Home » Presidential Palates: A Hidden History – Part 2

January 12, 2026Uncategorized

Presidential Palates: A Hidden History – Part 2

At some point, presidential food stopped being private and started becoming a message. In Part Two of this two-part series, we follow the shift from quiet meals to cultural flashpoints, from jelly beans and broccoli to fast food and ice cream, and explore how what presidents eat becomes shorthand for personality, politics, and power. It sounds like trivia, but it tells you exactly how America learned to watch itself eat. Then we chat with Speaker and Author Marissa Cohen!

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We ended the last episode by talking about the cherries that may have been the downfall of Zachary Taylor. But by the time Taylor dies in 1850, something subtle has shifted. In Episode One, food lived mostly in the background. Presidents ate what they grew up eating. Corn, salt fish, simple meats, seasonal fruit. Preferences existed, but they were private. They were habits, not headlines. Taylor’s cherries mattered not because he loved them, but because Americans were beginning to tell stories about presidents through food when something went wrong.

That instinct only grows stronger.

Millard Fillmore inherits the presidency at a moment when the White House itself is changing. Fillmore is often remembered for signing the Compromise of 1850, but less remembered is his role in formalizing White House social life. He and his wife Abigail oversaw more structured dinners, and Fillmore himself preferred soup and simple New England fare. The preference matters less than the context. Meals are becoming events. Guests are watching.

Franklin Pierce follows, and his relationship with food is shaped by tragedy and health. Pierce suffered from depression and physical illness, and contemporary accounts suggest he ate lightly. His presidency is not remembered for culinary flair, but again, the expectation that people might ask what a president eats is now baked in.

James Buchanan, the only bachelor president, adds another wrinkle. With no wife, the role of White House hostess falls to his niece Harriet Lane. Buchanan’s tastes leaned toward Pennsylvania Dutch foods, including sauerkraut, reflecting his upbringing. But what matters here is that someone else is now managing the image of the president’s table. Food is no longer just consumption. It’s presentation.

Abraham Lincoln brings us back briefly to indifference. Multiple contemporaries noted that Lincoln barely noticed what he ate. He often skipped meals, ate quickly, and treated food as a distraction from work. Apples, bacon, eggs, and simple fare appear in accounts, but rarely with enthusiasm. In a strange way, Lincoln represents the last gasp of food as non-issue. The country is tearing itself apart. Dinner does not matter.

But the country that emerges after the Civil War is different.

Andrew Johnson eats like a man clinging to familiarity. Hominy, cornbread, plain foods that reflect Southern roots. Ulysses S. Grant enjoys cucumbers soaked in vinegar and shows far more enthusiasm for cigars than cuisine. Rutherford B. Hayes eats simply and famously removes alcohol from White House events, creating what newspapers call the “lemonade Lucy” era, named after his wife Lucy Hayes. This is one of the first times food and drink become moral signaling.

James Garfield loved squirrel stew, a frontier dish tied to hunting and self-reliance. His assassination ends that story quickly, but it reinforces something else. Presidents are mortal, visible, and increasingly scrutinized.

Then Chester A. Arthur changes the temperature in the room.

Arthur loves fine food. He hires a French chef. He renovates the White House kitchen. He enjoys mutton chops, elaborate meals, and fashionable dining. Newspapers notice. Guests talk. For the first time, presidential eating becomes aspirational. The White House is not just where power lives. It’s where taste lives.

Grover Cleveland swings the pendulum back. Cleveland loves beef, especially steak, eaten plainly. This becomes part of his image. He is large, blunt, and unpretentious. He eats like a man who doesn’t care what you think. That, too, is messaging, whether intentional or not.

Benjamin Harrison prefers sweet corn. William McKinley enjoys ice cream, particularly commercially produced varieties that reflect America’s growing industrial food system. Ida McKinley’s health once again shapes White House menus, reminding everyone that presidents are not eating alone.

And then Theodore Roosevelt arrives like a thunderclap.

Roosevelt loves food. Steak is his favorite, but enthusiasm is the point. He eats with gusto. He believes in appetite, vigor, and life fully lived. His eating habits align perfectly with his public philosophy. The presidency is now inseparable from personality. People want to know what the president eats because they believe it tells them who he is.

This is the hinge moment.

Because once photography, newspapers, and mass circulation magazines converge, food becomes visible in a new way. Presidents are no longer just observed. They are consumed as stories.

Up to now, food has been revealing without being deliberate. Presidents aren’t staging meals, but the public is watching more closely than ever. And in the next stretch of history, presidents start realizing something dangerous.

If people care what you eat, then what you eat can work for you.

William Howard Taft is often reduced to jokes about size, but his documented favorite food was steak. Thick, simply prepared, eaten often. What’s different now is that people talk about it. Taft’s body becomes commentary. Food becomes shorthand.

Woodrow Wilson eats lightly, preferring chicken salad and restrained meals, especially later in life due to health issues. Warren G. Harding enjoys hearty Midwestern food.

Calvin Coolidge prefers simple fare and reportedly likes cottage cheese. Herbert Hoover, an engineer by training, approaches food with efficiency and later becomes associated with humanitarian food relief efforts after World War I.

Franklin D. Roosevelt changes everything again.

FDR’s favorite foods are not particularly beloved by historians or chefs. He reportedly liked plain American dishes and was indifferent to fine cuisine. White House meals during his presidency were famously mediocre. But Eleanor Roosevelt cared deeply about nutrition, economy, and social responsibility. Meals reflected wartime rationing and public messaging. Eating was now explicitly political.

Harry Truman loved simple Midwestern food, especially dishes like meatloaf. That matters because Truman presents himself as plainspoken and unpretentious. The food fits the man, and the man fits the moment.

Dwight Eisenhower enjoyed hearty American classics and was known for grilling. Backyard grilling becomes part of presidential imagery. The suburban boom puts presidents closer to the average American table, at least symbolically.

John F. Kennedy preferred lighter foods, often influenced by health concerns. But Jacqueline Kennedy transforms the White House into a showcase of culture, cuisine, and international sophistication. State dinners become theatrical again, but now they’re photographed.

Lyndon B. Johnson loved Southern comfort food, especially dishes tied to Texas. His eating habits reinforced his image as a larger-than-life figure, deeply rooted in place.

Richard Nixon’s favorite food was reportedly cottage cheese with ketchup. The fact that people still repeat this tells you everything. Food has become identity shorthand, whether fair or not.

Gerald Ford liked simple Midwestern meals. Jimmy Carter brought peanut farming into the national imagination. Peanuts became symbolism. Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans, and those jelly beans became legend. They were on Air Force One. They were in bowls everywhere. They softened his image and made him approachable.

George H. W. Bush famously disliked broccoli, and that alone would have been enough to cement his place in presidential food lore. But Bush also had a documented fondness for pork rinds, which he openly enjoyed as a snack, especially while watching sports. It fit his image as informal, plainspoken, and unconcerned with culinary pretension.

Unfortunately, Bush is also remembered for one of the most uncomfortable food-related moments in modern presidential history. In 1992, while attending a state dinner in Japan hosted by Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, Bush became ill and vomited into the Prime Minister’s lap before fainting. The incident was widely televised and immediately became international news. The White House later attributed it to a stomach flu, but the damage was done. It was a reminder that in the modern media era, even a moment of human vulnerability at the dinner table can become part of a president’s permanent public identity.

Bill Clinton loved fast food, particularly McDonald’s, and his eating habits became tabloid fascination.

George W. Bush liked barbecue and comfort food that emphasized Texas roots.

Barack Obama enjoyed a wide range of foods but was often associated with healthier eating, partly due to Michelle Obama’s advocacy. Food once again became moral messaging. Michelle Obama’s efforts to promote healthier eating did not land universally well. While initiatives like improving school lunch nutrition and encouraging physical activity were popular in concept, they also sparked real resistance. Critics argued the changes were paternalistic, too restrictive, or out of touch with local tastes and budgets. Some students complained about portion sizes and flavor, while political opponents framed the effort as government overreach into personal choices. The backlash itself became part of the story, underscoring how food, once again, had become a proxy for larger cultural arguments about freedom, responsibility, and identity.

There is also a darker, stranger footnote to the Obama food story that emerged years later, long after his presidency had ended. In 2023, Tafari Campbell, who had served as White House chef during the Obama administration, died in an apparent drowning while paddleboarding near the Obamas’ property in Massachusetts. Authorities ruled the death accidental, but almost immediately, conspiracy theories began circulating online, fueled by misinformation, political polarization, and the public’s lingering fascination with the private lives of former presidents. The moment underscored how deeply food, staff, and domestic details around the presidency had become entangled with suspicion and narrative, even when there was no evidence to support it.

We’ll get to Donald Trump after Joe Biden.

Joe Biden’s favorite food is ice cream, and unlike many modern presidential food associations, this one is not speculative or symbolic by accident. Biden has repeatedly and openly talked about his love of ice cream in interviews, speeches, and casual interactions with the press. It became common for reporters to ask him about it during campaign stops and presidential travel, and Biden leaned into it, joking about flavors and occasionally stopping at local ice cream shops during public appearances. Unlike earlier eras, where food preferences were inferred, this one was volunteered.

I picture it being decided in a meeting what his favorite food would be. It reminds me of a scene from the Max series VEEP with Julia Louis-Dreyfus where the VP and her team are discussing what flavor she should have at a frozen yogurt shop.

The media quickly ran with with Biden ice cream story. Headlines framed Biden’s ice cream habit as endearing, relatable, and intentionally unserious in contrast to the heaviness of the office. Late-night shows referenced it. Social media amplified photos of him holding cones. Ice cream became shorthand for warmth, normalcy, and approachability, especially during moments of national stress. What’s notable isn’t that a president likes ice cream. It’s that the liking itself became a recurring narrative beat. By this point in American history, a president’s favorite food doesn’t just reveal personality. It becomes part of the emotional tone of their public image, repeated often enough that it feels familiar, comforting, and intentional, whether it started that way or not.

Donald Trump’s relationship with food is different in both tone and purpose. Trump openly prefers fast food, particularly McDonald’s, and he talks about it often. He framed it as practical and safe, arguing that standardized fast food reduced the risk of contamination. This explanation was repeated frequently and became part of the lore around his eating habits. Fast food, in this context, wasn’t just preference. It was presented as strategy.

Trump also famously served fast food to visiting sports teams at the White House during the 2019 government shutdown, citing the absence of kitchen staff. The moment was widely photographed and debated. Supporters saw it as humorous and relatable. Critics saw it as unserious or symbolic of disregard for tradition. Either way, the food itself became the story. The meal was not about nourishment. It was about message.

There was also the less controlled side of the narrative. Reports emerged, including from former aides and journalists, describing Trump’s tendency to eat steak well-done with ketchup and alleging episodes of anger that resulted in ketchup being thrown or smeared on walls during private moments. These accounts, most prominently described in journalistic books by former White House staff and reporters, became part of the broader media portrayal of Trump’s temperament. Whether discussed as anecdote, criticism, or spectacle, food again served as proxy. Not for taste, but for character.

By this point, presidential food is no longer background or even branding. It is ammunition. Every preference, every habit, every meal is interpreted, exaggerated, defended, or mocked. What a president eats is no longer about hunger. It’s about narrative control, or the lack of it.

Which brings us back to where we started.

If you zoom out far enough, the story doesn’t change because presidents changed. It changes because America did.

In the beginning, food was invisible. Presidents ate what their region produced, what their bodies could tolerate, and what the moment allowed. Corn, salt fish, preserved meat, seasonal fruit. These choices weren’t statements. They were circumstances. Food didn’t explain policy, and it didn’t explain character. It just quietly existed alongside it.

Then the country grew. Cities expanded. Newspapers multiplied. Cameras arrived. And somewhere along the way, Americans started watching more closely. At first, they watched out of curiosity. Then out of comparison. And eventually, out of expectation.

Once that happened, food stopped being accidental.

A bowl of jelly beans could soften an image. A dislike of broccoli could spark headlines. Fast food could signal defiance. Ice cream could project warmth. A state dinner could communicate power or vulnerability or control. None of these meals mattered nutritionally. They mattered narratively. They became shorthand for values, temperament, and identity in a country that increasingly understands itself through symbols.

What started as survival became storytelling.

And that’s the connective tissue between every president we’ve talked about. Not what they ate, but what Americans decided it meant. Sometimes those meanings were fair. Often they weren’t. But once the audience showed up, the table was never private again.

So yes, it sounds like trivia. It sounds harmless. It sounds like something you’d read on a placemat or hear during a museum tour.

But it’s real, it’s documented and it tells you exactly how power learned to be seen.

The Internet Says It’s True.