Dinner With The President: a History of Breaking Bread at the White House.
The Bill Press Pod
BP Pods
4.7 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 7 March 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What a president eats can tell you a lot about the man. What he serves to people at the White House is also revealing. All that is the subject of a new book by Alex Prud’homme, Dinner With The President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. You can buy it here. Prud’homme is the author, with his great aunt Julia Child of My Life in France, a New York Times bestseller and the inspiration for half of the movie Julie and Julia. He's also written several important nonfiction books so he is well positioned to look at food and politics at the White House.
Today Bill again highlights the work of Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen. It is on the front lines of every major disaster in the world, from earthquakes and floods to wars. They have served millions of free meals to thousands and thousands of people. They deserve our support and you can help them by going to WCK.org.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, good friends, and welcome to a very special edition of the Bill Press Pod, where we combine our two favorite things in life, politics and food. |
| 0:17.5 | Yes, we do that also with the help of Alex Prudam, the great nephew of Julia Child, |
| 0:24.6 | who co-authored with the great Julia, her last book, My Life in France. Now, Alex is out with his |
| 0:31.0 | own latest book, a fascinating and fun look at food and politics through the prism of the White |
| 0:37.3 | House. It's called Dinner through the prism of the White House. |
| 0:38.1 | It's called Dinner with the President. |
| 0:40.7 | From George Washington through Donald Trump, Alex takes us into the kitchen and the dining |
| 0:45.8 | rooms of almost all the presidents whose palettes are as different as their politics. |
| 0:51.9 | But, as Alex points out, what's important is not just what they like to eat, from squirrel |
| 0:57.7 | stew to cottage cheese to Texas barbecue. |
| 1:02.2 | What's important is how what served at the White House can actually set a trend for the |
| 1:06.7 | entire country and inspire us to eat healthy or not so much. |
| 1:13.1 | Alex Prudum joins us today for a rare rump through the White House kitchen. |
| 1:18.3 | Alex Brudum, good to have you with us and welcome to the Bill Press Pod. |
| 1:22.9 | Thanks, Bill. It's great to be here. |
| 1:25.2 | Congratulations on the book. Dinner with the president, food politics, |
| 1:29.4 | and the history of breaking bread at the White House. Wonderful read, wonderful book, |
| 1:35.6 | lots of great stories about the palettes of our presidents, Alex. Now, I don't want to dump |
| 1:41.4 | on the whole purpose of the book, but my first question is, like, who cares? |
| 1:46.4 | Why is what president is eat important? |
| 1:49.4 | Because the White House is the most powerful house in the world, and people forget that not only is it the locus of the U.S. government, but it is also a functioning home. |
| 2:03.3 | And therefore, the food that is served there is arguably some of the most important of the world. And there are food-related |
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