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Dinner with the President: Food, Politics,…
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Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House (edició 2023)

de Alex Prud'homme (Autor)

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512500,659 (4.07)Cap
"Perhaps the most significant meals in the world have been consumed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by the presumptive leaders of the free world. Thomas Jefferson had an affinity for eggplant and FDR for terrapin stew. Nixon ate a lump of cottage cheese topped with barbecue sauce every day and Obama regularly had arugula. Now, Alex Prud'homme takes us to the dining tables of the White House to look at what the presidents chose to eat, how the food was prepared and by whom, and the context in which the meals were served, making clear that every one of these details speaks volumes about both the individual president and the country he presided over. We see how these gustatory messages touch on not only sometimes curious personal tastes, but also local politics, national priorities, and global diplomacy-not to mention all those dinner-table-conversation-taboos: race, gender, class, money, and religion. The individual stories are fascinating in themselves, but taken together-under the keen and knowledgeable eye of Prud'homme-they reveal that food is not just food when it is desired, ordered, and consumed by the President of the United States"--… (més)
Membre:csjthree
Títol:Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House
Autors:Alex Prud'homme (Autor)
Informació:Knopf (2023), 512 pages
Col·leccions:La teva biblioteca
Valoració:*****
Etiquetes:Presidents, Politics, Americana

Informació de l'obra

At the President's Table: Food, Politics, and the History of Breaking Bread at the White House de Alex Prud'homme

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This book takes us through almost all American Presidents, describing their food habits and how they used dining with the president as an instrument of their politics. We learn that Eisenhower and Carter were accomplished cooks. No surprise LBJ was the BBQ king though many other Presidents shared his passion. Dolly Madison and Jackie Kennedy gloried in directing the State Dinner. The most epicurean President was Thomas Jefferson who brought his love of almost anything French into the White House. Obama with his international background was the most foodie President. Eleanor Roosevelt took the prize for First Lady most opposed to what her husband wanted foodwise. Trump, the star of the anti-elitist crowd, was the champion of fast food and anything bad to eat.

For each President we learned how their background influenced their food preferences. With almost all there was a strong regional flavor to their food choices. A central theme of the book was the richness and variety of the food they ate. All brought their history into the White House and put a constant theme of change over the place. Carter and LBJ were clearly sons of the South. Reagan brought both his Midwest roots and his strong California attachment. Not all made food a central focus. Wilson, Truman and Ford could not really be bothered, they had other things to do. Trump came by his dysfunction naturally, what a family.

The First Lady often stepped in to decorate the White House, direct the White House Kitchen, their husbands diet and State Dinners. Some took those roles as their part in the administration. Others wanted to delegate as much of that as possible. Jackie Kennedy stands out as the person most responsible is establishing the modern White House look and feel and set a very high bar for State Dinners. She understood their importance and relished in moving it to a much higher level than any of her predecessors. She also established the first Executive Chef. Some First Ladies wanted or at least felt compelled to oversee who was cooking for her family, some separated the family meal preparers from those responsible for executing State dinners. Several, especially Eleanor Roosevelt felt compelled to contradict their husbands especially when the husband was in to unhealthy eating, as several were.

This book goes way beyond the first family whose tastes are often well publicized. Where the extensive research underlying this book shines is when we learn about both the staff and the kitchen. While the White House kitchen was often an afterthought it has been redone many times increasing both in size and the kind of appliances needed to pull together the very common and often extensive meals and events centered in the White House. The salary paid to the chefs rarely came close to what their skills could command. Often the First Lady was turned down when the person they most wanted could not take the pay cut. Some turned to people from their past. Again Eleanor Roosevelt stands out as insisting on making the choice. The Roosevelt White House stood out as having a very poor reputation. The invitation was appreciated but never as an event anyone looked forward to eating at.

Some State Dinners became legendary events as when Jackie had Pablo Casals entertain the dinner guests or when Nancy Reagan pulls some Hollywood strings and has John Travolta dance with Princess Diana. This book goes much deeper and shows how State Dinners are the ultimate form of breaking bread and often became backgrounds for diplomatic breakthroughs. Sometimes they were designed to change images as when FDR serves hotdogs at a Hyde Park picnic for the King and Queen of England, showing Americans these guys are just like us and we need to help them against the growing German threat. Normally these dinners play to the tastes of the featured guests and their national cuisine. What was astounding to learn was the preparation needed for the week long meeting at Camp David where the religious concerns of the Egyptians, the Israelis and the Georgians had to catered to, literally.

The food being served at the White House has long been part of the image the administration wanted to project. Did they want the press to consider them the people who lived at the White House, down home so to speak, and avoid being portrayed as giving off elitist airs, or did they want to portrayed as something more? While America has never had a food policy many think that's long overdue. Abraham Lincoln came close when he established the Agriculture Department. Unfortunately the USDA has focused on food production and in many ways has been captured by Big Ag. More recently celebrities like Julia Child wanted the White House to focus more on American food as something to show the world rather than just play to the guests. Alice Waters wanted more emphasis on healthy and local food alternatives. And writers like Michael Pollan wanted more attention paid to the choices being made and to focus on the consumers of food rather than the producers.

It's all here. Amazingly well researched. ( )
  Ed_Schneider | Jul 21, 2023 |
Dinner with the President covers the Presidents starting with George Washington. What an eyeopener! The majority of the early Presidents used slave labor for their state dinners. Please remember that the cooks/chefs prepared meals over a burning fire and cooked them with copper kettles. Wild game and garden vegetables remained the tools of delicious culinary. Many of the Presidents, especially Thomas Jefferson, combined wine and beer with each meal. Martha Washington wrote her recipes and that undertaking remains a guide for many current chefs. The cost of these meals fell upon the shoulders of the President. So many obscure facts focus on the preparation and delivery of these important dinners. Each President indulges in his own identity in the cuisine. And American consumption followed the leader’s cravings. ( )
  delphimo | Apr 15, 2023 |
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"Perhaps the most significant meals in the world have been consumed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue by the presumptive leaders of the free world. Thomas Jefferson had an affinity for eggplant and FDR for terrapin stew. Nixon ate a lump of cottage cheese topped with barbecue sauce every day and Obama regularly had arugula. Now, Alex Prud'homme takes us to the dining tables of the White House to look at what the presidents chose to eat, how the food was prepared and by whom, and the context in which the meals were served, making clear that every one of these details speaks volumes about both the individual president and the country he presided over. We see how these gustatory messages touch on not only sometimes curious personal tastes, but also local politics, national priorities, and global diplomacy-not to mention all those dinner-table-conversation-taboos: race, gender, class, money, and religion. The individual stories are fascinating in themselves, but taken together-under the keen and knowledgeable eye of Prud'homme-they reveal that food is not just food when it is desired, ordered, and consumed by the President of the United States"--

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