Hail to the chef: Vice President Kamala Harris turns love of cooking into political tool

If Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wins the election in November, she may be the first president with a platform on dry-brining turkey .

She's in favor, and also recommends a rub of butter and herbs under the skin.

Harris has wowed actor Mindy Kaling with a surgically precise dice of an onion. ("I say this with respect, you're kind of show off," Kaling told Harris in an online video ). Throughout her political career, she has baked oatmeal cookies with a campaign worker, schooled a Senate colleague on tuna melts and talked food policy with celebrity chef Tom Colicchio .

"I take it very seriously," Harris said about cooking when she visited Kaling's kitchen in 2020 .

When Harris was young, her mother told her she better learn how to cook, because anyone who loved food that much needed to know how to make it. As Harris became a national figure, she kept cooking. The vice president turned a passion for baking, broiling and sautéing, which might have sunk the prospects for female politicians of an earlier generation, into a political asset.

"U.S. society is in a place where it's possible for a female candidate, even one running for the highest levels of government, to be totally authentic about what cooking means to her," said Jennifer L. Lawless, a professor of political science at the University of Virginia.

Winning votes with food

Food and American politics have been linked since independence. Many of America's earliest politicians were farmers. Food was their business.

"George Washington was throwing barbecues when he was running for office," said food writer Adrian Miller , who is writing a book about Asian American chefs at the White House.

Cooking was also a tool to sway policy in the early years of the republic by women who were not allowed to vote. When men gathered to cast their ballots, women baked the traditional "election cake" — and they doled out the beer.

"The women could bend the ear of whomever they needed, because they were making the food," said KC Hysmith, a food scholar who publishes the newsletter Penknife .

As the nation grew, and immigrants brought a wider menu to America, food became a way for politicians to connect with local communities. It could also go horribly wrong, like when President Gerald Ford tried to eat a tamale still wrapped in its corn husk or when John Kerry ordered a cheesesteak with a slice of "fancy" Swiss cheese while stumping in Philadelphia.

Cooking as a political tool

Not so long ago, women in politics wanted nothing to do with the kitchen. Hillary Clinton, when her husband ran for president in 1992, told the media she chose to pursue a profession instead of staying home to bake cookies.

"Gender politics have dissipated quite a bit in U.S. politics," Lawless said. "It allows women to do the kinds of things they feel comfortable doing."

For Harris, the kitchen is clearly a place where she is comfortable, and even joyful.

In the last 20 years, Lawless said, the number of women in Congress has doubled. More women have been elected to state legislatures and as governors. Stereotypes have faded away as these women have shown different ways to be successful politicians.

Cooking is also a national obsession in America today, even more so after the COVID-19 pandemic forced people to feed themselves when restaurants temporarily shut down.

"Think of all the sourdough starters that are living somewhere around the country. We connected with cooking and began to realize the meditative qualities of cooking," said Jessica Harris, whose book "High on the Hog" inspired the Netflix documentary series of the same name.

During the pandemic, sharing social media cooking videos also grew in popularity.

Politicians, trying to connect with younger voters, often struggle to navigate social media. But Harris, with her YouTube cooking videos and instagram chats with chefs, found a way to engage with social media that suits her personality.

"What's cool about the food world on social media is that there are all ages doing things in that space," Hysmith said.

Hail to the chef

If Harris is elected president, could she keep cooking once she moves into the White House?

A precedent exists.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower was an avid cook and grilled steaks on the roof of the White House.

"People would be walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, see smoke coming out of the White House and think it was on fire," Miller said.

Miller, who worked in the Clinton administration before he became a food writer, would advise Harris to keep posting cooking videos if she becomes president. The White House, he noted, has a small kitchen that Jacqueline Kennedy added to the residential wing.

She should cook with both average Americans and other U.S. and international politicians, Miller said.

"The country would go nuts for that, because of her personality," he said. "The savviest presidents have figured out that food is a way to build popular support, and not very many people in Congress want to cross a popular president."

Todd A. Price is a regional reporter in the South for the USA TODAY Network. He can be reached at taprice@gannett.com .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Hail to the chef: Vice President Kamala Harris turns love of cooking into political tool