Dinner with the President by Alex Prud'homme

DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT by Alex Prud'homme, subtitled Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House, is full of super interesting tidbits. Prud’homme is a journalist and prolific author; he shares details from Washington’s false teeth (as a result a favorite dish was grilled striped bass, one of the ten recipes included in an appendix) to the Obamas’ kitchen garden and Trump’s refusal to hold a state dinner for Ukraine’s Zelenskyy without some quid pro quo. Each era ties food to the times which is surprisingly informative, not unlike Chirag Mehta’s tool for creating word clouds and analyzing prominent issues in State of the Union speeches.  An example in DINNER WITH THE PRESIDENT is LBJ’s reliance on BBQ and Pedernales River Chili to entertain as well as describing the discrimination his African American cook faced when driving between Washington, DC and the Texas White House; it is implied that experience strengthened LBJ’s resolve in getting civil rights legislation passed. Prud'homme notes that a “food policy” has existed in some form at least since Lincoln (!) established the Department of Agriculture in 1862 and also describes the lavish, French-based dinners hosted by the Kennedys one hundred years later. This is a text with which readers can dabble, always finding a unique anecdote related in a generally chronological format. As Prud'homme says, “I was intrigued by the notion of presidential hunger – for food, of course, but also for the other trappings of office….”  Approximately a fourth of the book is devoted to recipes, acknowledgements, and extensive notes. Here, with more examples, is the Wall Street Journal review