KFC Fried Chicken and Diet Coke: What's Trump Eating in the White House?
In the kitchen, we wonder about the eating habits of the new American president.
It seems that Mitterrand loved truffles and nun's farts. Barack Obama would love cheeseburgers and turkey chili. Grilled cheese sandwiches were a favorite with George W Bush. As for Bill Clinton, he swore by chicken enchiladas. For his part, we owe it to Thomas Jefferson for having imported waffles from France in his time. And Donald Trump? Reading his bursts of tweets, one can easily imagine him as a compulsive glutton.
After the handover, the White House kitchen staff (including chef Cristeta Comerford and pastry chef Susie Morrison) are wondering what sauce it will be eaten and cooking for now without special instructions. While waiting to learn more about the presidential taste buds, the New York Times goes about its conjectures and wonders: Can Donald Trump be a "culinary example for the nation"? One can reasonably doubt it. And if the President prefers to relocate his guests to his palace in Mar-a-Lago in Florida, the first official meal given at the White House nevertheless took place last Sunday: it is the Governors Ball, where salmon and steak were served, a consensus choice.
The President sucks like a real redneck: Throughout his campaign, he posed in the cool with pots of KFC and fried chicken drumsticks and praised the taste and health merits of fast food restaurants like McDonald's and Wendy's. His favorite dish would be the invigorating meatloaf and he would have, according to his staff, a certain appetite for charred steak. We are still looking for consistency in these practices since Trump would also pay attention to his figure, drinking diet Coke and scraping the toppings of his pizzas without nibbling the dough.
According to a gendered division of roles, the food component of the White House is traditionally delegated to the First Lady. Melania Trump, who is due to arrive in Washington next summer, has yet to comment on the subject. "Usually, food suffers when the First Lady is not interested," worries a culinary essayist interviewed by the New York Times, recalling that in Eleanor Roosevelt's time, meals were so bad that guests often ate before heading to the White House.
Through the Affordable Care Act and the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, the Obama administration has helped improve the diets of its citizens. Another legacy of Michelle Obama: the White House vegetable garden, with an area of 8,500 square meters, which produces 1,000 kilos of food per year (its production, in addition to being consumed, is now part of the diplomatic gifts, with honey or chamomile sachets). Melania Trump has already made it known that she wants to keep it.
For his part, Donald Trump has chosen as Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, a veteran of the agri-food industry which supports GMOs and pesticides: if we have no doubts about the quality of the desserts served at the White House, we can decently worry about the future food policy of the country.
