How Obamas brought food ideas to the table
He was the first person to successfully cut in line at famous Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, where the wait for brisket runs three hours. Her culinary garden inspired budding green thumbs — young and old — to grow their own produce. Together, their penchant for dining out helped invigorate Washington’s restaurant scene.
Over the course of their eight-year administration, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama have tried to change the way Americans eat and think about food. More than any of their predecessors, they ate at trendy restaurants and paid respect at historic culinary institutions, so much that Time Magazine dubbed the president as America’s Eater-in-Chief. They brought home brewing into the national consciousness and lobbied for a healthier public, both through policy and practice.
In short, they’ve brought a vibrant food culture into mainstream America.
Barack Obama revealed his foodie inclinations long before the move to the White House. As a state senator in 2001, he tried his hand as an amateur food critic, appearing on the Chicago edition of “Check, Please.” Though the episode never aired, it foreshadowed a pattern that would continue.
Not only does the first couple like to go out to eat, but they go to great restaurants. During their visits to the Bay Area, the Obamas have gone to well-regarded restaurants like Spruce, 25 Lusk and Cotogna. Bay Area events have been catered by top-flight chefs like Alice Waters, Tyler Florence and Mitsunori Kusakabe.
There have been anniversary dinners at seasonally minded Blue Duck Tavern in D.C., and intimate date nights at Blue Hill in New York City, the farm-to-table restaurant run by chef Dan Barber, a vocal food-policy advocate and supporter of sustainable agriculture who also served on the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. Abroad, the president has eaten nigiri at Sukiyabashi Jiro, the exclusive sushi counter made famous by the documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi.” More recently, he sipped beers in Hanoi with Anthony Bourdain over bowls of bun cha.
Indeed, it has not been all fancy feasts for the leader of the free world. He has been known to tuck into gumbo at Leah Chase’s legendary Dooky Chase in New Orleans, and grab Chinese takeout from Great Eastern in San Francisco’s Chinatown. After dining at D.C. greasy spoon Ben’s Chili Bowl just prior to his inauguration, President Obama and his family made the restaurant’s “eat free” list, an honor that once belonged only to Bill Cosby. (The restaurant has since distanced itself from the troubled Cosby.)
Presidents have always seemed to have love affairs with burgers, that all-American fast food staple. But while Bill Clinton had a thing for McDonald’s and George W. Bush was a fan of cheeseburger pizza, President Obama opted for a new generation of “better burger” chains, making welldocumented burger runs to Five Guys and Shake Shack. (Buoyed by the presidential endorsement, Five Guys doubled its number of stores in the years from 2009 to 2012, according to Forbes, making it, at the time, America’s fastestgrowing burger chain. It’s now grown to 1,400 locations worldwide.) If there is a takeaway, it’s this: The Obamas’ restaurant choices reflect their ideals of what food can and should be — fresh, delicious, artful, political.
It displays an awareness of chefs as creative forces, and even political movers and shakers. In 2012, the State Department partnered with the James Beard Foundation to launch the Culinary Diplomatic Partnership, creating an American Chef Corps to serve as food-focused ambassadors around the world. In 2014, Alice Waters became the first chef to receive a National Humanities Medal, an honor later received by chef Jose Andres in August 2016.
Speaking of Waters, the Chez Panisse owner (and founder of the Edible Schoolyard) spent decades lobbying previous administrations to install a culinary garden on the White House grounds.
It took Michelle Obama, a novice gardener, roughly three months to make Waters’ dream a reality.
In March 2009, the first lady, along with 23 fifth-graders from a local D.C. elementary school, broke ground on a 1,100-square-foot garden on the South Lawn — the first of its kind since Eleanor Roosevelt’s World War II Victory Garden. In addition to the garden, the Obamas introduced the very first beehives to the White House garden in 2010.
While Laura Bush encouraged organic foods to be served in the White House, and the Clintons put in a small rooftop garden, these facts were never really publicized, and were even downplayed, by the former administrations.
Michelle Obama is a champion of the garden. She appeared on an episode of “Iron Chef America,” in which she gave the competing chefs access to its produce. She noted in her book, “American Grown” (Crown Publishers), that the garden was more than “just a plot of land growing vegetables on the White House lawn”; she called it “the starting point for something bigger.”
It was. A year later, she launched her major platform, the Let’s Move campaign. With the goal of eliminating obesity within a generation, she worked to improve access to healthy, affordable foods and provide healthy school lunches.
“The Obama administration has certainly brought an awareness to school gardens,” says Andy Nowak, co-director of the school garden program for Slow Food USA.
Nowak says that since launching the Slow Food National School Garden program three years ago, there are now approximately 1,200 Slow Food affiliated gardens. According to the Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School Census, which was established in 2013, there are now 7,101 school gardens across the country.
Not to be outdone in the DIY department, President Obama bought a home-brewing kit in 2011.
“George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison were home brewers, but Obama was the first to brew in the White House,” says Gary Glass, director of the American Homebrewers Association.
Working with personal chef-turned-senior policy adviser Sam Kass, the White House kitchen developed several signature beers — a honey porter and a honey ale, both of which used honey from the South Lawn hives.
According to the American Homebrewers Association, in 2012 the annual gross revenue of home-brew supply shops showed an increase of 29 percent. How much of this was because of Obama versus a more general national obsession with craft beer is hard to figure, but Glass points out that “there’s no way the amount of publicity generated for home brewers didn’t have an impact.”
The Obamas’ food savvy is a reflection of a larger American shift that’s been taking place in recent years. This can be seen not only in their hobbies and dining habits, but also in the many White House food and nutrition initiatives.
As part of the Let’s Move initiative, in 2010 the White House established a Task Force on Childhood Obesity — the first effort of its kind. It highlighted 70 specific recommendations to help reduce the childhood obesity rate to 5 percent by 2030.
“The decision to take on childhood obesity was extraordinary,” says Marion Nestle, a public health expert, author and former Chronicle columnist.
However, Nestle points out that the task force’s to-do list may have been overly ambitious, as it hasn’t been able to follow through on all of the recommendations. In particular, she is critical of the administration’s failure to push through the federal 2011 attempt to create a set of voluntary nutritional guidelines for foods marketed to children 17 and under, which was met with ferocious opposition by lobbying groups to which Congress eventually caved. Despite this setback, Nestle still applauds the effort: “That they were able to do (anything) was nothing short of miraculous and a huge credit to Mrs. Obama’s ability.”
No small task, says Nestle, for someone with no legislative authority or elected mandate: “Everything she did was done through leadership.”
Other food-policy efforts included the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, which promoted access to healthy food for low-income children by authorizing funding for school meal and nutrition programs; Nestle calls it a “clear win” despite major opposition.
There were also the Department of Agriculture’s Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food program and the People’s Garden Initiative. Between 2009 and 2015, the Department of Agriculture invested over $1 billion in more than 40,000 local and regional food businesses and infrastructure projects; nearly $261 million has been dedicated to improve the productivity and success of organic agriculture.
These are impressive stats, but as the Obamas enter their final months in the White House, one is left to wonder what exactly will be the lasting impact and legacy of the administration.
In an increasingly divisive political scene, and with the November election up for grabs, it may be too soon to tell. While childhood obesity rates appear to be leveling off, says Nestle, it takes a long time to gather data and track results. And, although the food industry is on alert, if the incoming administration takes less of a watchdog approach, these strides in food policy and awareness run the risk of losing momentum.
“Will it be undone is the big question,” says Nestle. “It depends a lot on who gets elected.”