IF YOU believe the old adage that you are what you eat, it is not surprising America's current president seems artificial, bland, insipid and rather unsubstantial. The man who cooked President George W Bush's breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the first four years of his presidency reveals in a new book that the most powerful man in the world likes no more than a cheap processed cheese sandwich for lunch.

"Kraft singles on white bread was one of this President's most requested lunch items," says Walter Scheib, who, from 1994 until he was sacked by Laura Bush in early 2005, was Executive Chef at the White House.

Scheib, a professionally trained cook with an outstanding CV even before he started work at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, tells me flatly that making lunch for Bush was "not very challenging and didn't really require any of my professional training".

But according to Scheib, this is not a making a partisan or political statement. During our conversation over coffee in a swish New York bar, he does refer to the burgers and 'dogs to which his first Presidential employer, Bill Clinton, was partial. Yet Scheib's book, White House Chef, part memoir, part cookbook, clearly shows who he preferred working for, and why, during his 11 years in the basement kitchen, even if his professionalism - and presumably his desire to work for the big guns again - rule out any the dishing of any serious dirt.

Standing just over six feet, Walter Scheib, 53, with his well combed hair and perfect manners is no Gordon Ramsay (more of Scheib's thoughts on the foul-mouthed, super-chef later). He is a perfectly mannered, immaculately turned out, truly dedicated chef who takes pride firstly in his ability to cook dishes fit for kings, literally, and secondly in having served at the pleasure of two presidents. He is genuinely proud of having served his country by serving its leader, as well as the leaders of countless other nations.

"The White House is a private home," says Scheib. "And the important thing is to achieve what residents want - whether that's a bowl of chicken soup when they're not well or a state dinner for 900 people. Each is important and I submit that the chicken soup may even be more critical to your long-term success."

Scheib, or "Cookie" as President Bush liked to call him, is frustratingly discreet when it comes to talking about his tête-à-têtes over toast with his employers. I am not the first journalist to try to get him to reveal what was going on in the White House during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, or whether Bush is as dumb as he always sounds. But he refuses to talk about anything other than his own work and the culinary predilections of Presidents and his work with their wives. You have to read between the lines of his book to detect what he remains reluctant to say, but which seems to be implicit.

In the acknowledgements section of the book he says this: "Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, for taking a chance on me - you literally changed my life and I'll be in your debt forever - and President William Jefferson Clinton, for your good humour and social grace - I actually believe it when you say you are happy to see me. President George W Bush and First Lady Laura Bush - it was my pleasure to serve you."

Miaow. But when I mention this to Scheib he mumbles and says only, "Well, the temperament of the two families is substantially different."

"Both first ladies had eclectic palates," Scheib reveals. "Both presidents on the other hand, if you'd opened a barbeque or rib joint in the basement, would have been happy as clams. They are not adventurous diners. If the first ladies weren't around they were happy to back slide into guys' food, no problem. So you had to know who was in the house. If the first lady was at the table, everything plays to mamma."

Scheib explains that it has always been the First Ladies who have driven the White House's gastronomic agenda.

"There have only been two watershed moments in White House culinary history," he tells me. "One is René Verdon, who was the chef brought in by Jackie Kennedy to bring formalised European style haute cuisine to the White House. Before that it had primarily been family style, very pedestrian food. But Jackie brought René and he brought spectacular food with him."

When Bill Clinton swept into the White House with his forceful wife at his side, it was Hillary who decided to bring a new type of cuisine to the White House and it's never ending stream of guests. Less than two years after moving in, she began searching for an experienced chef. "There was this idea that great cuisine should be driven not by complicated techniques but by tremendous, fresh, ripe, spectacular, seasonal ingredients. It should be a flavour-driven concept. She wanted someone who could modernise the White House menu by moving away from the traditional French style and towards modern American cuisine." Scheib says.

Scheib himself didn't apply for the position. But his wife, also a professional chef, sent his CV to the White House. He followed it up with a phone call and after a couple of interviews and a test' lunch where he fortuitously cooked lamb - Hillary Clinton's favourite meat - he was offered the job. He was thrilled, his wife was delighted, but his father, who had always wanted to be proud of his son, was slightly ambivalent.

"My father is rabidly republican," Scheib reveals. "When I got the job he said, Well it's a great honour you've got this, it's too bad you'll be working for those people.' I didn't like some of their ideas, but I didn't know them and just because you didn't like the policies didn't mean you couldn't like the person."

Thrown into the frying pan from the moment he arrived, Scheib quickly found himself having to make the aforementioned chicken soup as well as a wide variety of evening meals and ever changing, elaborate state dinners - often with little notice.

"It was pandemonium," says Scheib, laughing. "There was always something going on, you never knew what to expect. A lot of time you had to scramble. At the moment it was all happening, it wasn't necessarily fun. But now, looking back, that was the thrill."

Surprisingly neither Bill nor Hillary ever asked for any cooking tips. Scheib says he doesn't think either of them ever cooked anything during their time in the White House. As a result he often had to prepare some dishes that any other classically trained chef would never, ever, have to attempt. The most bizarre example being the food requested for President Clinton's high school reunion.

"We were doing a cook out for about 1000 people and I was asked to make Fried Baloney Tra-La-La," Scheib says. The gourmet chef obviously had no idea what the dish was. "They told me to cut a hole in the baloney, fry it and then when you flip it you crack an egg into the hole and fry the egg in the middle. I thought it was the single worst thing I had ever heard but it wasn't about what I wanted so we made 1000 portions of it and they all ate the hell out of it."

While Bill and Hillary may not have been interested in cooking, their vegetarian daughter Chelsea was and Scheib found himself running an ad hoc cooking school in the basement to teach Chelsea basic recipes before she went to college. Scheib says she was an able student, keen to learn and especially interested in how to prepare dishes such as linguine, vegetable risotto and anything with sweet potatoes.

Bill liked smoked mozzarella and pepperoni calzones with spicy tomato sauce, Southern fried chicken and Porterhouse steak (24 ounces, no less) with béarnaise sauce, while Hillary requested dishes such as curried Cornish hen, tuna melt with no-fat cheese, and cabbage rolls with shredded turkey and mixed vegetables.

"Hillary was more mindful of her calorific intake," says Scheib. "But we always managed to accommodate both of them."

The secret of Scheib's success appears to be that he delivered exactly the type of cuisine that Hillary wanted. When the then First Family left the White House in January 2001, everyone was in tears. Scheib knew that the cuisine he had brought to the state dinners and receptions had enhanced, not only the reputation of the Clintons, but also that of his staff.

Why exactly Scheib was the right man for the job has its roots not just in his cooking skills but also in his childhood. Born in California in 1954, but raised on the east coast of America in Maryland, Scheib remembers the first time he was attracted to cooking. "We lived in an area where all the houses were close together and the doors and windows were always open," says Scheib. "I remember one day aged four or five saying to my mother, What's that smell?' and she told me it was our neighbour making fennel sausage and marinara sauce. I thought it was a really great aroma."

The young boy was hooked and started helping his mother in the kitchen. At eight years old, when other kids were selling lemonade on the streets, Scheib was selling sandwiches. In his teenage years Scheib worked in restaurant kitchens threw dinner parties for friends. "Most teenagers would have drinking parties. I invited couples over and I would cook," he says.

Scheib's father, a genuine rocket scientist, wanted his son to aim for a strong academic profession, but Scheib was having none of it and when he discovered the prestigious Culinary Institute Of America, which has turned out as many great chefs as Oxford has dons, he knew he had found his educational Utopia.

"I saw it, fell in love with it and told my dad that this is where I wanted to go," Scheib tells me. His time at the Institute enhanced his love of cooking and, after graduating, he worked in large fine dining establishments and five-star hotels for the next decade before being offered the post of executive chef at one of America's grandest hotels, The Greenbriar in West Virginia. Here, he also ran a small cookery school.

When I ask him about teaching young apprentices he offers his thoughts on Gordon Ramsay, whose attitude clearly needles him. "He is doing a disservice to the industry by this Hell's Kitchen concept," he says forcefully. "This caricature is not what the business is about. If we were all like that we'd all be dead. You are going to get a lot further if you get the staff with you so it all becomes seamless. If you're in a place with 150 cooks and annual sales of $30-40million, you can't be throwing pots and pans at people. It doesn't work."

What did work was Scheib's own style and he settled into his role of executive chef and mentor at the Greenbriar. He and his wife had started a family, were living close to the hotel and Scheib was content.

"I thought the Greenbriar would be the pinnacle of my career," he says. "But then out of the blue comes this opportunity."

Despite the unusual requests, the last-minute changes to events, the pressure of cooking food for leaders of the free world, and political views that differed from those of his employers, Scheib had a ball. Until the Bushes arrived.

While the Clintons had been an inclusive group, who made staff a part of their extended family, the situation was distinctly different with the Bushes - from day one.

"With Laura it was simply, You're in a domestic position. We respect your professionalism, we like what you've done, everything is fine, but you're not our friend,'" says Scheib. "And a lot of my classic training was suddenly no longer necessary."

The complete change was a total shock. "If Hillary Clinton liked A and Laura Bush liked B, then A no longer had any value and B was now the order of the day. So in a single day you had to take all the devotion, and all that emotion, of the last six years and leave it behind," he says.

The new President was into simpler food than his predecessor. "He didn't like soup or salad, or anything green," says Scheib. "He really just wanted beef and anything that could be prepared in Tex-Mex style. There was little challenge in preparing the President's lunch."

President Bush was also reluctant to dine with his wife if she had friends over for lunch or if she was having anything fancy'. "He wanted one of his go-to items such as a cheese sandwich or a peanut butter and honey sandwich on white toast with potato chips," says Scheib.

For nearly two years, Scheib kept his head down and cooked the plain dishes that the Bushes asked for. Again he refuses to criticise the First Family, but slips in that "there was a whispered sentiment around Washington that the Texas style the Bushes brought to the White House was a step backwards." It is a view that Scheib does not disagree with.

Then came the events of September 11, 2001 and it became "inappropriate" to do any state dinners. President Bush switched from hosting receptions to working lunches for world leaders.

Despite his compromises Scheib was asked to resign a few months into Bush's second term. It was a decision made by Laura Bush and initiated by her new social secretary Lea Berman. Scheib directs what ire there is in his book towards Berman with whom he had "an ill-fated relationship", finding her pushy, opinionated, contrary, and difficult. "She would keep coming into my office with cookbooks asking me to make specific dishes. Most of the books were fairly low-brow," he says disdainfully although he tried to comply with Berman's wishes. Nevertheless things remained tense between them and he was asked to resign.

He had mixed emotions about this. It was clear he was not having as much fun working with the Bushes, but as a matter of pride I think he would have preferred to have left on his own terms. He remains diplomatic about it.

"It was Laura Bush's right to have the staff she wanted," Scheib says succinctly. "It was a tremendous honour to have the opportunity to serve two Presidents and their families." Scheib handed back his White House pass and started to think about what to do next. His choices have been rather straightforward.

He has started a successful catering company, The American Chef, which caters large and small events in Washington DC. He started giving talks around the country about his time in the White House. And he wrote his book. "I didn't want to do a straight recipe book," he tells me. "What was most unique about my last 11 years wasn't the food, but the story of getting to serve two unique American families and the contrast of that. And the story of bringing this new American cuisine to The White House."

So mixed in with the recipes for pecan-crusted lamb with morel sauce and red curried sweet potatoes, and gingered pheasant consommé are Scheib's stories of travelling in the presidential motorcade, watching basketball with President Clinton, preparing picnics for 1500 people and his serious disagreements with Bush staff members. But as so much of his work was liaising with the First Ladies (or in Laura Bush's case, her staff), he writes extensively about his interaction with them. The book is even dedicated to Hillary Clinton for giving Scheib, "the opportunity of a lifetime".

While he may never have seen or spoken to the Bushes since he left the White House, he has maintained a close relationship with the Clintons and, with his wife, have catered several private Clinton family events. With Hillary Clinton now running for President, it leads inexorably to the final question. If the American voters do elect their country's first female president in 2008, would the now successful author and business owner give up his current lifestyle to return to domestic servitude? He doesn't hesitate in answering.

"If you are asked by any First Family, you wouldn't really have a choice," he says.

"I would have to serve."

White House Chef, by Walter Scheib, is published by Wiley Books