History with David Rubenstein

(theme music playing) RUBENSTEIN: Hello, I'm David Rubenstein, I'm gonna be in conversation today with Alex Prud'homme who is a veteran journalist who's written for the "New York Times," "The New Yorker," "Vanity Fair" and the author of nine books.

Today we're gonna be talking about his book, Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. Now the premise of your book, I guess I can say there're two premises.

One is that humans are like all other species, we have to eat, but that humans, uh, do better as, as, uh, social animals when they eat together.

And I think the premise of your book is that if we break bread together as the Bible says, we will have a better chance of communicating with each other more peacefully.

Is that the essence of it?

PRUD'HOMME: Exactly.

Exactly.

And food is a very primal driver.

Um, It turns out, uh, that academics have been studying this.

People really pay attention to what the president eats.

And it's not a conscious decision, but when you see somebody eating the kind of food that you like it goes into your primal brain and it says, "He likes that food, I like that food.

Maybe we're from the same tribe.

I trust him, therefore I'll vote for him."

RUBENSTEIN: Well, let's go through our presidents.

George Washington.

Now, when he became president, um, the capital of the United States was New York and Philadelphia, so he never actually lived in a White House.

But, um, did he entertain a lot in Philadelphia and New York?

And did he have elaborate meals?

PRUD'HOMME: He did.

Food was very important, uh, to his presidency.

And you could argue that the fate of the nation rested on the shoulders of his chef who was an enslaved man named Hercules Posey, who was a wonderful character.

Uh, There should be a movie about this guy.

He was so valued that the Washingtons allowed him to sell the slops, which were the leftovers, uh, and with that money, uh, he would go out, uh, and buy a, a gold-tipped cane, or a top hat, or some beautiful clothes.

Um, But he didn't much like being a slave and, uh, the night of George Washington's 65th birthday and he was retiring, uh, from the presidency finally, uh, Posey disappeared into the night, uh, from Mount Vernon, uh, and they were furious, the Washingtons were furious because they really relied on his cooking.

Um, and they never were able to find him.

RUBENSTEIN: So the next president is John Adams who was a taciturn, uh, relatively parsimonious person, didn't like to entertain.

So when he moved into the White House, uh, with Abigail, did they do elaborate entertaining or they just didn't do that?

PRUD'HOMME: They liked to sit at home and read.

They were real academics.

Uh, they were Yankees, uh, farmers.

They did not have a lot of money, they did not have slaves, Adams was the first president to live in the White House, um, and there was a public expectation that he would present the White House to the public and have an opening party there, and he resisted and Abigail resisted.

And finally, they gave in, uh, and on New Year's Day they had people over but they didn't have a full meal.

They had cocktails, uh, some drinks, uh, and some snacks.

RUBENSTEIN: So the next president is one of the great foodies of all time, Thomas Jefferson.

He knew wine inside out, he'd elaborate, uh, purchaser of wine from France, and he had, uh, a lot of chefs as well who, who made food that he thought was, uh, really pretty impressive, and he liked to entertain.

But he was widower at, as president, so did he have a first lady?

PRUD'HOMME: He did not have a first lady.

He was our greatest epicure.

Uh, he was really an amazing guy who understood the value of food as a political and diplomatic tool.

He'd been the ambassador to France, uh, he also had an enslaved chef, James Hemings, uh, who was the brother of Sally Hemings who was a slave, uh, who raised, helped raise his daughters, um, and became the mother of six children by Jefferson.

It was later discovered through DNA, um, and so it was a very complicated, uh, dynamic in that household.

And, uh, when he brought James Hemings to Paris he, uh, he gave him a stage in some of the best kitchens there.

So James Hemings, like Hercules, was, uh, a remarkable chef.

Uh, he could speak French better than Jefferson, he was literate, he could read and write, um, and he, and he was a slave and it was just bizarre.

And so he comes back to the States and he just doesn't fit the world as it was, um, and, uh, he bought his freedom Jefferson, uh, because Jefferson was paying him in Paris, uh, because I-I slavery wasn't legal there.

RUBENSTEIN: Right.

PRUD'HOMME: And so he eventually, uh, gets his freedom but then he drinks himself to death.

RUBENSTEIN: As, uh, president, uh, Jefferson had the services of Dolley Madison as a pseudo, uh, first lady, is that right?

PRUD'HOMME: Correct.

And Dolley Madison, um, who had been a Quaker, uh, had lost her first family, uh, married James Madison and became the toast of Washington.

Uh, she was a natural-born hostess.

She loved to give parties.

She understood how to keep everybody happy, uh, by feeding them.

Uh, When tempers flared, she'd give them a pinch of snuff from her little snuff box.

Uh, She would serve them Yard of Flannel Punch, it was called, and, uh, she would have Wednesday night parties the-that were called, uh, Mrs.

Madison's Squeezes because they were so popular you had to squeeze to get into them.

And she really understood how to use food and entertaining to broker business deals, political deals, marriages, um, and so she helped Jefferson, uh, as a sort of, uh, a surrogate first lady.

RUBENSTEIN: So let's go forward to another president, Abraham Lincoln.

PRUD'HOMME: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Lincoln had a complicated relationship with Mary Todd Lincoln but did Lincoln have a foodie perspective or he came from the Prairie and he didn't really care about food all that much?

PRUD'HOMME: They were an interesting couple.

He was raised on the frontier, born in Kentucky, uh, moved to Illinois, uh, raised as a farmer.

He loved anything with corn.

Cornbread, uh, something called corn dodgers.

Uh, He would eat raw honey from the hive, uh, things like possum, uh, and squirrel.

Uh, Mary Todd Lincoln, uh, was from a sophisticated family, her father was a wealthy businessman, so she grew up, uh, speaking French, eating foie-gras, and caviar, um, but they fell in love and, um, they made house together.

They would shop and cook together, they would milk the cow together, uh, they were a real kind of modern couple when it came to food.

RUBENSTEIN: Ulysses S Grant becomes president, uh, not immediately after Lincoln but later on.

Um, and, uh, what was he, he was known as an alcoholic.

PRUD'HOMME: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Uh, How did that affect his ability to do entertaining?

PRUD'HOMME: Well, uh, the alcoholism was a demon that bedeviled him his whole life, um, and he fought against it, uh, valiantly.

He went to, um, the equivalent of what we now call Alcohols Anonymous.

He talked openly about his problem.

Uh, but he was also a, a, a...

He liked to entertain, um, and Julia liked to entertain, and they had a wonderful Sicilian chef named Valentino Melah, who was famous for dinners of 30 courses or so.

Um, and the story I like best about him is he host the first state dinner and really set the template for state dinners today.

It was for King Kalakaua of what was then called the Sandwich Islands, now known as Hawaii.

And Kalakaua, uh, was sinking into a sea of, uh, of debt and had plenty of sugar to sell but America had high tariffs, uh, on sugar.

And so he came to Washington and brokered a trade deal with US Grant, and Grant, said, "Okay, I will lower the tariffs on sugar, uh, on the condition, uh, that we have access to Pearl Harbor as a naval base."

And this was a really big deal because it allowed us to project our power out into the middle of the Pacific.

RUBENSTEIN: Let's go to the 20th century.

So Teddy Roosevelt becomes president more or less after McKinley is assassinated, he has lots of young children.

Was he a foodie?

PRUD'HOMME: Teddy Roosevelt was what I call a gourmand, uh, meaning somebody who eats to wretched excess, unlike his cousin, uh, FDR who was a gourmet, which is somebody who enjoys fine food and is really into dining, which is not to say he didn't know how to eat well, he was raised in one the New York's wealthiest families, he was, he had servants growing up and a chef, um, but he just liked to eat.

And he was a sickly child who overcompensated by becoming a kind of a macho, uh, military hero and a hunter, and, uh, he ate, and ate, and ate.

And, uh, he essentially ate himself to death.

He had a weak heart and eventually, Roosevelt died of a, of his heart condition a... at only age 60.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, Roosevelt is succeeded by his friend, um, William Howard Taft who is famous to some people, school children perhaps, for being the heaviest president.

He is succeeded by Woodrow Wilson who was pencil-thin.

So I assume he didn't eat as much as, uh, William Howard Taft.

Is that right?

PRUD'HOMME: Wilson had a nervous stomach, uh, which seemed to be connected to, uh, his brain because every time something went wrong in the First World War, uh, he would, uh, uh, not be able to eat and he would have to go off and have a nap, it would give him a headache, uh, which was frequently.

But ironically, Wilson, and with the help of Herbert Hoover had a great impact, uh, by shipping tons of food to Europe, uh, during and after the First World War and saved millions of lives.

So, here's a guy who could barely eat, uh, who had a huge impact, uh, with food.

RUBENSTEIN: So Hoover is succeeded by FDR and FDR grew up in a family that really valued food and wine.

So was he really knowledgeable about food?

PRUD'HOMME: He was, uh, and he was also... Like Jefferson, he was a natural gourmet.

Uh, he really understood, uh, good food and wine, he loved to mix his own cocktails, make his own coffee, uh, and nothing excited him more than having, uh, kippers, uh, for breakfast or abalone steaks for lunch, or, uh, gumbo for dinner, something exotic.

Um, and he shared that with Winston Churchill.

And so during the Second World War when Churchill came over and lived in the White House for three weeks, uh, they would stay up late eating these exotic meals and drinking until 2:00 in the morning and planning the war.

RUBENSTEIN: So when FDR dies, um, he's succeeded by Harry Truman who is not a gourmet, right?

PRUD'HOMME: Correct.

You know, he was, uh, he was Harry.

He was a haberdasher, failed haberdasher.

Uh, his wife, uh, Bess Truman, hated being First Lady.

Um, she kind of liked to cook but she really didn't like the spotlight of first ladyhood, she would rather be going to the baseball game, and driving her own car, and doing her own shopping.

RUBENSTEIN: Well, Truman is succeeded by the man you say in your book was the best cook of anybody who was President of United States, Dwight Eisenhower.

Why did he learn to cook so well and how did he learn how to cook so well?

PRUD'HOMME: He was a farm boy, uh, born in Abilene, uh, and, uh, raised hunting and fishing, learned to cook, uh, from his mother, Ida, who was a pacifist.

When he married, his wife, Mamie, did not like to cook and so he was the, uh, the quartermaster for the family.

Um, as a General, famously during the Second World War, he led the D-Day invasion and he was the one who really made sure that his troops were well-fed.

Uh, he promoted C-rations and K-rations, uh, and he lived by Napoleon's dictum, um, that an army runs on its stomach.

RUBENSTEIN: So Eisenhower is succeeded by President Kennedy who famously has as his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, who clearly loved French cooking and French wine.

Uh, was he himself, President Kennedy, a gourmet?

PRUD'HOMME: He was not.

He was a Massachusetts boy who liked clam chowder, uh, baked beans, and hot dogs, ice cream.

Uh, But Jackie was a Francophile.

She had lived in France for a year, was fluent in French, had been raised with fine foods, um, and intentionally modeled her White House entertaining on Louis XIV, the Sun King who used food to, uh, broker deals, uh, keep his friends close and his enemies closer.

And, uh, she raised the bar of White House entertaining to a level that matched Thomas Jefferson's and has not been equaled really since.

Um, she hired a French chef, Rene Verdon, uh, from the Carlyle Hotel here in New York, uh, and began to use, uh, a series of dinners to, uh, make their White House the place to see and be seen.

And it was really a brilliant political move.

So she would have, um, uh, Andr Malraux, for example, who was the French cultural minister over for dinner and at that dinner, uh, she got him to agree to loan the US the Mona Lisa for the first time ever.

Uh, and it was very controversial, uh, but it was used as a way to patch up relationship, uh, with de Gaulle, uh, who had been flirting with the Soviets and...

So they brought the Mona Lisa over, uh, uh, put her up at the National Gallery and it caused, uh, a sensation called, "Mona Mania."

Brought over a million people to Washington and made the Kennedys look sophisticated and worldly, and it was really brilliant.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, President Kennedy is succeeded, as we all know, by President Johnson.

Now he was certainly not a, a foodie, right?

PRUD'HOMME: Well, he was in his own way.

Uh, he was the opposite of the kind of suave, uh, sophisticated Kennedys.

Uh, Johnson was raised, uh, in, uh, flat lands of Texas.

Uh, he, uh, kinda leaned into that biography, his presidency coincided with the Louis L'Amour cowboy novels, uh, the Marlboro man's cigarette advertising was just beginning, um, and the sort of, the myth of Wild West.

So he played into that, uh, by serving barbecue and chili, uh, and he used those tools very effectively.

He would bring people like Congressmen out to his ranch in Texas, um, Stonewall Ranch, and where he would butter them up, he would take them on a horseback ride, uh, then he would feed them some, some ribs, uh, and some beer with cornbread and beans, uh, and then he'd move in, he'd say, um, "I really need your help on something."

And very often it was effective and it was most effective with, uh, diplomats who had this notion of the Wild West, particularly the Germans, uh, so he was able to broker some very effective deals using that.

RUBENSTEIN: Now, President Nixon follows, uh, President Johnson.

Uh, President Nixon is famous for among other things having cottage cheese with ketchup on it?

Is that true?

PRUD'HOMME: That's correct.

That would be his lunch almost every day.

It would either be with ketchup, uh, because he said ketchup can hide almost anything, I thought that was interesting.

Or it would be on a pineapple ring.

Uh, It was very plain, it was just part of the California cuisine of the day, it was sort of healthy, low calorie.

But what I find fascinating is, he unexpectedly had a big impact on food, uh, first of all by hosting the first, um, uh, White House Conference on Food and Nutrition.

Uh, and he really helped, uh, uh, the food stamp program and, and kids', uh, school lunches.

And then in 1972 he famously went to China, um, where, uh, he was seen at prime time in America on television eating this exotic banquet, uh, of many courses of, of, of things like thousand-year eggs, or shark fin soup, uh, which was sort of the opposite of cottage cheese.

Uh, this dinner, not only opened China to Western trade but it boxed the Soviets out of the great game in Asia.

Um, it helped him get reelected in '72, and, uh, had had the unintended consequence of setting off a whole new wave of interest in Chinese food here, uh, because people saw him eating this exotic stuff that we didn't get, we were eating chop suey at the time.

Uh, and they wanted, uh, you know, uh, these exotic, spicy, interesting Chinese food.

RUBENSTEIN: Right.

PRUD'HOMME: So it's really just amazing.

RUBENSTEIN: How did Nixon deal with the chopsticks?

He wasn't the most coordinated person in the world.

PRUD'HOMME: Good point.

No, he was not coordinated.

He had learned from his debate with Kennedy, uh, the importance of optics, and he knew he was gonna be on camera.

And so before he went to China in '72, he secretly practiced for months using chopsticks, and he had a chopstick trainer who taught him to use different kinds of chopsticks made out of ivory, or metal, or wood, and picking up objects like a marble, or a cashew.

Uh, and so when there was photograph of him with Zhou Enlai in Beijing adroitly using chopsticks to pick up a chicken gizzard.

That image was almost as important as the very serious diplomacy that was going on behind the scenes because it showed him to be in command.

He looked presidential, he looked in control, uh, he looked sophisticated, uh, and as I said, it succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so Nixon is succeeded by Ford.

Uh, he's from the Midwest, would he have a Midwestern palette?

PRUD'HOMME: He did.

Uh, he liked, uh, steak and kidneys, you know, anything with cabbage and, and, and red meat.

Uh, and, and he called this, um, Michigan Gourmet.

Uh, because he inherited his presidency he was known as the instant president, uh, and he liked to have instant foods like Tang, uh, Sanka, and he said, "You know, I'm the instant president, and I, and I hope you, uh, like me as much as you like the instant foods."

RUBENSTEIN: So Jimmy Carter, my former boss, uh, became president after Ford.

Carter liked Southern food, is that right?

PRUD'HOMME: He had grown up on a farm and he liked to hunt and fish, he, uh, his brother, Billy, had a wonderful vegetable garden, they used to make these big vegetable stews, um, and he used food as a way of identifying himself in the public mind, uh, as something different from him predecessors.

Uh, It really set him apart.

And so he'd have a meal, uh, with fried chicken, uh, baked grits, um, collard greens, and it really, not only highlighted regional cooking, uh, but highlighted him as somebody to pay attention to.

RUBENSTEIN: Right.

PRUD'HOMME: And, uh, this same guy though, uh, then pulled off one of the great diplomatic coups of our time by inviting, uh, Menachem Begin and Anwar El-Sadat, uh, to Camp David.

Everybody told Carter that trying to create peace between Egypt and Israel would be impossible, um, but he was determined to do this.

And he got them up to Camp David, and, uh, sure enough, the two men wouldn't talk to each other, um, and he would shuttle back and forth, and he was...

The things were going from bad to worse.

But Rosalind noticed that in the Camp David kitchen, uh, the chefs, uh, the Christian, Muslim, uh, and Jewish chefs all got along very well.

There was only one kitchen there.

And so she thought to herself, "Well, maybe I can get the junior delegates interested, uh, in talking with each other and break the ice."

And so she did a brilliant thing which is she, um, she put food in different rooms.

She put, uh, cheese fondue here, uh, strawberries dipped in chocolate there, uh, drinks out on the patio, and invited the junior delegates to come and mingle, and sure enough they did, and they began to talk.

And ultimately, uh, at the 11th hour so did, uh, Begin and Sadat they, they broke the ice.

And you can't say that food was the only thing that led to the Camp David Accords, but it certainly helped.

RUBENSTEIN: So Carter is succeeded by Ronald Reagan who loved to entertain, or at least his wife loved entertaining.

PRUD'HOMME: Yeah.

RUBENSTEIN: Um, Did he have more state dinners than any other president in our history?

PRUD'HOMME: Well, he had the second most state dinners.

Uh, he had, uh, 52 state dinners and LBJ had 55 state dinners, but he had more, uh, official guests over to the White House than anybody else, uh, including kings and queens, he had Mother Theresa.

He did like to entertain but I think Nancy really like to entertain and she, um, although she denied it, she clearly, uh, emulated, uh, Jackie Kennedy.

She hired Jackie's, uh, social secretary, Letitia Baldridge, to help her, um, fit into Washington.

You know, people don't remember but they were outsiders when they came to Washington.

And Nancy did a very smart thing which is she really reached out across the aisle to democratic power brokers and she had them over for dinner, and... RUBENSTEIN: But she didn't eat much of it herself you point out.

PRUD'HOMME: She did not.

She was allegedly anorexic.

She would eat a, a, sort of a health shake for, breakfast and, and would e-eat very sparingly.

Um, and she made, uh, Reagan stop eating steak, uh, at least when she was in the White House.

As soon as she left he would, he would have a steak, uh, like many presidents.

And, uh, she was very health conscious, um, but she understood the value of food and, um, ended up engineering two of the most important state dinners held in the 20th century.

Uh, the first, uh, was for Prince Charles and Lady Diana, and famously that night, uh, she invited a secret guest, um, and at midnight, uh, as they began to dance, uh, in the, in the entryway to the White House, uh, John Travolta came out of the shadows, uh, the star, uh, of Saturday Night Fever, uh, and began to dance with Lady Di.

And the images of that, uh, went around the world and kind of defined the Reagan presidency and the whole decade of the 1980s, and then, uh, after that there was a more heartfelt one where they, uh, celebrated with the Gorbachev's, uh, after signing, uh, the INF Treaty.

Um, And this was sort of the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

It was, it marked the thaw because there had been great tension.

Uh, and by agreeing to withdraw our medium-range nuclear missiles from Europe, uh, this was the, was the thing that... RUBENSTEIN: Right.

PRUD'HOMME: That released the dam of diplomacy.

RUBENSTEIN: So Reagan is succeeded by his vice president, George Herbert Walker Bush.

Uh, did he like Connecticut food or Texas food?

PRUD'HOMME: Well, Reagan was famous for his jellybeans, uh, which became a way of kind of, uh, creating a bond with his voters.

And Bush, uh, Sr. tried to do the same thing by eating pork rinds, uh, with hot sauce.

And Reagan's jelly beans seemed genuine, the pork rinds did not seem genuine because he was this thin, WASP-y, Yankee from Greenwich, Connecticut, uh, and it seemed like he was trying to do a jelly bean and it didn't quite work.

RUBENSTEIN: Okay, so George Herbert Walker Bush is succeeded in the White House, um, by Bill Clinton, um, what was his food?

He liked fast food or... PRUD'HOMME: Well, he was a, famously a fast food lover and he had a bad heart as a result.

And so Hillary Clinton, brought on a guy named Walter Scheib who was a, a chef at the Greenbrier, uh, who specialized in fusion cooking and very healthy cooking.

Um, and in this way, uh, really, I think saved Bill Clinton's life.

Uh, they also brought in, um, uh, heart experts like Dr. Dean Ornish to advise him on his diet, um, and let the nation know that you can really change your health by your diet.

RUBENSTEIN: So, Bill Clinton is succeeded by George W. Bush.

Was he a real Texan who loved Texas food?

PRUD'HOMME: Unlike his father, he was a genuine Texan, yet he was a man of simple tastes.

Uh, Walter Scheib, uh, the chef, uh, grew sick of creating what, uh, he called country club food, very simple basic things.

And W, uh, he would have, uh, Little League games at the White House on the lawn, uh, and he liked to serve Ball Park dogs.

Uh, Scheib made the mistake of serving grilled hotdogs, uh, and Bush, uh, blew his top because he said, "Ball Park dogs are steamed, not grilled."

Uh... RUBENSTEIN: So Barack Obama succeeds George W. Bush.

Um, was Barack Obama foodie?

PRUD'HOMME: Barack Obama was a real foodie.

Uh, he really was.

He grew up, uh, partly in Hawaii, uh, and partly in Indonesia, uh, where he learned to eat Indonesian cuisine as a, as a boy, um, and liked spicy food.

Michelle was, uh, more interested in health than, uh, necessarily fine dining, um, and she hired a guy named Sam Kass at their personal cook, uh, uh, who was a, a guy who was, uh, interested in, in healthy eating.

Taught the Obama girls, um, uh, how to cook and how to eat well, uh, cleared out all the junk food from their, uh, cabinets and got them uh, making, uh, fresh delicious food.

And was, and it was a key along with Alice Waters, uh, uh, to bringing the White House garden to fruition.

RUBENSTEIN: So Barack Obama is succeeded by Donald Trump who was famous for liking steak with a lot of ketchup on it.

You might describe how he liked his steak.

PRUD'HOMME: Well, he would have a very fine, uh, uh, aged, uh steak, uh, uh, uh, cooked, uh, to the point of carbonization.

Uh, It was practically charcoal, uh, which to steak lovers is sacrilege.

And then he would...

Uh, to make up for the lost steak juices he would slather it in ketchup, which is very sweet, it's very sugary.

Uh, and that was, uh, double sacrilege.

RUBENSTEIN: Finally, what about Joe Biden?

What does he like in terms of food?

PRUD'HOMME: Joe is a regular Joe.

Uh, he's, he's famous for liking, uh, uh, pasta pomodoro, which is just a basic red sauce, uh, and most of all ice cream.

Uh, he says, uh, "My name is Joe Biden and I like ice cream," And I think that was a genuine love of ice cream but it was also a political tool because who doesn't like ice cream?

Uh, and he famously stops into ice cream joints across the country when he's traveling.

RUBENSTEIN: So I wanna thank you for a great conversation, I read a lot of books about the presidency and I had never read anything like this before, so I learned a lot.

Thank you very much.

We've been coming to you from the Robert H. Smith Auditorium at the New York Historical Society.

Thank you, Alex for a great conversation.

PRUD'HOMME: Thank you, David, and bon apptit.

(music plays through credits)