Kamala Harris is sewing up the foodie vote.
The Democratic presidential nominee is known to frequent an eclectic list of restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, chatting up the chefs and taking selfies with the kitchen staff. Celebrity chefs are even hosting “Cooking for Kamala” fundraisers.
She cooks like a foodie, too. In videos for her short-lived “Cooking With Kamala” YouTube series during her last run, she made everything from bacon-fried apples to masala dosa, and her casual advice to a reporter about brining a turkey went viral in 2020.
And, like all foodies, she dreams of opening a restaurant. In an old video that recently resurfaced on TikTok, garnering 2 million views, she describes her dream of retiring one day and starting a place that serves only three items each day for appetizer, main entree and dessert.
“Really simple menu, and when the food for those things run out, then ‘see you tomorrow,’ closed for the day,” she said.
Political consultants would advise against displaying this level of familiarity with foodie culture.
Political consultants would advise against displaying this level of familiarity with foodie culture. Democrats, in particular, are sensitive to accusations that they are on the “wine track,” being tagged as elitist when they talk about fancy food. Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis suffered for suggesting Iowa farmers grow Belgian endive, while former President Barack Obama was slagged for complaining about the price of arugula at Whole Foods.
But Harris might not just avoid taking a hit for being a foodie but also benefit from it.
For one thing, America is far more foodie than it has been in past elections. The Food Network is one of the most-watched cable channels, while videos of influencers demonstrating different recipes and cooking techniques dominate YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Celebrity chefs ranging from the workmanlike Bobby Flay to the hyperkinetic Guy Fieri are household names, while the V drama “The Bear” had viewers lusting for both the dishes and the chefs who make them.
Harris also comes by her love of food authentically, having learned to cook from her mother, Shyamala Gopalan. In a 2020 interview with Glamour, she recalled watching her do a week’s worth of meal prep on the weekend.
“As a child, I remember hearing the pots and smelling the food, and kind of like someone in a trance, I would walk into the kitchen to see all this incredible stuff happening,” she said. “My mother used to tell me, ‘Kamala, you clearly like to eat good food. You better learn how to cook.’”
As you can see in the videos of her cooking, she took that advice. Harris can crack an egg with one hand, uses the dull side of the knife to scrape food out of the bowl and makes cornbread the day before Thanksgiving so it has time to dry out before she uses it for stuffing. These are all tells of someone who knows what they are doing.
All of this stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump, whose culinary crimes are legendary. To name just a few: He eats New York City pizza with a fork and scrapes off the toppings, drinks a dozen Diet Cokes a day, prefers steak well done and with ketchup and demands more ice cream than his guests. When he was president, the only restaurant he visited in D.C. was his own. He feuded with beloved celebrity chef José Andrés, and, perhaps most damning, the late icon Anthony Bourdain once said he would not eat with Trump, saying, “I don’t think he likes food.”
Trump’s love of McDonald’s makes him seem more relatable.
On the other hand, Trump’s love of fast food, including McDonald’s and KFC, works for him politically. Having a hankering for a Big Mac offsets the fact that, as a billionaire, he wears cuff links and has his own jumbo jet. As with Bill Clinton, who also had a fast-food addiction, his love of McDonald’s makes him seem more relatable.
That’s why it’s important that Harris is a true foodie and not a food snob. Her list of regular hangouts includes taquerias, greasy spoons and rotisserie chicken joints, along with fancier restaurants. When Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., posted a much-mocked video in which he made a horrific-looking tuna melt, Harris joined him on an Instagram Live to go over basics of the childhood staple, like draining the water from the tuna can and heating the sandwich in a pan, not in the microwave. And she has gone all out on videos of cooking Thanksgiving dinner, the one time of year when the entire country goes foodie.
When Hillary Clinton was asked about her career as a lawyer in 1992, she infamously said that she instead “could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas.” The remark drew weeks of blowback, and she had to repeatedly apologize, even submitting her chocolate chip cookie recipe to a humiliating “bake-off” with first lady Barbara Bush in Family Circle magazine in penance.
The remark stung because Clinton seemed to be saying that women had to choose between domestic duties and career goals. But with her very public love of cooking, Harris is avoiding that trap, and that may help her electorally, as well.
But in the end, Harris’ love of cooking helps her campaign because all of the interviews and videos show how much she enjoys it. The biggest contrast her campaign has made with Trump is joy. Like her ability to laugh and talk to little kids, Harris’ love of cooking and eating well marks her as a normal person who enjoys life. There could be no better contrast with the dour, joyless Trump than sitting down with friends and family and enjoying a good meal.
