At 18 most teenagers have just started their first job and are weeks away from graduating from high school. Forget about setting the world on fire. Chef Boyardee on the other hand was the chef who led the catering for President Woodrow Wilson’s second wedding when he came of age according to The New York Times . This feat is impressive not only because of the chef’s age but also because he had not been in the United States very long. He was the stuff of American myths. Ironically he was not even old enough to vote for president when he cooked for Wilson that fateful day.
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 Great Big Story | 2015-11-03 07:00:01 |  3,739,565 Views |
Chef Boyardee goes to battle
The Italian immigrant born Ettore "Hector" Boiardi landed on American shores in May 1914 when he was just 16 years old according to an Ellis Island passenger record. A little over a year later in December 1915 the young chef was tasked with catering the president's wedding to Edith Galt. What he served is unknown but it's likely his Italian heritage inspired the wedding meal.
There’s no doubt about it Chef Boiardi’s cooking made him a prodigy a fact that likely helped him get hired at The Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia where he was reportedly working when he agreed to cater the president’s reception. Oh and somewhere in between all that he also managed to land a spot as executive chef at the Plaza Hotel. His early life and career were the kind of things aspiring chefs can only dream of.
Chef Boiardi’s Italian cooking seems to have sparked a culinary love affair between the president and the young chef. When it came time to find someone to prepare a memorable meal for 2000 soldiers returning to American shores after World War I it was Hector Boiardi the president chose to cater the illustrious event Utah Public Radio reported. But Hector’s political and military culinary stints went far beyond cooking for 2000 men for an afternoon. In 1942 many years after catering to the president and the troops Chef Boiardi made a deal with the U.S. government to make canned food for soldiers fighting overseas during World War II. By then there was a Chef Boyardee plant in Milton Pennsylvania that ran 24/7 during the latter part of the war.
