This free event at Cornwall Library features Alex Prud’homme speaking about his just-published book, Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House. The book is a fascinating, often surprising chronicle of presidential fare, from the starvation-level meals eaten by Washington and his army at Valley Forge to Biden’s chocolate chip ice cream. Prud’homme, who is a journalist and freelance writer, is coauthor of Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France, and has written or collaborated on numerous other books. His work has appeared in many publications including The New York Times and The New Yorker.

Dinner with the President is inspired by the first reporting from inside the White House kitchen by Prud’homme’s great aunt Julia Child when President Lyndon Johnson authorized it. The book explores the tastes of twenty-six of America’s most influential presidents—what they ate, why they ate it, how it was prepared, its relationship to the state of the nation, and its effect on people around the world. Along the way we are treated to tidbits such as Lincoln’s celebratory turtle soup after the Civil War, Eisenhower’s taste for squirrel stew, and Trump’s relationship with fast-food burgers. We also learn about overlooked figures like Washington’s enslaved chef, Hercules Posey, whose meals burnished the president’s reputation before the cook narrowly escaped to freedom, or pioneering First Ladies, such as Dolley Madison and Jackie Kennedy, who used dining and entertaining to build political and social relationships.

“[A] beautifully written book about how the presidential palate has helped shape America…Fascinating.”—Stanley Tucci,

“Mr. Prud’homme has come up with a slew of entertaining believe-it-or-not tidbits…Dinner With the President opens with an epigraph by Anthony Bourdain: “Nothing is more political than food.” Mr. Prud’homme’s fascinating book drives the point home.”— Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

A reading by the author and interview of him by fellow Cornwall artist and author Adam Van Doren at the Cornwall Library will be followed by a book signing.

Attend in-person at the Cornwall Library or by Zoom.
Registration required: https://cornwalllibrary.org/events