EATER-IN-CHIEF
From Nixon’s favorite cocktail to Lincoln’s preferred dip, a look at presidential dining
ASTATE dinner at the White House is never simply a meal for the president and his hungry VIP guests. Rather, it’s a “forum for politics and entertainment at the highest level,” writes author Alex Prud’homme in “Dinner with the President: Food, Politics and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House,” (Knopf.) “The president is both a symbol of the nation and a flesh-and-blood human being, and his food choices bridge those disparate roles.”
The first 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, along with the chef ’s vegetable elixir, which had no equal — “a little 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 can help formulate future international policies of an administration. By featuring the native foods of visiting diplomats, the meal can foster good will and potentially promote the president’s political agenda, observes the author, who notes that ghastly food can undermine a president’s legacy.
While some presidents savored tossing a big state dinner, some have been overwhelmed.
Former President Donald Trump, who privately favored a Big Mac meal, hosted only two state dinners during his one-term presidency. According to the author, the business mogul believed that costs for the splashy dinners could be sliced by serving hamburgers served on a conference table rather than a kitchen staff of a hundred preparing a gastronomic feast.
There’s a good 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 world.
“[Presidential] policies and the way they pulls governmental levers influence the flow of goods and services to millions of Americans and to billions of people around the world,” writes Prud'homme. “The messaging about food touches on everything from personal taste to global nutrition, politics, economics, science, and war.”
From gluttons to gastronomes, here’s what some of our presidents chowed down on:
Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy was an international biggame hunter who boasted that he once “toasted slices of elephant’s heart on a pronged stick and found it delicious.” He had no gourmet pretensions, and the end of his term, after condemning "game butchery" as "wanton cruelty,” he killed more than 500 wild animals on an African safari.
Woodrow Wilson
Described as “a timid, picky eater,” a big meal for the 28th 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 simple fare compared to what other presidents consumed.
John F. Kennedy
Along with the first 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 stuffed with herbs, bacon, a mirepoix of carrots, celery and shallots. “Maison Blanche gained a reputation for serving some of the finest meals in town, or anywhere,” writes Prud’Homme.
Richard Nixon
The first couple both ate copious amounts of cottage cheese. Waist watchers, they were the opposite of the barbecue, chili, and beer inhaling Johnsons — Lyndon Baines and Lady Bird, who preceded the Nixons in the White House.
Nixon served a $6 bottle of wine to guests, saved a $30 dollar bottle for himself, and complained about 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 strong rum-based cocktail — while Pat drank Jack Daniel’s whiskey at Trader Vic’s in DC. Nixon could often be found there in the month before he famously declared, “I am not a crook.”
George H.W. Bush
Bush 41 made headlines when he stated, “I do not like broccoli. And I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, 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 main dish, broccoli salad, and broccoli ice cream.”
William Taft
Tipping the scales at 354 pounds, 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 both. His favorite food, however, was roasted possum. It is said that he once got stuck in his huge, custom-built bathtub that could fit four men.