author

Hugo Ziemann

Best known as the co-author of The White House Cook Book, he helped shape one of the most popular American household guides of the late 19th century. His background in elite kitchens gave the book a sense of authority that helped it endure for decades.

1 Audiobook

The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887)

The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887)

by F. L. (Fanny Lemira) Gillette, Hugo Ziemann

About the author

Hugo Ziemann was a chef and hotel steward best remembered for co-authoring The White House Cook Book with F. L. Gillette. The book first appeared in 1887 and became a long-running success, mixing recipes with household advice, menus, etiquette, and health suggestions for everyday domestic life.

Contemporary descriptions in the book’s prefatory material present him as an experienced culinary professional who had worked for Prince Napoleon, later served at the Hotel Splendide in Paris, and then at the Hotel Richelieu in Chicago. The title page of the Project Gutenberg text identifies him as "Steward of the White House," and later library notes say his White House role helped give the book its famous title.

Although modern references suggest that Gillette supplied much of the practical household text, Ziemann’s name remains closely tied to the book’s culinary reputation. Surviving records also indicate he was born in 1853 in Germany and died in Washington, D.C., in 1904.