I. My White House Dinner
Food must be “not only good to eat, but also good to think.”
—Claude Lévi-Strauss
This book was partly inspired by the behind-the-scenes television documentaries Julia Child made of important White House dinners in 1967 and 1976. She took viewers into the back halls of the mansion and revealed the tremendous amount of planning, cleaning, cooking, and communication required to pull off diplomatic visits by foreign leaders. As I researched those stories, it occurred to me that it would be instructive and entertaining to re-create her work by attending a state dinner, documenting what it takes to execute such an event, interview key players, maybe even meet the First Couple and the guest of honor.
It was not to be. My numerous queries to the Trump administration went unanswered, except for a terse email from the chief usher, Timothy Harleth (a former rooms manager at the Trump International Hotel), who wrote, “Unfortunately, we’re not able to facilitate the request. However, I appreciate greatly the work you are doing.” It sounded as if he hadn’t bothered to read my query.
Boxed out of the People’s House, unable to wangle an invitation to a state dinner, denied access to the Trumps and the chef Cris Comerford, I set out to do the next best thing: I would host my own White House dinner. I wanted to see, smell, and taste presidential food, meet people who had worked in the mansion, dine in a historically appropriate location, and get a sense of what a state dinner is like, more or less. It was a tall order. But I got lucky. People agreed to cook, attend, and cut me deals, and the pieces fell into place.
The chef John Moeller agreed to prepare a four-course dinner based on those he had cooked in the White House from 1992 to 2005, during the George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations. He had served as the executive chef in the interregnum between Walter Scheib and Cris Comerford and had supplied Bush 43’s notorious pretzel snack. Each of the dishes Moeller and I agreed on was seasonal and alluded to a historical moment. I invited ten guests, all people who had worked at the White House, or had covered it, or were historians or food experts. They included four men and six women who represented both sides of the aisle and the apolitical middle ground.
On Presidents’ Day, February 17, 2020, we gathered at the DACOR Bacon House. A storied home built in 1825 by an industrialist, the mansion is situated on a corner of F Street at Eighteenth, just west of the White House. Over the years, the Bacon House had temporarily housed eight presidents, including Lincoln and Monroe, and a handful of Supreme Court justices. It now functions as a private club for Diplomatic and Consular Officers, Retired (DACOR). They had a full kitchen and dining room and were graciously accommodating. In the spirit of Jefferson and FDR, I carefully planned “my White House dinner,” but, as frequently happens at actual state dinners, the evening took some unexpected turns.
At seven o’clock that night, we gathered around a large table arranged in a horseshoe shape—a nod to traditional White House seating plans used before the Kennedy administration, which made it easy for the ten of us to interact. Echoing Jefferson’s rejection of monarchial protocol, I asked people to sit in his “pell-mell” style, wherever they wished. As in his day, some of my guests enjoyed that laissez-faire approach, while others seemed less enthused.
After canapés and wine, Moeller started our dinner with mushroom soup. This was not the cylindrical, gray glop your grandmother would shake out of a can. No, his presidential version was an ambrosial broth made from five kinds of wild mushrooms—morel, king oyster, shiitake, cremini, and beech—foraged by Amish farmers in Pennsylvania.
We chose the soup in homage to George Washington and his starving troops who foraged mushrooms at Valley Forge in the winter of 1777. John Moeller, a robust midsized man with sandy hair, glasses, and a bushy mustache, learned to forage mushrooms while training to cook in Dijon, France. “I get emotional about them,” he said. “Mushrooms are one of my favorite things to work with.” Adding the diced mushrooms to a base of leeks, chicken broth, minced garlic, and fresh thyme, he used an immersion blender to whiz the medley together into a silky mycological elixir with a hint of earthy nuttiness. The soup was so smooth and tasty it was hard to believe it was dairy-free.
Spooning the soup, Roxanne Roberts, a style reporter at The Washington Post, wondered about food safety: “Aren’t some mushrooms dangerous? Do people worry about” poisoning the president?
The chef explained how the White House carefully procures ingredients, and said, “It would be almost impossible to poison the president.” The sharp-witted food writer Corby Kummer wondered if presidents still use food tasters, as he had seen Reagan do at a G7 summit in Venice.
“No, we didn’t use tasters,” said Lloyd Hand, who had been Lyndon Johnson’s chief of protocol. And James (Skip) Allen, a White House usher for five presidents between the Carter and the George W. Bush administrations, agreed: “Never. We trusted John Moeller.”
“I was the last person to taste the food,” the chef confirmed.
As wineglasses clinked, I mentioned that the White House struck me as an extraordinary building that represents different things to different people, and where food acts as a bridge between the personal and the professional aspects of life. “What does it mean to you?” I asked the table.
“The White House is the opening shot of every movie about American power and politics,” said Roberts, who has covered Washington social events for years and remains impressed by the building’s symbolism. “Even though people live and work there, for the vast majority it’s a symbol—a symbol of American exceptionalism and power and democracy.”
Others noted that the building is a physical representation of the nation: the idea of the United States. “It’s a very special place,” said Skip Allen. “It’s the office of a head of state [where important decisions are made], but then the public sees the First Lady in the hallway [and recognizes that] it is her home. It happens all the time.”
Nodding, Betty Monkman, the White House curator from 1967 to 2002, said, “The Clintons and Bushes used to say they ‘lived above the store.’ People freaked out when they saw the First Family walking through.” For the Clintons, she added, “it was the first time they lived near where they worked, so Chelsea could walk into the Oval Office to see her dad after school, or the president could be home for dinner,” and watch a movie in the screening room afterward.
Ann Stock—a Clinton social secretary and an assistant secretary of state for the Obamas—noted that when citizens enter the President’s House, “their whole manner changes. We watched it happen time and time again. They come in and see the portraits of the presidents and First Ladies, and [it hits them]: ‘Oh. My. God. I’m in the White House!’ When the head of Boeing came to dinner, he almost started crying. He said, ‘If only my parents could see me now.’ ”
I understood the feeling. Stock’s description reminded me of my first visit to the mansion in 2016, when I was zapped by an unexpected jolt of emotion, or recognition, or some other feeling that is hard to name.
The White House remained an abstraction to most Americans until the early twentieth century, but once people could see the building’s interior in stereographs—three-dimensional photographs—it became real and gripped the public imagination. “Even if they were by themselves, a thousand miles away, they could take an interest in the president’s domestic life, which often revolved around the table,” said Theresa McCulla, a food historian at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
“For those of us who worked there every day, it was a place to come to work. The thrill was gone after a while,” Monkman said. What she found interesting was how the look and tone of the house shifted with each administration. “As the personalities change, the house reflects the [families] who live there,” she said, from the way the rooms and grounds look, to the faces and clothes in the hallways and the food served.
With that, Moeller introduced the second course, a gorgeous entrée of roasted organic salmon (from Scotland) set atop sunchoke puree, local spinach, fingerling potatoes, baby carrots, turnips, and Brussels sprouts, with a pinch of truffle salt. The chef described the thick, nutrient-dense orange fillets as “a salmon filet mignon,” and he topped them with a thin, pleasantly tangy horseradish crust “to accent the flavors of the season.”
We chose this dish because the history of food gifts to presidents—from Hoover’s headless salmon to Jefferson’s giant cheese and Taft’s possum, and all the beers, pies, and other edible presents—made for amusing history. Plus, the dish was delicious, and though Moeller had served it to heads of state, it is not too difficult to replicate at home.
While food is an important component of state dinners, it isn’t the central focus, my guests reminded me: diplomacy is. But a banquet like Ulysses S. Grant’s for King Kalakaua of the Sandwich Islands is the capstone to important negotiations, and Jimmy Carter’s dinner for Begin and Sadat after signing the Camp David Accords was a moment of personal and historical bonding.
A meal at the White House is a “status feast,” in the ancient sense. As a political and diplomatic tool, it provides a high-visibility platform from which the American president and his guest can present their narratives to domestic and global audiences. An invitation to dine with the president is rare and confers status on his guest: it sends a message to the world that the guest nation is to be reckoned with; and it sends a similar message inward, to the guest’s domestic audience.
At any given time, there is “a waiting list of twenty to thirty” world leaders eager for an invitation, Lloyd Hand said.
“Oh, yes, the best thing about a state dinner is the invitation,” Roxanne Roberts said, jumping in. “It indicates that the people who are selected for it are about to be part of something that is historic, and exclusive, and American. It’s the epitome of what it means to be part of the American dream.”
“A state dinner is a celebration, an honor, and a kind of political gift,” said Ann Stock.
“But who had the honor, and who didn’t, plays out in these geopolitical puzzles,” observed Hand. “It’s fascinating.”
Such an invite can be deeply meaningful to the guest, he said, recalling the night President Johnson invited President Maurice Yaméogo of the small African nation of Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) to dinner. When the six-foot-three LBJ said in an offhand way to the much shorter Yaméogo, “Be sure to give your country my regards,” Hand said, Yaméogo replied with a wry smile: “Mr. President, maybe you don’t understand, but four out of five children in my country died of smallpox until pharmaceutical drugs were made available—by you. And now we don’t lose more than one out of 100,000. So if I didn’t give your regards to my country, the women would rise up and denounce me.”
With that, Johnson took a shine to Yaméogo, who liked to quote Abraham Lincoln and had written the Upper Voltan constitution. The president piled the group into a limousine and drove to the Lincoln Memorial at midnight. As Yaméogo stared at his hero, a tear ran down his cheek. The experience has vividly stuck with Hand all these years, and he said, “The impact of a visit to the White House is almost immeasurable for visitors like Yaméogo.”
More recently, my tablemates pointed out, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky “was desperate” for an invitation to dine with Donald Trump. With his border under pressure from Russian troops, Zelensky was hoping that a state dinner at the White House would send a powerful message to Vladimir Putin. But when Trump refused, the Ukrainian felt “humiliated” that his putative ally did not respond in his time of need. In a phone call, Trump seemed to condition U.S. aid to Ukraine on Zelensky’s providing dirt on Joe Biden’s son Hunter. (That conversation was at the core of Trump’s first impeachment, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; he was acquitted.)
If a state dinner is such a useful tool, I wondered, then why did Trump host just two of them?
“Well, it depends on the priorities of the president and his people—if he listens to them,” Hand said diplomatically.
“He doesn’t value the tool!” an exasperated guest said. “It makes no sense!”
Thinking about the politics of food, and the cliché of red-meat conservatives and leafy-green liberals, I shifted the conversation: “Is there a difference between ‘Republican’ and ‘Democratic’ food?” After some spirited palaver, the table’s consensus was: “No. Food choices are individual and don’t follow party lines.” I was surprised by that at first, but as I thought about the nearly universal love of steak, ice cream, and Chinese food among First Couples, it made sense. So much for preconceptions.
Our third course was a palate-cleansing winter green salad with a wedge of Amish sheep cheese. It was February, so the greens were a seasonal choice and a nod to Thomas Jefferson’s vegetable fixation. I had planned to use that course to launch into a discussion about the future of food, climate change, and race, but I made a strategic error.
Noticing the wedge of cheese, I mentioned the famous White House gift cheeses—the 1,235-pound wheel given to Thomas Jefferson by Massachusetts Baptists, and the 1,400-pound, odoriferous fromage made by New York dairymen for Andrew Jackson that was consumed by a crush of admirers who nearly wrecked the White House, not to mention Obama’s Big Block of Cheese days, which paid tribute to those early gifts. That diverted us into raucous stories about populist leaders and misbehaving guests at the White House.
Corby Kummer raised the specter of Trump’s burger banquet, and the table grew momentarily subdued as we contemplated the image of congealed burgers in the State Dining Room. Luckily, someone recalled the destruction wrought by Jackson’s cheese mob, which lifted our spirits and got everyone talking about ill-mannered guests.
It turns out that when people are invited to dine at the White House, they often become overexcited and do things they regret. “They steal stuff. Oh, man, you have no idea how many things they pinch,” Moeller said. “Weird.”
For years guests pilfered White House matchbooks or cigarette holders. With those no longer in use, people nick other items small enough to slip into a pocket or purse—silverware, napkins, saltcellars. Many people have taken a silver spoon from the White House, felt guilty, and returned it in a plain box with no return address. “That happens all the time,” Moeller said, chuckling.
Betty Monkman revealed that when the waiters retrieve plates from the table, they often count the silverware—one, two, three—at each place setting. If a piece is missing, the waiter will say something like “I think we might have dropped a fork. I’m going to take these plates to the kitchen, and when I come back, we’ll take a look.” The culprit usually scrambles to remove the purloined sterling silver fork from her purse. “When the waiter reappears, the guest declares, ‘Oh, look, it’s on the floor!’ ” Monkman said, laughing knowingly.
“When people’s emotions are heightened, they can turn volatile,” Ann Stock said. “They behave like schoolchildren on a field trip.” When alcohol is involved—especially when it is the White House holiday eggnog (“the best eggnog in the world,” my guests vouched)—things can get messy. Overzealous revelers have been known to throw up into potted plants, or a Christmas-tree stand, or pass out on the marble staircase.
The biggest problem is that visitors become so entranced by the mansion they refuse to let go of the president’s hand on a receiving line, or insist on a photo with the First Lady, or simply won’t leave. In such cases, the socials—the mansion’s “beat cops,” Lea Berman calls them—employ the “chicken walk,” a polite but insistent ushering of obstinate guests toward the door. And when a visitor whines, “Could you possibly have seated me further away from the president?” the social’s job is to smile and remind them, “You are eating dinner at the White House. There are no bad seats here.”
Moeller’s dessert was a dark, warm, flourless chocolate torte with an almond tuile, raspberry sauce, a dusting of white confectioner’s sugar, and a sprinkling of blueberries and strawberries. George Washington drank hot chocolate for breakfast, Ulysses S. Grant served a chocolate dessert to King Kalakaua, and Donald Trump ate chocolate cake with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Moeller had served this particular chocolate bomb at numerous state dinners, and it tasted just right: rich and gooey and sweet, with a slightly bitter aftertaste, a palate-lightening zip from the raspberry coulis, and a cool juicy crunch from the berries. The tortes disappeared in an instant, an attribute that came in handy at state dinners, when time is of the essence.
From the kitchen’s perspective, a state dinner is “a sprint,” Moeller explained. The challenge is to serve from ninety to two hundred people a full meal, from appetizers to dessert, in an hour and a half. But, he said, “we want to showcase the best dishes we can and make the president and First Lady look good.”
In preparation, he would consult the State Department about the guest’s dietary preferences, medical issues, and religious considerations, then construct a menu based on what was in season. Though dozens of people attend the White House feasts, “we really designed the menu for just four people”—the American First Couple and their guests of honor. The food should nod to the visitors’ nation—with an ingredient, flavor, cooking technique, or color combination—look interesting, and taste “pleasant” but not too challenging. “You don’t want to serve a sour pickle, or a lot of garlic, which could be offensive,” Moeller said.
State dinners are multisensory experiences, the veteran partygoers explained, and they can overwhelm one’s ability to process. People spend a lot of time looking at the room decor, talking to their tablemates, or eavesdropping on others. “Food gets a short shrift, historically,” Roxanne Roberts said. “After people go to a state dinner, they tell stories about what they saw and who they talked to, but not necessarily about the perfectly cooked meal.”
This is one reason why guests sign each other’s menus at the end of a meal, as souvenirs to remind themselves, “Oh, that’s what I ate last night, and that’s whom I sat next to.”
“But are those nights numbered?” I wondered. For years, critics have complained that state dinners are a form of Kabuki—an obscure anachronism that has outlived its usefulness in the internet age. The time, expense, and pomp required to present such an elaborate meal seems out of step with modern ways, the complaint goes. Every few years, a headline wonders if the state dinner is “going the way of the dodo,” as The Christian Science Monitor did.
I put it to the table: “Is the Kabuki worth something, or has the state dinner become an empty gesture?”
“A state dinner is never an empty gesture!” Ann Stock exclaimed. “It’s an important political act. It is an honor.”
“Naaah, they aren’t gonna disappear,” Moeller said. “Cool stuff happens. The world leaders meet in person, break bread, get to know each other—you can’t do that in a tweet.”
“Anyone who says the state dinner is not important has been to so many it doesn’t matter anymore,” Roxanne Roberts added. “Or they don’t understand anything about the history, tradition, and symbols of our country.”
“Or they weren’t on the guest list!” Kummer chimed in.
“Okay,” I said, “so will state dinners continue to be relevant in the twenty-first century?”
“Yes!” the table agreed. And then, full of presidential food and talk, we signed each other’s menus and bade one another good night.
After our guests left, Moeller, his wife, Suryati, and I digested the evening over glasses of Pinot Noir. What we had created was not a state dinner exactly, but it was as close as we could get without being invited to the White House. The conversation had been stimulating, and as we exhaled in a state of happy fatigue we toasted the dinner, our guests, and “the presidents—all of them, good and bad,” for they had brought us together. As we talked past midnight, it gave us a chance to get to know each other, deconstruct the meal, and consider what we might do differently if we ever try such an ambitious party again. It was leisurely and natural, the kind of moment I came to miss terribly just weeks later.
II. At the President’s Table, and Ours
Looking back on that night is bittersweet. Our White House dinner took place on February 17, 2020, when, unbeknownst to us, and most Americans, the coronavirus was snaking across the country. It is believed that COVID-19 claimed its first U.S. victim on February 6 and took a second life on the seventeenth, the day of our dinner; those fatalities weren’t detected until later, and a third person died on the twenty-ninth. (None of our dining companions were sickened that night, luckily.) As the virus bloomed into a poisonous global pandemic, everyone who could retreated into a cocoon, with compounding feelings of isolation and dread.
By the fall of 2020, COVID had infected President and Mrs. Trump and killed more than a million people worldwide. By the spring of 2022, the pandemic and its side effects had killed an estimated 15 million people globally, some 778,000 of whom were Americans (the Civil War, our deadliest conflict, led to an estimated 650,000 to 750,000 deaths). As people quarantined, social isolation led to a “loneliness epidemic,” especially among young adults, and serious health consequences.
Yet, even before COVID, the president’s table—which is another way of saying our collective table—was in disarray. Increasingly, Americans were eating apart from each other and less healthily, both literally and metaphorically.
The warning signs were everywhere. Despite ample research showing how beneficial family meals are to children, Harvard researchers found that only 30 percent of families manage to eat together on a regular basis. Though teens can be moody, research shows they enjoy family dinners, and 80 percent of them say that is the time they are most likely to eat well, and talk, laugh, or cry with their parents and siblings. The Harvard researchers found dramatic benefits in communication skills and vocabulary among young children who eat with their families.
But the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that adults spent an average of only thirty-seven minutes a day preparing and consuming a meal at home. Other studies found that students who don’t routinely eat with their family are more likely to skip school, and that kids who don’t eat with their parents at least twice a week are more likely to become overweight. With a surge in trendy diets, body self-consciousness, food allergies, and religious strictures, “there is a correlation between [increased] food restrictions and [increased] loneliness,” observed Ayelet Fishbach, the University of Chicago behavioral scientist. “No one quite knows why,” she added, though people adhering to restricted diets “are not part of the group.”
The decline of shared family meals does not affect everyone equally. Affluent families have been eating together more frequently in recent decades, while low-income families have been doing so less, the Harvard researchers found. The reasons for this are clear: many people don’t have the time or energy to shop, cook, and clean. Others don’t have access to healthy foods, or aren’t interested in cooking.
At a time when eating at restaurants, buying premade dinners, or ordering takeout are seductively easy options, many people consider home-cooked meals an anachronism, or an expensive indulgence, though premade foods are not always cheaper, and certainly not healthier. Home-cooked meals are higher in fruits, vegetables, proteins, and fiber, and have fewer calories and less fat, sugar, and salt than commercial foodstuffs. The Atlantic reported that by 2014 Americans were spending almost as much on fast food as on groceries; a quarter of us eat at least one fast-food meal every day, and the average citizen eats one in five meals in their car. In reality, most of us operate somewhere in the middle of these extremes, bouncing between home-cooked and store-bought foods. But the point is that the combination of social stressors and poor-quality foods has led to a rise in health issues and a decline in sociability.
In Washington, this trend took on a political edge. As the rhetoric sharpened, partisans left the communal table, sealed themselves into ideological fortresses, and rejected cooperation in favor of self-interest. In this atmosphere, questions about the politics of food and the food of politics became divisive, and we pushed our tables further and further away from one another’s. Before the pandemic hit, the number of bipartisan events at the White House—which have brought people of all persuasions together since John Adams’s opening reception in 1801—was dwindling. The tradition of collegial bargaining and compromise over club sandwiches and quesadillas in the House and Senate dining rooms was increasingly a vestige of the past. Even the District’s legendary cocktail parties were in decline, something unthinkable just a few years ago.
As of this writing, it remains an open question whether or not the capital will regain its social-political-gastronomic mojo. There are signs it could. With a pent-up demand after two years of inactivity, Washingtonians flocked to favorite events, such as the Kennedy Center Honors, the Gridiron dinner, and the White House Correspondents’ Association bash in 2022. Not surprisingly, more families ate together during the pandemic: a Census report found that some 85 percent of children ate dinner with their parents five or more times per week during the 2020 lockdown, while an American Family Survey revealed that 54 percent of families ate together every day. It would mark a welcome return to common sense if those private habits influenced elected officials to break bread together again on a regular basis. For, as Francine du Plessix Gray wrote: “The family meal is not only the core curriculum in the school of civilized discourse; it is also a set of protocols that curb our natural savagery and our animal greed, and cultivate a capacity for sharing and thoughtfulness….The ritual of nutrition helps to imbue families, and societies at large, with greater empathy and fellowship.”
In 1790, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison discovered that there is weakness in disunion and strength in breaking bread together, as they brokered their Dinner Table Bargain. And our modest White House dinner in February 2020 demonstrated that good bipartisan conversation over a fine meal is still possible. This is as true at our own table as it is at the president’s. Or, to put it another way: if eating together makes us happy and effective, then not eating together makes us unhappy and less effective—as individuals and as a nation.
“People prefer to eat together [rather] than alone,” Ayelet Fishbach explained. Her research has found that people, even complete strangers, who eat similar foods are more trusting of one another, work more cooperatively, and are better able to resolve conflicts than those who don’t. And, she added, the way people share food determines how well they get along. If everyone has their own plate of food, then sharing a meal is simple. But if a group shares, say, a bowl of popcorn, then to ensure harmony everyone should be able to reach the food, take turns helping themselves, and consume equal portions. In other words, Fishbach said, eating together requires “social coordination,” which requires people to slow down, take turns, and pay attention to the food and one another.
For this to work on a national scale the tone must be set at the top. The president is the eater in chief and part of his responsibility is to preside over the nation’s table in an active and informed way. “How we produce and consume food has a bigger impact on Americans’ well-being than any other human activity,” Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan, and other experts have written. “The industry is the largest sector of our economy; food touches everything from our health to the environment, climate change, economic inequality and the federal budget.” They recommend creating a national food policy to be administered by a food czar. It’s a provocative and timely idea, albeit one that is politically risky.
Some presidents have intuitively understood the symbolic, practical, and political value of food. Jefferson was our greatest epicurean leader in the nineteenth century; the Kennedys set the gold standard for White House entertaining in the twentieth century; and so far, the Obamas have been the most foodie First Couple of the twenty-first century. The Roosevelts were knowledgeable and enthusiastic eaters; Eisenhower and Carter were talented cooks; Lyndon Johnson understood the legislative value of barbecue. Hoover, Wilson, and Nixon treated food as a necessary evil, though their nutritional policies saved millions of lives. By and large, however, these men are outliers: most presidents have failed to recognize the way food connects people and its centrality to the nation’s well-being. Instead, they have relied on basic diets and disjointed policies, and not one of them has effectively linked the creation and consumption of the American meal to the impact it has on human and environmental health. The reason for this is clear: food is highly political and big business, and any attempt to change the nation’s diet is fraught (as First Lady Michelle Obama discovered when she focused on childhood obesity and planted a vegetable garden, and was roundly criticized by industrial interests).
The United States has had a nominal food policy since 1862, when Lincoln established the Department of Agriculture, and is famously bountiful. In theory, we could provide every citizen with healthy, affordable meals. But in practice we rely on a patchwork system and have never developed a single, coordinated method for the oversight, regulation, and administration of food policy—as Brazil and Mexico have done, for example. As a result, our current system has led to poor nutrition and food deserts in some places and overabundance and waste in others. By subsidizing corn and soybeans, the federal government has created plenty of cheap but unhealthy foods, which contribute to obesity, diabetes, and other diseases. The consolidation of giant farms and meat processors, compounded by lax oversight, has left the country vulnerable to crop blights and health pandemics—as when COVID sickened workers in crowded meatpacking plants and led to supply-chain bottlenecks. A reliance on fossil fuels and ethanol leads to the pollution of water, soil, and air, which accelerates health and economic disparities. It’s a vicious circle built on short-term thinking.
But these are essentially political issues, and they should be resolved by our chief politician, the president. The first thing our leaders can do is to raise the profile of American food and the ranching, farming, and fishing that provide it—including their benefits and costs—so that the public has a better understanding of what’s at stake. Once the president convinces voters how central, and dysfunctional, the food system is, it will be harder for industry and its political allies to resist change. Equally important is for our presidents to lead by example—or, as Julia Child wrote, they should raise the nation’s “gastronomic image” and emphasize “the good in American cooking.” That means First Families should eat well and healthily, but not always expensively, and publicize it. They should spotlight fresh, local ingredients, and regional, historical, and Indigenous cooking traditions more vigorously.
When it comes to formal evenings, First Couples should adhere to tradition but continue to push for the very best, most innovative American cuisine. The same goes for the entertainment. The White House is a unique stage, and though state or official dinners should be respectful and serious, to a point, they should also be fun. The intention of these gatherings is to encourage communication and ensure that 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue remains “a showcase of American art and history,” as Jackie Kennedy put it. She demonstrated that good food and a little showmanship can reap fantastic political dividends.
At informal events, the eater in chief could experiment with unusual ingredients—“ugly” vegetables (such as bruised tomatoes, which are perfectly good to eat), “climate conscious” foods (like beans and legumes), plant-based meats, even insects, or invasive species such as lionfish. Having the president sample such “new” foods will help normalize them and shift the American diet in a more sustainable direction. Those who cringe at the thought might reflect on the fact that humans have been consuming brown apples and toasted grasshoppers for centuries; and though pan-fried lionfish is something new, the White House has a long history of serving dishes—such as roasted possum, squirrel stew, and terrapin soup—that are no longer fashionable. The times are a-changing, and we must adapt.
At this moment of turmoil and innovation, seemingly small gestures can take on outsized importance and lead to further change. Take the Obamas’ kitchen garden, for instance. Simultaneously retro and contemporary, it supplied the White House and soup kitchens with fresh produce, taught the First Lady and schoolchildren how to garden, and inspired people to eat healthier, exercise outside, and become self-sustaining. Why not build on that success, expand the garden further, and create a small farm with fruit trees and vines—including wine grapes, in homage to Jefferson, and a grazing cow and sheep, a nod to Taft and Wilson—or perhaps an elephant and a donkey, whose manure could be used for fertilizer, as Michael Pollan once suggested? Outdoor dinners and concerts could be held amid the earthy bounty rather than in the manicured Rose Garden.
In the spirit of modernization, it is high time to elevate the Executive Kitchen, both literally and figuratively. The hearth has always been the center of a home, around which all activity circulates; but at the White House, the small, efficient kitchen is squeezed into a sunless room on the mansion’s ground floor. Located far below the State, the President’s, and the Family dining rooms, the kitchen requires elevators, stairs, and dumbwaiters to transport its rapidly cooling meals up to hungry guests. This sends the message that the First Kitchen and its staff are an afterthought. That may have once been true, but no longer. Americans are increasingly interested in cooking, and it would be far more efficient, and interesting, to give the White House Kitchen greater pride of place, with plenty of room and sunlight, outfit it with the latest tools and appliances, and allow the public to observe the cooks at work (from a safe distance). As a corollary, the kitchen staff should be better compensated, their work highlighted, and the cooks should be encouraged to spread the good word about the good food at the president’s table.
Communal meals have been a launchpad for the American dream for nearly 250 years, and few places on earth rival the White House as a place to eat. The literal president’s table—whether it is the grand thirty-foot-long banquet table in the State Dining Room, a small table at a lawn party, or the kitchen counter in the First Family’s private quarters—is a practical necessity: it’s a place to eat. But the metaphorical president’s table encompasses many meanings. It is a symbol of the nation, its bounty, and the many voices and identities of its citizens. As such, it is a political stage, a diplomatic arena, a forum for debate, a cultural showcase. It can be an indicator of our leaders’ inner lives, and their administration’s priorities. And at the end of the day the president’s table is ours, the electorate’s, for we voters are ultimately responsible for who sits there, what they eat, and why.
Sharing food and drink is an essential means of human connection, but it isn’t always easy. We look to our presidents for inspiration, and must hope, or insist, that our leaders pull America’s distanced tables close and encourage us all to sit down and break bread, together.