If the next President were to come to your house for dinner, would you know what to serve him?
That`s a question much on the minds of social Washington these days, not to speak of the White House chefs. There`s nothing quite like a change in administrations to change the capital`s menus. Cobb salad, for example, became a Washington mainstay after Reagan Atty. Gen. William French Smith settled into the posh Jefferson Hotel and the kitchen was informed: ”If you want to attract Californians, you`ve got to serve California food.”
You probably can`t plan for the next administration on the basis of what the candidates have been eating on the campaign trail-which is anything and everything. George Bush was seen during Cicero`s recent Houby (mushroom)
Parade munching a kolacky, but, as someone observed, that might well have been the very first kolacky he ever had.
Kolaches being the delicious pastries they are, one presumes it wasn`t the last the man will eat, but one also presumes such dishes wouldn`t necessarily be regular fare in a Bush White House, except during state visits from the president of Czechoslovakia.
American presidential appetites have been as varied and idiosyncratic as their policies. George Washington was partial to tomatoes, even though in his day they were called ”nightshade” and thought by many to be poisonous. Legend has it that a British agent once tried to poison him with nightshade and was mystified when it failed. Washington was also partial to Madeira wine, but he didn`t die from that, either.
The White House menu almost always included rice when Andrew Jackson was President-not because he was particularly fond of it but because, among all his other afflictions, he had a chronic intestinal ailment and rice was about all his doctors would let him eat.
Calvin Coolidge was fond of milk, but not in the way one guest thought when he sat down to the table at the White House and saw Coolidge pour some milk into a saucer. Not wanting to offend, the guest poured some milk into his saucer, too, only to have Coolidge eye him weirdly as the President lowered his saucer to the floor for his pet cat.
And it`s part of Washington footnote folklore that Vice President Gerald Ford used to get up and toast the family breakfast muffins, though not much was heard about this after he became President.
Jimmy Carter ruffled capital feathers twice when he started throwing White House parties that ran to barbecued chicken and cheap jug wine. People offended by the lack of haute cuisine were also offended to learn that he was pocketing the expense money he saved by serving cheap eats-though it is perfectly legal.
If Bush is elected president, his background would seem to auger a bad time for Washington gourmets and gourmands. Upper class WASP Yankee tastes tend to favor the traditional English when it comes to cuisine-meaning boiled and bland.
But Bush threw all that over and went out to Texas as a very young man, where he developed a genuine fondness for Mexican food-or at least for that bilateral approximation called ”Tex-Mex.” According to wife Barbara, he even puts Tabasco sauce on the tuna fish sandwiches on Air Force Two.
He happily did not pick up one habit from his Texas days. Early on in his settlement there, with but one bottle of liquor in his house, he invited a business associate home and offered him a drink. The man thanked him and took it-straight from the bottle. Certainly since he`s become vice president, Bush has served guests their drinks in glasses.
If Michael Dukakis should become our next chief executive, he`d likely be more in the Jimmy Carter mold than, say, Martin Van Buren, who failed to win reelection largely because of his expensive ”Golden Plate” White House tastes.
The Democratic nominee has long been known for the frugality of his eating habits, relying in season on vegetables grown in his own garden, for example, and hotel room fruit (and, yes, it`s true; he does use coupons when he shops). Otherwise, his taste has run to traditional New England seafood fare rather than Greek restaurant specialties. When Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Jackson came to dinner earlier this year, Dukakis served clam chowder, fish and fresh vegetables.
Where he does splurge is on dessert. For the Jackson dinner, it was chocolate cake. His own favorite dessert is a Greek confection known as ghalataburico, a cream-filled pastry.
Dukakis` running-mate, Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, is from Texas, too-but he`s from DOWNTOWN Texas and has lived in Washington for 18 years. He told interviewers conducting a survey for Washington`s Dossier Magazine three years ago that his favorite dinner foods were fish, chicken and veal-more staples of Washington`s ”K” Street expense account slow food joints than what you`d expect on the banks of the Neuces River.
He did get a little down home in revealing that his favorite snack food is the cheeseburger-bought, ”if I`m paying,” from McDonald`s-and that his favorite drink is diet Dr. Pepper.
In the same survey, Republican vice presidential nominee Dan Quayle said his favorite dinner food is seafood, for which his native Indiana is not noted-which may be why he wanted to come to Washington. He said he prefers eating at home to restaurants-fewer reporters hanging around-and that his favorite snack food is chocolates.
The lean Senator Quayle doesn`t LOOK as if his favorite snack is chocolate, but then, the favorite drink he listed is Perrier with lime, which one hopes he never ordered while campaigning in the steelworkers` bars of Gary.
If you wanted to start planning a presidential dinner before the election, you might come up with an all-purpose menu like this:
Hors d`oeuvres-cheeseburger squares a la McDonald`s, with garden vegetables.
Soup-clam chowder, with garden vegetables.
Fish course-McDonald`s fillet of fish, with garden vegetables.
Meat course-Chicken and veal patties, with garden vegetables.
Salad-Garden vegetables and chili.
Dessert-Ghalataburicos with garden vegetables and hot sauce.
Red wine-Diet Dr. Pepper.
White wine-Perrier with lime.
Liqueur-Old Granddad, straight from the bottle.
Actually, the presidency often tends to change culinary tastes. First Lady Nancy Reagan came into the White House from the Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive set and so, when asked her favorite recipe, naturally enough put down an elegant crabmeat casserole. A year later, after all the uproar over her expensive new china and White House interior decoration, she changed her
”favorite” to humble macaroni and cheese.
The biggest factor in new White House menus may be this past summer`s national political conventions. The Democrats, who met in Atlanta, did not exactly become converts to grits, but the Republicans fell in love with New Orleans. At the big White House barbecue the Reagans threw for the Congress this year, they flew in chef Paul Prudhomme.
So one of his cookbooks ought to do the trick. –
