Hail to the Chief Junk Foodie

Emily Hill | Issue 3 | Comment, Magazine, Washington

From the Archive

Catering for the top man in the White House? You can give René Redzepi the night off– Mr Trump’s tastes are as basic as his politics

With Trump dipping badly in the US polls, it’s looking increasingly likely that there won’t just be a new president in the White House. There will also be a vacancy for a new chef. One thing is certain: the Trump presidency will not be remembered for its cordon bleu cuisine.

Will Biden – who describes himself as a regular Irish-American working class boy from the suburbs of Scranton, Pennsylvania – be any different ?

The current White House executive chef is a Filipino-American called Cristeta Pasia Comerford. She has ruled the kitchen since 2005. The truth is that Democrat presidents invariably take their food – and wine (Trump is tee-total) – much more seriously than their Republican counterparts.

Perhaps the most famous era of presidential cuisine was presided over by René Verdon, who died in 2011. He was a French-born American who was the White House head chef during the administrations of both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

look at what our politicians stuff down their gullets: it may reveal untold truths about them

Jackie Kennedy loved anything French and sophisticated and first hired René – who had worked at restaurants in Paris and Deauville – for the inauguration lunch in 1961. He had come to New York to work at La Caravelle restaurant at the Carlyle Hotel. It was his classic French cooking – under head chef Roger Fessaguet – that first caught …

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