But such caviling flies in the face of history, common sense and even human biology. The detractors have lost sight of a basic fact: Everyone has to eat.
At our deepest level, we are “biologically engineered for human interaction,” said Robin Dunbar, an emeritus professor of evolutionary psychology at Oxford University. And we seem to need to eat together, even when we don’t agree with one another. We don’t know why this is so, Dr. Dunbar said, but his theory is that communal eating stimulates endorphins, our bodies’ naturally occurring opioids that reinforce good behaviors. Even our closest primate relatives, like chimpanzees and bonobos, don’t eat communally as we do. It is a defining human trait that has ensured our survival — and at times our sanity, as the isolated days of the coronavirus pandemic reminded us.
In the United States, the president is our First Host and state dinners are among the most important events held at the White House. Today, these parties celebrate the conclusion of sometimes tense negotiations with visiting heads of state and are symbolically important. They project American bounty and power, showcase the best of our food and entertainment, and confer honor on guest nations.
The first state dinner for a foreign leader was held in December 1874, when Ulysses Grant hosted King David Kalakaua of the Hawaiian Islands. King Kalakaua had sugar to sell but faced stiff U.S. tariffs, so he traveled to Washington in search of relief. He was welcomed with a state dinner featuring the Marine Band, elaborate decorations in the State Dining Room and a sumptuous meal cooked by Valentino Melah, whose vegetable soups were said in an 1873 book about Washington to be “a little smoother than Peacock’s brains, but not quite so exquisitely flavored as a dish of Nightingale’s tongues.” A month later, President Grant agreed to allow Hawaiian agricultural products, including sugar, to be imported to the United States without tariffs in exchange for various economic privileges. The deal presaged the annexation of Hawaii, which was named our 50th state in 1959, and Grant’s party created a template for state dinners that has changed only a little in a century and a half.
Every president has his own hosting style, of course. When Jimmy Carter brought Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt to Camp David in 1978, he was warned that peace between the blood enemies was nearly impossible. As he shuttled awkwardly between the combatants, Rosalynn Carter arranged platters of food in different areas — cheese fondue here, strawberries dipped in chocolate there, drinks on the patio — hoping the states’ junior delegates would mingle. It worked. If the delegates could break bread and talk peacefully together, “Why couldn’t their leaders?,” she wondered in her memoir, “First Lady From Plains.” Eventually they did, and the Camp David Accords were initialed. “The impossible had been made possible,” the first lady marveled. In March 1979, the Carters hosted Mr. Begin, Mr. Sadat and 1,340 guests at a dinner on the South Lawn.