Product Description
A wonderfully entertaining, often surprising history of presidential taste, from the grim meals eaten by Washington and his starving troops at Valley Forge to Trump’s fast-food burgers and Biden’s ice cream—what they ate, why they ate it, and what it tells us about the state of the nation—from the coauthor of Julia Child’s best-selling memoir My Life in France
"[A] beautifully written book about how the presidential palate has helped shape America...Fascinating."—Stanley Tucci
Some of the most significant moments in American history have occurred over meals, as U.S. presidents broke bread with friends or foe: Thomas Jefferson’s nationbuilding receptions in the new capital, Washington, D.C.; Ulysses S. Grant’s state dinner for the king of Hawaii; Teddy Roosevelt’s groundbreaking supper with Booker T. Washington; Richard Nixon’s practiced use of chopsticks to pry open China; Jimmy Carter’s cakes and pies that fueled a détente between Israel and Egypt at Camp David.
Here Alex Prud’homme invites readers into the White House kitchen to reveal the sometimes curious tastes of twenty-six of America’s most influential presidents, how their meals were prepared and by whom, and the ways their choices affected food policy around the world. And the White House menu grew over time— from simple eggs and black coffee for Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and celebratory turtle soup after and squirrel stew for Dwight Eisenhower, to jelly beans and enchiladas for Ronald Reagan and arugula for Barack Obama. What our leaders say about food touches on everything from our nation’s shifting diet and local politics to global trade, science, religion, war, class, gender, race, and so much more.
Prud’homme also details overlooked figures, like George Washington’s enslaved chef, Hercules Posey, whose meals burnished the president’s reputation before the cook narrowly escaped to freedom, and pioneering First Ladies, such as Dolley Madison and Jackie Kennedy, who used food and entertaining to build political and social relationships. As he weaves these stories together, Prud’homme shows that food is not just fuel when it is served to the most powerful people in the world. It is a tool of communication, a lever of power and persuasion, a form of entertainment, and a symbol of the nation.
Included are ten authentic recipes for favorite presidential dishes, such as:
Martha Washington’s Preserved Cherries Abraham Lincoln’s Gingerbread Men William H. Taft’s Billy Bi Mussel Soup Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Reverse Martini Lady Bird Johnson’s Pedernales River Chili
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of February 2023: In the US, many have participated in the great American pastime of awkward conversations around the Thanksgiving table. Arguably as much a sport as flag football, this occasions people of different faiths, political bents, and philosophies, to break bread together, but not break each other. After bonding over the superiority of canned cranberry sauce compared to homemade (the suction that emits as it exits the can is the sound of Thanksgiving!), you really don’t care to. A feeling of conviviality overtakes, and you find that you actually have a few things in common with the person you enthusiastically trolled on social media only a day before—things you can build on. Dinner with the President is a gripping gastronomic history that explores this non-trivial phenomenon on a grander scale, revealing the ways in which savvy POTUS have harnessed the political power of culinary communion. Prud'homme, who co-authored My Life in France with Julia Child, also sets the table for an important discussion about the perils of not having a coordinated food policy in this country. Echoing Mark Bittman and Michael Pollen, he warns that this deepens economic disparities, contributes to the climate crisis, and fuels the divisiveness that makes for awkward holiday meal fodder. While Dinner with the President might not whet your appetite fo
