Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House

A wonderfully entertaining, often suprising history of presidential taste, from the grim meals eaten by Washington 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 nation--from the coauthor of Julia Child's best-selling memoir My Life in France

The American presidents have hosted some of the most significant moments in our history over meals at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. During such occasions, they've understood the value of breaking bread with both friends and foes--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 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-two of America's most influential presidents: how their meals were prepared and by whom; and what their food preferences say about the presidents themselves, our nation's shifting diet, and the policies that resulted. 

Prud'homme also pulls back the curtain on overlooked figures like George Washington's enslaved chef, Hercules Posey, who narrowly escaped to freedom, or pioneering First Ladies, such as Dolley Madiso, Jackie Kennedy, and Michelle Obama who used food to build political and social relationships. As Prud'homme weaves these stories together, he reveals 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 original recipes for favorite presidential dishes, such as:

• Martha Washington's Preserved Cherries
• Abraham Lincoln's Gingerbread Men
• Franklin D. Roosevelt's Reverse Martini
• Lady Bird Johnson's Pedernales River Chili.