A state dinner on the White House is rarely simply a meal for the president and his hungry VIP guests. Moderately, it’s a “forum for politics and entertainment at the best level,” writes writer Alex Prud’homme in “Dinner with the President: Food, Politics and a History of Breaking Bread on the White House,” (Knopf.) “The president is each a logo of the nation and a flesh-and-blood human being and his food selections bridge those disparate roles.”
The primary big White House dinner was served in 1874 when President Ulysses Grant — then the youngest commander in chief at 46 — served guest of honor King Kalakaua of Hawaii a whopping 29 courses. The dishes included trout, squab, and beef tenderloin, together with the chef’s vegetable elixir that had no equal — “a bit of smoother than peacock’s brains,” but not quite equal to a dish of nightingale tongues.”
A state dinner requires months of planning and is viewed as an event that may also help formulate future international policies of an administration. By featuring the native foods of visiting diplomats, the meal can foster goodwill and potentially promote the president’s political agenda, observes the writer, who notes that ghastly food could totally undermine a president’s legacy.
While some presidents savored tossing a giant state dinner, others were overwhelmed.
Former President Donald Trump, who privately favored a Big Mac meal, hosted only two state dinners during his one-term presidency. Based on the writer, the business mogul believed that costs for the splashy dinners may very well be sliced by serving hamburgers served on a conference table reasonably than a kitchen staff of 100 preparing a gastronomic feast.
There’s food story behind virtually every president: Lincoln adored possum dip, Eisenhower was a squirrel meat man and Franklin Delano Roosevelt savored buffalo tongue as an appetizer.
While weird, Prud’homme maintains that the presidential palate has helped shape the country and influence food policy around the globe. “[Presidential] policies and the best way they pull governmental levers influence the flow of products and services to thousands and thousands of Americans and to billions of individuals around the globe,” writes Prud’homme. “The messaging about food touches on every part from personal taste to global nutrition, politics, economics, science, and war.”
From gluttons to gastronomes, here’s what a few of our presidents chowed down on.
Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy was a world big-game hunter who boasted that he once “toasted slices of elephant’s heart on a pronged stick and located it delicious.” He had no gourmet pretensions, and at the tip of his term, after condemning “game butchery” as “wanton cruelty,” he killed greater than 500 wild animals on an African safari.
Woodrow Wilson
Described as “a timid, picky eater,” a giant meal for the twenty eighth president was clear soup, chicken salad, and strawberry ice cream. He simply ate to live. He once described with rare ardor-loving foods of his native Virginia – country hams, peach cobblers, butter and buttermilk, fresh eggs and hot biscuits, homemade ice cream, and plain white cake – but this was easy fare in comparison with what other presidents consumed.
John F. Kennedy
Together with the primary lady, the Kennedys were considered great epicures. They hired a French chef who prepared exquisite banquets — sole mousse, filet of beef Montfermeil, or a pheasant breast galantine filled with herbs, bacon, a mirepoix of carrots, celery, and shallots. “Maison Blanche gained a fame for serving a few of the finest meals on the town, or anywhere,” writes Prud’Homme.
Richard Nixon
The primary couple — “Tricky Dick” and Pat -— each ate copious amounts of cottage cheese. Waist watchers were the other of the barbecue, chili, and beer-inhaling Johnsons — Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird, who preceded the Nixons within the White House. On the low cost, Nixon served a $6 bottle of wine to guests, saved a $30 dollar bottle for himself, and complained in regards to the “ineffable boredom of state dinners.” He preferred pupu platters — a tray of American Chinese or Hawaiian meats and appetizers — accompanied by Mai Tais, a powerful rum-based cocktail — while Pat drank Jack Daniel’s whiskey at Trader Vic’s in DC. Nixon could often be found there within the month before he famously declared, “I’m not a crook.”
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George H.W. Bush
Bush 41 made headlines when he stated, “I don’t like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I used to be a bit of kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the USA, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” Outraged broccoli farmers sent truckloads to the White House in protest. While Bush passed off Broccoli-Gate as a joke, First Lady Barbara Bush shot back, “We’re going to have broccoli soup, broccoli essential dish, broccoli salad, and broccoli ice cream.”
William Taft
Tipping the scales at 354 kilos, Taft was our heaviest president. He loved a breakfast worthy of a medieval king, a 12-ounce steak, two oranges, toast, coffee — or waffles, and a haunch of venison — or each. His favorite food, nonetheless, was roasted possum. It is claimed that he once got stuck in his huge, custom-built bathtub that might fit 4 men.
