This chronicle tells the little and big story behind our food, dishes or chefs. Powerful weapon soft power, A societal and cultural marker, food is the founding element of our civilizations. Conflicts, diplomacy, traditions, cuisine has always had a political dimension. Because, as Bossuet already said in the 17th century, “it is at the table that we govern”.
Donald Trump has always relentlessly applied a simple rule: occupy all space, at any cost. His campaign team staged, on Sunday, October 20, the Republican candidate in a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania, closed for the occasion, with an apron around his neck, serving fries to customers handpicked by the Secret Service. This big consumer of fast food – and also of Diet Coke -, who gives a cold sweat to all American dietitians, accuses Kamala Harris of lying about her past as an employee within this fast food chain. In the American media, no one has so far been able to establish the veracity of the facts…
But that’s not what interests Donald Trump. For him, the objective of this publicity stunt has been achieved: to appear alongside working-class America, in a key state of Rust Belt [NDLR : ceinture industrielle du nord du pays]essential to his victory on November 5. The Republican candidate also takes up the emblem of theAmerican way of life (McDo) and its most famous sandwich (the hamburger).
300 hamburgers served on silver plates
It’s true that nothing can stop Trump when he has the opportunity to devour a fried chicken wing or a sandwich dripping with ketchup. What was the surprise of the winners of the American university football championship when they arrived in 2019 at the White House to celebrate their title and found in the dining room of the official residence of the President of the United States a gigantic buffet of… fat: fries, pizzas and nearly 300 Royal Cheeses and Big Macs served on silver plates. If the White House is not used to offering mountains of fried foods – even less to athletes who are supposed to pay attention to their diet – Donald Trump justified himself by the absence of the cooks who stayed at home due to “shutdown”.
“I’m the one who pays […] I think they’ll prefer that to anything we could have offered them. […] I want to see what will be left when we are gone, but I don’t think there will be much left,” he boasts. Asked about his favorite fast food restaurant, the real estate mogul dodges: “If it It’s American, I like that. Everything is American.” “Rather McDonald’s or Wendy’s?” insists a journalist. “I like them all. Only good things, great American food!”, he says without a word about the scourge of obesity which affects a significant segment of the American population. His unconditional love for meat has even pushed him to the past to launch his brand (“Trump Steaks”) which will experience a resounding failure… “There is nothing more American and more popular than fast food […] He can be on his multi-million dollar jet and eat KFC at the same time – and what makes it perfect is that he does it with a knife and fork, while reading the Wall Street Journal“says Russ Schriefer, Republican strategist and publicist at New York Times.
Proof of the importance of fast food within American society, current President Joe Biden found himself at the heart of a controversy linked to burgers in 2021. A circle of conservatives, taken up by Republican members of Congress , Fox News columnists and other right-wing figures, floated the idea that the president would reduce American household consumption of red meat by 90% by 2030, in the name of fighting change. climatic. That’s the equivalent of one hamburger per month! A fake news widely shared on social networks in the United States.
Coffe becomes the man who said “no” to Carter
Barack Obama has also used the fast-food political card. Freshly elected in 2009, he went to a Five Guys, trumpeting that they were the “best burgers in the world”. The following year, while Russian President Dmitri Medvedev was visiting Washington, the American president took a break with his counterpart at Ray’s Hell Burger. Salad, tomato, onions, pickles for the tenant of the White House at the time. Onions, Mexican green peppers and mushrooms in a spicy version for the Kremlin chef. In 2001, upon leaving the presidency after two terms, Bill Clinton, known for his immoderate love of hamburgers, was forced to undergo quadruple coronary bypass surgery. “Perhaps things would have been different if I hadn’t eaten so many hamburgers and steaks, and if I had had less stress in my life,” he told ABC, before adopt a completely vegan diet.
The history of the United States is full of gastronomic anecdotes about the regimes of presidents. George HW Bush, tenant of the White House from 1989 to 1993, inveterate fan of hamburgers and grilled pork rinds, declared in March 1990: “I don’t like broccoli. I haven’t liked it since I was little boy. My mother forced me to eat it. Now I’m president of the United States and I won’t eat broccoli anymore.” January 1979, Jimmy Carter, also a burger fan, found himself in Saint-François in Guadeloupe with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, British Prime Minister James Callaghan and French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing. During this stay, French chef Jean-Pierre Coffe was tasked with providing official meals. In his autobiography A Coffee Lifehe recounts this gastronomic moment with the American president in his luxury hotel: “I offer them a glass of champagne and present them the menu. After reading it, they order three hamburgers. I reply that my restaurant is French, that my The kitchen is French. Without a word, the Carters get up and leave the place. Outside, a troop of paparazzi awaits them. Crackling flashes, explanations, the next day, I am on the front page, or almost, of the American press, and. even worldwide. My nickname? “The man who said no to Carter”.”
The hamburger comes… from Germany
Long before invading America and the hearts of its presidents, raw minced steak was consumed in Russia under the name “steak tartare” in reference to the Tatars, the nomads of Mongolia. On the other hand, historians have never really decided on the origin of the first burger. Some sources speak of a genesis in the English magazine Art of cooking made plain and easy in 1747. Others say that it was a butcher from Hamburg, Germany, inspired by tartare, who first had the idea of grilling minced meat steaks, served with onions and a brown sauce, says Marcelle Ratafia in her book Street food, Stories and recipes of street food (Marabout editions, 2024). In the 19th century, thousands of people crossed the Atlantic to escape the March Revolution which broke out within the Germanic Confederation. During the crossing on the liner, they will eat hamburgers cooked in bread “Hamburg style”.
The fact remains that its democratization will not take place before the advent of American technology in 1870: the meat grinder which at the time made it possible to dispose of slightly aged beef, explains Elisabeth Debourse in her book American Appetite. Journey into the belly of the USA (Nouriturfu editions, 2023). But in 1905, an investigation by Upton Sinclair, entitled The Jungle, will lift the veil on the unsavory underbelly of Chicago’s slaughterhouses and cause an electric shock within American society. Gradually, the meat industry is becoming more structured and the United States is developing draconian hygiene. The first American burger chain (White Castle) was founded in 1916. While the automobile industry was experiencing unprecedented growth, Richard “Dick” and Maurice “Mac” McDonald opened in the 1940s, along a Californian road, a small stand very easily accessible by car. The two brothers will considerably shake up the kitchen organization system, apply the theories of “Fordism” and, without knowing it, turn the world’s catering industry upside down. Today, the American flagship has nearly $25 billion in turnover worldwide, and has 41,822 establishments across the planet, including 1,560 in France.
The “gourmet” burger trend
Proof of its global success: all the elite of world cuisine now reserve pride of place for the burger on their menus. During the Covid-19 pandemic, René Redzepi’s Noma, voted best restaurant in the world several times, transformed its restaurant into a wine bar and… hamburger in the summer of 2020. In Spain, less than a month after having won a third Michelin star, chef Dani Garcia closed his Michelin-starred restaurant to sell hamburgers instead. In the United States, Daniel Boulud, the most famous French chef in New York, created the “Original DB Burger” in his gourmet establishment on Park Avenue, thus launching the “gourmet burger” trend. His recipe: a thick meatball of chopped sirloin, wrapped around meat braised in red wine which envelops a piece of foie gras on a bed of leaf lettuce and tomato confit. All in a brioche potato bread topped with parmesan, cracked pepper and poppy seeds. In France, Anne-Sophie Pic, Yannick Alléno, Alain Ducasse and Hélène Darroze, all three-starred, have also all succumbed to the lucrative burger market…
Donald Trump, who has never shown any interest in this “gourmetization” of fast food, has on the other hand always raised many doubts about its real weight. During the humiliating photo ID session taken last year in the Georgia prison during his indictment, the Republican candidate was authorized to provide his own anthropometric data. His height: 1m90. Its weight: 97.5 kilos. On social networks, many anonymous people claiming to weigh 98 kilos reacted by publishing a photo of themselves, showing them significantly more slender than the billionaire. Some seem convinced that its real weight is probably closer to 115 or 120 kilos. In January 2018, the White House doctor assured that the president measured precisely 1m90 and weighed 108 kilos, a difference of 10 kilos. Has Donald Trump, who is rarely seen exercising, decided to be reasonable?
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