Presidential food

Story from NPR.

Christopher Kimball pronounces billi bi Billy bee and gives an etymology from somebody's name. I've always heard it pronounced Billy Bigh and I'd be very surprised if it weren't from bouillabaisse.

And he talks about Harry Truman's plain tastes following FDR's "ritzy" ones, but the Roosevelts' cook was said to be terrible, and their table austere, perhaps appropriately for a country first in depression and then at war. More here.

Renée Montaigne says that Bess Truman's Ozark Pudding is her favorite of the recipes, but NPR doesn't see fit to give it. Here.

There are all sorts of stories about Billi Bi. The most frequent is that it was named for William B. Leeds (Billy B.) an American tycoon. Some say another American William Brand. Usually said to have been invented at Ciro's in Deauville or Maxim's in Paris in the 1920s, by Louis Barthe, who was a chef at both.

Billy Bee is the pronunciation usually given, although Billy Bye is mentioned as the original French in one report

Pierre Franey (originally from France) of Le Pavilion in New York popularized it in the US. In his NY times Cookbook, Craig Claiborne gave Franey's recipe, but worded the intro in a way that made it sound like Franey invented it.

Franey said in his memoir that Mr. Leeds loved mussels and asked Barthe to come up with a more refined version. It was originally known as "Billi B's soup." FRaney named his boat the Billi Bi.

Did Franey know Barthe, or was he just repeating something he had heard?

Billy Bye is not possible as a French pronunciation of something written Billi Bi. It may have been the original pronunciation, but not the original French pronunciation.

As I look into it more, Leeds seems less plausible than Brand. For one thing, Leeds died in 1908.

Franey didn't get into the restaurant trade in Paris until 1934. He could have met Barthe or heard stories.

From Chez Maxim's: secrets and recipes from the world's most famous restaurant, Presented by the Countess de Toulouse-Lautrec. 1962
>It was Louis Barthe, the former chef at Maxim's, who told me the story behind the Potage Billy By. In 1925, he was working in the kitchen at Ciro's, a restaurant in Deauville known for a special mussels dish with a particularly succulent juice. One day a very good customer, Mr. William Brand, decided to invite some American friends to Ciro's. Mussels are generally eaten with the fingers innFrance, using one double-shell as tongs to scoop the meat out of the others. As Mr. Brand wanted to spare his fiends this delicate operation, he requested that the juice be served without the mussels. It was such a success that during the days that followed, each of his guests returned separately to Ciro's and ordered the "Potage Billy Brand." For the sale of the discretion, it was placed on the menu as "Potage Billy B." and thus was born the "Potage Bill By" which has since become a classic of the French culinary tradition.

What's weird is, I can't find anything about Barthe, except that damned soup. I was beginning to wonder if he existed, until I found the Countess.

We don't know where she got the story either. It just doesn't ring true to me.

It gets curiouser & curiouser. I found two references, in French, that Barthe was chef at Maxim's until 1955. One gives no start date; the other says 1920. If it was 1920, then the Countess is off.

Back to the OP. I'm trying to remember where I read that one reason Mrs. Roosevelt's meals were so awful was that the White House budget was woefully inadequate and that she had to be frugal, especially for non-state occasions. I also read that, like your link says, she didn't care much about food.

I can't find any trace of a millionaire named William Brand. I was hoping to find out if he was called Billy. I think it's probably a derivation of bouillabaisse that was then subject to folk etymology.

I can't find any real indication that billi bi is or ever was known in France. Limiting the search to French language and France, "billi bi" + potage or soupe or moules or recette gets one recipe in the top thirty hits.

It could be from PEI, but we know that it wasn't invented by Franey. And Le Pavillon wasn't his restaurant; it was Henri Soulé's.

Another one:
Waverley Root, Paris Dining Guide, New York, Atheneum, 1969
> I also ran into blank incomprehension [at Maxim's] when I tried to delve into the origin of a specialty in which the house takes particular pride. This is a cream-and-mussel soup, called Billy-by by Maxim's, but in Normandy, where I first encountered it, billi-bi. Its ingredients are consistent with a Norman origin, but actually it was invented at Maxim's and named for an American bon vivant, William B. Beebe, whose friends called him Billy B., pronounced, in French, Billy-by.

Big problem with that one. There are a couple of William B. Beebes out there. An Ohio judge & some guy who bought a slave from Mark Twain's father. Get rid of the middle initial & you get a scientist and some people who are currently alive.

The well-known bon vivant was Lucius Beebe.I don't think he ever lived in Paris, but he surely traveled there. I suppose if he had been the inspiration, we'd be eating Lucy Bi soup.

I forgot to mention one problem with Lucius being the source--in 1925, he would only have been 17. He graduated from Harvard in 1926, went on to grad school there, from which he was expelled.. He was independently wealthy and could have become a bon vivant at a relatively young age, but before 1930 is pushing it.

(Side note, he once tried to tp. J. P. Morgan's yacht by chartering a small plane & bombing the yacht with rolls of toilet paper.)

And of course it isn't called Lucy Bi.

A fascinating exchange between Vinny and Nutrax - and so say all of us (which nobody can deny).

More speculation about billi bi near the end of this:

William Bateman Leeds

Seem there was also a William B Leeds, Jr.