Alex Prud’homme is a culinary historian, authoring several books about Julia Child. His love of storytelling on the importance of cooking in culture shows up in Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. This book is a chronology of over two dozen administrations and how they used food to entertain and guide policy, and how the subtle (and not-so-subtle) remarks that a President made had national repercussions.
Prud’homme draws on the remarks Anthony Bourdain made in 2016, stating “there’s nothing more political than food” as inspiration for the book’s material. Taking us back to the 1790’s, the author talks about how a number of the nation’s most consequential decisions were decided over dinners or were food-based in nature. In addition to these, you learn about the tastes of many of the nation’s presidents, like John Adams preferring hard cider every morning and George H.W. Bush making his distaste for broccoli known. With the latter, the nation’s broccoli farmers had a harsh response to his feelings on their crop.
The highlight of Dinner with the President is the recipes at the end, like Dwight Eisenhower’s steak and Lady Bird Johnson’s Texas chili. The book reads part chronology, part cookbook, and part a series of short stories about how our country has used food to entertain, to politicize, and make important decisions. While the author’s politics sometimes seep through into his writing, this book is a worthy look at our country’s culinary path interwoven through the nation’s highest political office.
MY RATING: 3.5
