On Election Night next Tuesday, Nov. 6, many of us will be pinned to the tube listening to all the gab and bluster while we wait for results. The air around our armchairs will be charged with tension as we wait to see which chief we’ll be hailing for the next four years. So much nervous energy can make a person hungry.
What will you be nibbling while watching the red and blue states fight it out? What libation will wet your whistle, ensuring that the tongue will be sufficiently lubricated for political comment?
In this Presidential election year, it might make sense to go presidential – that is, take our constitutional lead from the dietary choices of those mighty men who sat at the head of this country’s table in days of yore.
The notes that follow reveal a history sizzling with culinary insight – presidential food and drink preferences that hopefully eased the minds and settled the stomachs of that section of our national tree called the executive branch, upon which so many stalwart fellows have found themselves out on a limb.
George Washington liked hoecakes. Also known as corn mush pancakes, this simple fare made with cornmeal delighted the “Father of Our Country.” Up before sunrise every morning, George would eat three mush cakes with wooden teeth and sighs of satisfaction.
John Adams drank beer for breakfast.
Thomas Jefferson was a Frenchified gourmand. Too many trips to France made it hard to keep that country boy down on the farm after he’d seen Paree. No hoecakes for Tom. He preferred gateaux and anchovies, oysters and boeuf en daube. And when invited to a Virginia dinner party up the road, and knowing that cocktails would be limited to hard cider, Jefferson stuck a bottle of Madeira in his saddlebags before cantering over.
“Old Hickory” Andrew Jackson (responsible for the “Indian Removal Act” that forced a great number of Native Americans to permanently plant their teepees in Oklahoma, where today the teepees have been replaced with cash-cow casinos) was partial to nut soup made with pounded nuts, hot water and sugar.
William Henry Harrison liked squirrel stew, as did James Garfield.
Prior to Millard Fillmore’s presidency all cooking at the White House took place over a wood fire in an open hearth. When Fillmore moved in, he had installed the first iron stove. A member of the Know-Nothing party, the 13th president is the one most of us know nothing about. Know this: Lots of Millard’s favored corn puddings were prepared on that stove.
To make his day of rest more restful, James Buchanan (the only life-long bachelor to occupy the presidential bed) would venture forth each Sunday to visit a nearby distillery where he purchased enough whiskey to get him through running the country for another week.
Lincoln picked at his food. He skipped meals, skipped booze and stayed as pale and gaunt as a starved butterfly. Ulysses S. Grant thought it rollicking fun to roll pieces of bread into tiny balls and fling them at his children. Grover Cleveland, on the other hand, liked pickled herring.
Theodore Roosevelt ate as rapaciously as the bears he often enjoyed shooting dead. Putting seven lumps of sugar into his coffee every morning gave him the sort of rush that can only be valuable to the body if one must charge up some foreign hill or go skinny dipping in the Potomac River in the dead of winter.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was crazy about hot dogs. When England’s King George VI and Queen Elizabeth picnicked upon the greensward at the Roosevelts’ summer house in Hyde Park in 1939, their highnesses consumed the American bun-and-weenie delicacy for the first time. George ate two with beer.
Dwight David Eisenhower was particularly fond of chicken noodle soup, succotash, fluffy turnips and prune whip. He and Mamie preferred to dine seated on the couch with their food on trays and the TV switched on.
Requesting chipped beef on toast for breakfast and deer sausage for lunch, Lyndon Johnson was a fast eater – it’s said he could clean his plate in less than 10 minutes – and it was during his administration that the first cookout took place at the White House. Lyndon barbecued for friends on the roof.
Many SideDish readers will remember Richard Nixon’s passion for cottage cheese with ketchup. We all take it for granted that Jimmy Carter ate his grits with cheese, and we all have heard that George H.W. Bush detests broccoli. But I suspect it’s not commonly known that Ronald Reagan liked monkey bread (in addition to his Jelly Bellies); that to protect his arteries Bill Clinton switched from burgers to beans; or that George W. Bush insists that his beloved grilled cheese sandwich be made with Kraft singles and white bread.
As for the two gentlemen currently running for America’s highest office, there are a number of restaurants cashing in on election fever.
Offering a promotional gimmick that features both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, diners may make their hungry mouths heard at any of The Burger Joint franchises by choosing either a patty topped with a Vienna beef hotdog and green relish (the prez) or a patty topped with lobster and Hollandaise (the gov).
At the 1331 Bar & Lounge in Washington D.C., cocktail snacks include Left Wings (pineapple-glazed chicken wings) and Right Wings (honey-glazed chicken wings). At a franchise called California Tortilla, we can pick up a Presidential Burrito Bowl – Obama’s is a chicken teriyaki luau arrangement, and Romney’s bowl has a Mexican Mitt-loaf motif. Each go for $7.29.
Best of all however is the “Anti-Partisan” promotion from Sprinkles Cupcakes (Georgetown location) that runs straight up to Election Day. Should a member of Congress opt to send cupcakes to the office of another Congressional member, then a call to Sprinkles will see a dozen cupcakes delivered free. The only catch is, the gift-giver must belong to one party and the gift-receiver must belong to the other party. It’s a fun-filled goodwill gesture meant to get our elected representatives talking with each other across the aisle.
Maybe with their mouths full of cupcake, the legislative body will get a sugar rush like Teddy Roosevelt and all go jump in the lake.