American Appetite

New York journalist Alex Prud’homme knows a thing or two about food. His great aunt, culinary icon Julia Child, brought French cuisine to the American kitchen, and their co-authored book “My Life in France” helped inspire the film "Julie & Julia" by Nora Ephron. Prud’homme’s new book, “Dinner With The President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House” explores the fascinating relationship between fine dining and diplomacy. I spoke with Prud’homme ahead of an author talk he’ll give at The Cornwall Library in Cornwall, Conn., on Saturday, April 15.

Alexander Wilburn: This book is so extensively researched and covers so much of American history, what first inspired this undertaking?

Alex Prud’homme: I grew up in this family of foodies and we liked to sit around the dinner table arguing about politics. My great-aunt Julia Child put on these two television specials on what it took to put together a state dinner from behind the scenes. She brought the first television cameras into the executive kitchen, first in 1967 with LBJ, and then in 1976 with Gerald Ford. I was writing about Julia and discovered she spent more time at the White House than just those two events. She became friendly with the cooks, particularly Chef Henri Haller. Julia and her husband Paul were diplomats before she became known as Julia Child the Chef. So she understood the political aspects of the state dinner, as well as the culinary aspect. In 2016, I was invited to give a talk to staff at the Obama White House. I had a friend there who gave me a tour of the White House, which was unexpectedly emotional for me, looking at the busts and portraits of the presidents and first ladies…the history came alive for me. I think the seed of the book was planted then.

AW: Since the Obama White House we’ve had two presidents really associated with food — and fairly commonplace food — Biden and his ice cream, as well as the photos of Trump’s Air Force One Big Macs. What do these staples tell us about these two very different men?

AP: It’s interesting, because my book is really about the food of politics, and the politics of food. A meal at the White House, even a seemingly simple meal, is never just a meal, is it? It’s a set of signs and symbols that go out to various constituencies, intentionally or not. So you look at Ronald Reagan and his jellybeans, which was kind of a cute candy, but it also spoke to how he had weened himself off of tobacco, the power of the sugar industry, and how he used jellybeans to judge someone’s character. If someone grabbed a whole handful of jellybeans that would mean one thing, and if they picked out just the color they liked, that meant something else. When Reagan defunded school lunches to the tune of $1.5 billion at the same time as he was promoting jellybeans, and Nancy Reagan was buying expensive china, it all backfired. That’s very similar to Trump with his burgers. The burgers are a political signal to his base saying, 'you like this food, I like this food, therefore vote for me.' He didn’t even have to say it, that was just the message everyone received as he tweeted out taco bowls and Pizza Hut and McDonald’s burgers. It’s a very primal, powerful thing. I spoke to some academics, and when we see someone eating the food that we like it signals our prehistoric brain that we are part of the same tribe and that this someone to be trusted. When it comes to Biden and ice cream, it’s similar. I think Trump genuinely likes McDonald’s and Biden genuinely likes ice cream, but there’s an internality to promoting those foods.

AW: We think of Trump as our modern president with this obsession with opulence, but if we go back to the Kennedys, it is Jackie who connects the White House with Versailles, and specifically the opulence of Louis XIV. But her Francophilia turned out to be advantageous, right?

AP: Jackie Kennedy intentionally modeled her White House entertaining on Louis XIV, The Sun King, who understood the value of food as a diplomatic tool. The older phrase ‘breaking bread’ goes back to the beginnings of mankind, bringing the tribe together to help everybody survive. In Louis XIV’s day, breaking bread at his behest not only confers power on him, but puts the onus on his guest to return the favor, or show fealty to the king. It was a way to broker business deals, agreements, and marriages, it was a way of keeping his friends close and his enemies closer. Jackie studied this and really was brilliant. She was so young, she was in her early 30s doing this, but she had a very sophisticated social quality. She made the Kennedy White House the place to see and be seen. They had a series of famous dinners there and one of my favorites was the Brains Dinner, named not because they ate brains, but because the Nobel Laureates were invited. JFK joked that this was the greatest meeting of intellects at the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Jackie understood you can get a lot of business done at state dinners, so when she hosted President of Pakistan Ayub Khan at Mount Vernon, there was a lot going on. Not only was it a magnificent, splendid evening that she staged, but behind the scenes, there was real politique going on. It turned out that Khan was furious because Kennedy had given India, Pakistan’s sworn enemy, a billion dollars in aid. But that night at Mount Vernon, Kennedy, and Khan walked through George Washington’s gardens and somehow Kennedy charmed him. So between Jackie’s mise-en-scène and Kennedy’s sweet talk, they brokered a deal where the C.I.A. was once again able to send spy planes over China from Pakistani air bases and drop insurgents into Tibet. That came in handy a year later when China attacked India. We were in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, but because Kennedy had a relationship with Pakistan we were able to at least get some intel. That story is emblematic of what got me interested in this book. There was a lot more than a meal going on.

Prud’homme will discuss his book with Adam Van Doren at Cornwall Library on Saturday, April 15 at 5 p.m., in person and live on Zoom. To register go to www.cornwalllibrary.org

Photo courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

Photo courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

Photo courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum

Photo courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum