorations in people’s houses.
With nine siblings, Mesnier was raised in the commune of Bonnay in eastern France. At the age of 14, he started working as an apprentice. He reportedly left home with a cardboard bag and five francs to start his apprenticeship at the Patisserie Maurivard in Besançon, France, according to White House records. Before earning a position at the Savoy hotel in London, he subsequently worked in Paris and the German towns of Hanover and Hamburg.
He took a job as a pastry chef at a Bermudan hotel in 1967, when he met his future wife, a West Virginia schoolteacher who was on vacation. He learned that the White House was seeking for a new pastry chef ten years later when he was employed at The Homestead resort in Virginia.
In response to a query about his time in the White House in 2004, he said: “You don’t consider having spare time, free time, etc. as you are now in the White House. You have to be there whenever you are required.”
“You are going to be in the White House if you are required,” he stated. “It might be Christmas day, Easter, your birthday, your mother’s birthday, your child’s birthday.”
“The White House comes first, always.”
George Mesnier, his son, is the only heir.