The Steak Orders Of 17 US Presidents

They say you are what you eat, which is probably why people are interested in presidential food orders. Presidents are always kept beyond arm's reach. They put on facades for the public and keep state secrets. They are essentially unknowable. It's no wonder, then, that our constituents will grasp at whatever straw we can to try and determine who this person is, how we can relate to them, or gain a glimpse into their thought process.

One such straw is food. All of us commoners eat. Presidents eat. It's one of the few things we know we have in common with the most powerful office in the world. Sociologist Priya Fielding-Singh, author of "How the Other Half Eats," told The New York Times that how people eat "gives us this window into their character, their values, their willpower, self-discipline, virtuousness, laziness." So can a meal tell us whether a president embodies any of these values? Let's find out by looking at past and present presidents' favorite steak orders.

One of Trump's many claims to fame is that he is a fan of very well-done steaks, particularly the New York Strip, and especially accompanied by ketchup. But foodies everywhere, and regular folks who know how to eat steak, know that to truly enjoy a good slab of beef, you have to eat it rare or medium-rare. In popular lore, one who does not do this is automatically a philistine, hostile to anything that is good in this world.

Someone who is willing to maim a perfectly good piece of food, thereby wasting it entirely, should be dismissed outright. But, as we will see, Trump is far from the only president who has taken his steak well done. Obama himself, the putative beacon of hope and a famously voracious reader and appreciator of the finer things in life takes his steaks medium-well, which is the second to worst thing. Perhaps in this case, the way Trump takes his steak is not indicative of anything else he does.

Like a true southern country boy, George W.'s favorite steak order is chicken-fried steak with gravy, not to be confused with country-fried steak. This is likely an inherited trait. As the story goes, when his father, George H. W. Bush, first arrived in Texas in the 1940s he had no idea what a chicken-fried steak was. He ordered it off a menu at a local restaurant not knowing whether he'd be getting a chicken or a steak.

It was a steak, and the rest is history. The dish, slathered in gravy, became a staple in his household all the way to the White House, which means little George W. was probably raised on the stuff. And you won't find many vegetables accompanying this steak either. Just like his dad, George W. is a notorious vegetable-hater, while most of the fruit he ate while president, according to a White House chef, was covered in chocolate.

This was the man who introduced the chicken-fried steak to the Bush family. When he set off to get into the oil business in 1948, before he even started his first job, he stopped at a restaurant that served local beers and fare. He ordered the mysterious chicken-fried steak and was so pleasantly surprised he continued to eat it for the rest of his life. But Bush Senior was more than happy to try other cuts and versions of steak as well.

He is known to have ordered a charred but rare T-bone steak at a restaurant in Oklahoma, while at an eatery in Washington D.C., he once ordered a porterhouse steak. No broccoli in sight, of course. But aside from that, former White House Chef John Moeller told AP News that Bush Senior might have been the most adventurous presidential eater he'd ever cooked for. Who would have thunk?

John F. Kennedy was known to have a bit of a tricky stomach, so we may never know for real what kind of steak he would have liked to eat. The fact of the matter is that he was only able to eat it bland, with little more than a few plain peas and carrots and mashed potatoes. One of his mistresses, Inga Arvad, who was also a Dutch journalist and a suspected Nazi spy, apparently took pity on the president and would prepare this dish for him on a regular basis.

But whatever he was eating, or with whomever, he would not eat much of it and he would often have to be reminded to eat at all, according to the JFK Presidential Library. Although he was known for his bon vivant lifestyle, food was not actually at the top of his list of priorities. This is probably why he never considered that when he famously said "Ich bin ein Berliner" during a state visit to West Germany in 1963, anyone might erroneously think he was saying, "I am a jelly-filled doughnut."

Another president who liked his steak well done was Harry Truman, often accompanied with light vegetables. He would have it no other way, perhaps because he didn't want to be mistaken for a predatory animal. As he once famously said, "Only coyotes and predatory animals eat raw beef." But at the end of the day, it seemed that Truman didn't really care how the steak was cooked, or about what accompanied it, or about any other aspect of the meal.

My Recipes reports that he once explained that he didn't pay much attention to what was on his plate and that he "learned in the army to eat what could be obtained and like it." Throughout Truman's political career, from senator in Missouri to Vice President to FDR, and finally to president, he was continually underestimated by his peers and the media. Yet he won at every turn.

The eating habits of President Taft were remarkable. The man could house a 12-inch steak for breakfast nearly every day of the year, and that was just the beginning. After breakfast, he often had another steak for lunch and one for dinner for good measure. If there were more meals in the day, no doubt Taft would have filled them with steak. A recipe for Taft's steak even appeared in the Washington Post in 1935, as reported by My Recipes.

It called for a good T-bone, sirloin, or tenderloin, to be broiled and topped with butter. And Taft didn't hold back when it came to sides, either. He accompanied his morning steaks with oranges, buttered toast, and copious amounts of coffee with milk and sugar. During another meal that featured venison, he enjoyed the game with grilled partridge, hot rolls, more partridge, bacon, waffles with syrup, and more venison.

There was a time in this country's history when a lot of people would eat sea turtles, especially as a soup. One such person was President Chester A. Arthur, who liked to partake of turtle in the form of steak and pair it with macaroni. But if you're looking to identify with a president based on their steak order, this is a tough one. First of all, who eats turtles? Second, due to sea turtles being an endangered species nowadays, it is no longer possible to consume them.

And third, Chester A. who? Having served just one term, and only because his predecessor, James Garfield, was assassinated, President Arthur remains one of America's most obscure presidents. But don't worry. If you want to feel a connection through food, know that President Arthur was also partial to land animals, and rare roast beef frequently occupied his dinner plate.

In a Thomas Jefferson meal, the meat was never the main attraction. Rather, when he did eat steak, he had it in small portions and surrounded by vegetables, often those from his own garden at his Monticello estate in Virginia. He even went so far as to call meat a "condiment" to his vegetables. In fact, he had as many as 330 varieties of vegetables and herbs, so he would have had to fill his plate with them if he hoped to try each plant within a year's time.

He also had 170 varieties of fruit, some of which included European grapes with which he hoped to make wine, but never quite succeeded. But this didn't stop him from enjoying plenty of other wine, with or without his steaks and vegetables. All in all, given the amount of time this man spent on his ingredients, we can safely assume he was America's first foodie.