Dinner with the president : food, politics, and a history of breaking bread at the White House
by Prud'homme, Alex (Author)
Summary
"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 reg... Full description
- Introduction: At the president's table
- Part I The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. George Washington : the first kitchen
- John Adams : the first host
- Thomas Jefferson : America's founding epicure
- James Madison : his rotundity, her remorseless equanimity
- Abraham Lincoln : corn dodgers, gingerbread, and Thanksgiving
- Ulysses S. Grant : the drunken tanner, the military genius, and the first state dinner
- Part II The twentieth century. Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft : two bears
- From Wilson to Hoover : collywobbles and a hail of rotten tomatoes
- Franklin D. Roosevelt : the gourmet's lament
- Harry S. Truman : bourbon, Berlin, and the comforts of fried chicken
- Dwight D. Eisenhower : the president who cooked
- John F. Kennedy : Camelot and clam chowder
- Lyndon B. Johnson : how barbecue led to diplomacy and chili led to civil rights
- Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford : the gastro-diplomat and the instant president
- Jimmy Carter : in search of grits and peace
- Ronald Reagan : jellybeans, weight-loss, and glasnost
- George H. W. Bush : the yin and yang of broccoli
- Part III The twenty-first century. William J. Clinton : torn between renunciation and appetite
- George W. Bush : tee balls, freedom fries, and changing of the guard
- Barack Obama : the president with the global palate
- Donald Trump : the food fighter
- Joseph R. Biden : we finish as family
- Conclusion: Eating together.