Food - Drink
The Reason Nixon Banned Soup From State Dinners
By ELIAS NASH
Much is made of a president's food preferences as they are some of their most interesting traits — like William Henry Harrison and James A. Garfield's passion for squirrel meat, and Grover Cleveland's love of pickled herring. But none are more unusual than Richard Nixon’s favorite meal of cottage cheese and ketchup, or the fact that he hated soup.
It’s only normal that people are picky with certain foods, especially U.S. presidents — such as Ronald Reagan going 70 years without eating a tomato, or George H.W. Bush banning broccoli from the White House kitchen and Air Force One. However, Nixon’s ban of soup had nothing to do with personal taste, as reported by his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman.
After a meal with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Haldeman wrote that Nixon told him, “We've got to speed up those dinners,” by eliminating the soup course because “ ... Men don't really like soup.” Haldeman, who was skeptical of this reasoning, later found out from Nixon’s valet that the true reason was that the president had spilled soup on his vest.