Back in 2019, Bennett Rea’s grandmother-in-law showed him her copy of the South Dakota Centennial Cookbook, published in 1989. It contained contributions from all over the country, and they marveled together at how disgusting many of the recipes were. They also wondered why politicians were willing to be associated with things like Anniversary Horseradish Salad (Rep. Glenn English) or microwaved Super Fish (Sen. Chuck Grassley). Rea decided he needed to experience these foods for himself and began posting videos and blog posts about the results. Eventually, Cookin’ With Congress evolved into Rea eating like presidents, first ladies, and other notable figures like Kamala Harris for entire days at a time, as well as ordinary Americans in each of the 538 congressional districts. The project has not been without peril: a week of subsisting on Diet Coke and fast food like Donald Trump left him dead-eyed and cradling an artichoke. But perhaps Rea’s piece de resistance was the day in May when he ate like William Howard Taft, an experience that required him to consume 8,200 calories, nine different kinds of meat (including possum), and three desserts; the subsequent meat sweats and 24 hours of digestion and fasting culminated in what Rea calls “an accidental mystical vision quest.”
Earlier on, you were ranking the presidents by palate and Taft was number one. Do you still feel that way?
I think he did have a great palate. That was my ranking based purely on looking at what they ate. Now, actually having eaten all of those foods, I’m going to have to do a second round. So I don’t know if he’s going to stay at number one, mostly just because… I mean, possum’s gonna ding ya, obviously.
How do you find these recipes, and how do you decide which day you’re going to eat from?
I’ve got a collection of maybe four or five dozen community cookbooks. People send them to me now from across the country, which is really cool. The Congressional Cookbook Series is informative. The President’s Cookbook by Poppy Cannon and Patricia Brooks from 1968 forms the basis of a lot of my daily eating habits for the presidents. And Dinner with a President by Alex Prud’homme is a fantastic book. I’ve used that as a resource a few times, particularly for some of the more modern presidents like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. And then there’s a lot of archival newspapers. There was a great New York Times piece on Jimmy Carter in the 1970s on his full eating habits. That’s how I found out he loved red eye gravy on thick-cut ham and fried chicken and potato salad.
And so then you cook all this food by yourself? Do you have help?
I do all the cooking myself. I would say I also do a good portion of the eating myself. My wife’s pescatarian and so is my daughter, and so they don’t jump at the chance to try out squirrel stew.
Well, it’s a very good excuse not to.
But if the food’s good, we eat it together, which is nice. I’m doing all the cooking myself at this point and I love it. That’s such a fun part of it because I’m getting to learn new skills. I’ve become a better home chef because of this. Like, even making the bad foods, I started to understand how a bad recipe could be made absolutely delicious with just a couple tweaks here or there.
Why did you start Eat Like America?
I started that out of pure genuine curiosity. I mean, you could say it’s nosy, but I’m always like, “Well, this is how I eat, but like how does everyone else eat?” You know, all these presidents and politicians have these unhinged diets and eating habits, but like … how about the rest of us everyday people? And what I found is largely way less unhinged, and it’s just so much fun to connect with people through food in that way. That’s such a wonderful thing that I didn’t anticipate even coming out of that series. And truly, it exposes me to new foods I’d never tried before.
Is there anything you’ve added to your rotation so far, either from the congressional districts or from the presidents?
I have added the Cantonese scrambled eggs from the software engineer in Florida. I’ve remade like three or four times since then. I’ve also made Grace Coolidge’s, uh… the name isn’t the best, it’s creamed chicken balls, but they’re essentially like chicken marsala croquettes. And it takes a long time, but Herbert Hoover’s Ramos Gin Fizz is a great drink. I always get excited when the presidents have cocktails on the menu.
So here’s a question from my mom. I told her about this whole project, and she wanted to know how you’re managing your health.
You’d be surprised, or maybe not, at how many folks reach out with that question.
I’ve had a long and complicated relationship with food. I was about 70 pounds heavier than I am now. I just kind of ate my feelings, frankly, for many years. And I had some what I would call disordered eating without being diagnosed with it. I was able to, through a lot of therapy and emotional help and support, get through it and lose 70 pounds. And so I don’t take for granted the fact that I can sit down and eat 8,200 calories in a day and not fall back into that. So I think that answers part of your question. The other answer is, I try to walk a lot. I live in a very walkable town. I like exercise. And on my days off, I swear I’m going to do what I eat in a day, ‘cause that has been the number one request for a while. Then people can see it and have their feelings and opinions on it and be shocked at how much Greek yogurt I eat.
Do you have rules for this project?
I try to be transparent with it. I am such a stickler with it on those days, because I want to be as authentic as I can to the experience that they were going through as the president. I’ve scrapped an entire day because I messed up. But I’d rather get it right than miss out on a key piece of information and a key piece of the experience. So I do have that internal rule for myself. My wife has told me a few times, “No one would know if you just…” And like, I know, I know, but I can’t.
On the Nixon day, I felt really sorry for you with the whole ketchup and cottage cheese situation. Were you tempted to say, “Well, did Nixon eat other things for lunch? Could I just maybe avoid this?” That would be very Nixonian, actually.
Ketchup is the one thing that I really just don’t like. Ketchup on cottage cheese is definitely one of my least favorite things I have ever eaten in this series. I chase that stuff though. I want to try the things that are a little bit strange. So if I have a choice, I want to follow the fun. And to me, the fun is like putting myself in a situation where I have to eat those things that I don’t like. Not to the point of dishonesty, obviously. So if this option was, every day Nixon either ate cottage cheese with ketchup or cottage cheese with pineapple, I’m going to pick the ketchup because it’s just more fun to put myself in that situation.
Oh, you’re a masochist then.
The funny thing throughout this is that I’m always asking, “How unhinged are these politicians for eating ketchup with cottage cheese?” Now here I am eating ketchup with cottage cheese. So, who’s more unhinged, me or them? And, uh, well, probably we’re at the same level. Who knows? The intensity is half the fun for me. The fact that I got to have a quasi-spiritual experience from Taft is — I was like, I can’t… A few days later, I was like, “Wow, that was wild. I’m so happy I did that.”
Do you have any tips like eating like a president on the Fourth of July?
I wish I had a cookbook out already, but it’s going to be a little while. But if you’ve got some adventurousness within you and you want to eat like a president on the Fourth of July, all you need is a squirrel guy and a couple of boxes of Jello and three to four hours of cooking time in a given day, and it’s a breeze.
I’ll keep that in mind.
I will say one recipe worth doing is a Thomas Jefferson recipe. I made it before but I’m going to do it again. It’s the drunken loaf, which is just a gigantic French bread soaked in wine and covered with mac and cheese on top. It’s decadent. And it’s a fun one to make.
