The Sloppy Reason Richard Nixon Banned Soup From State Dinners (And The Lie He Told Instead)

Richard Nixon, aka POTUS 37, is a fount of fun food facts. For one thing, he's alleged to have breakfasted on cottage cheese and ketchup, which is a unique combo that somehow failed to find its way onto the menus of trendy breakfast bistros. For another, a sandwich he once took a bite out of was preserved for posterity by a former Boy Scout who'd attended the event where it was served. Nixon also tried to set a precedent when it came to state dinners after an event held in March 1969 in honor of then-Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (yes, the current incumbent's a nepo baby). Impatient with the pace of dinner, Nixon decreed that the soup course should be dropped.

In addition to claiming these formal meals required too much time, Tricky Dick had another excuse ready at hand. According to the memoirs of White House chief of staff, H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, the president claimed soup wasn't something that men really cared for. Haldeman smelled something fishy, though, and it wasn't vichyssoise. He inquired of the valet as to whether there had been any soup-related incidents and received the answer that Nixon had, in fact, spilled soup on his vest during the dinner with Trudeau.

Interestingly enough, a copy of the menu for that event doesn't show soup. According to the menu, attendees dined on timbale of seafood Américaine, filet of beef jardinière, artichokes, cocotte potatoes, bibb lettuce with camembert, and a dessert called charlotte Monticello. Did the missing soup course get redacted, or did it fall into the same black hole as the missing 18½ minutes of the Watergate tapes?

Whatever his reason may have been for shunning soup at state dinners, apparently Richard Nixon stuck to his decision, as menus for subsequent state dinners also don't seem to list this course. At an October 1969 dinner for the Shah of Iran, the menu included supreme of salmon farcie imperiale, contre filet of beef bordelaise, and poires flambes Bar-le-Duc with sauce sabayon; while an October 1971 dinner for Yugoslavian leader Josip Broz Tito is said to have featured Chateaubriand and soufflé au Grand Marnier. A few days later, a dinner for Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had quenelles de brochet en vol-en-vent, suprême of pheasant véronique, and mousse glacé au praliné. 

All this to say, we can deduce the Nixons were no fans of plain meat and potatoes fare, nor would they have dreamed of serving fast food to heads of state. It also seems that French food was in vogue during the latter half of the 20th century.

Nixon didn't get off entirely soup-free since he also attended state dinners where he didn't get to plan the menu. In 1972, he paid a historic visit to China where he dined on shark fin soup, which subsequently helped to introduce the controversial dish to Chinese restaurants in the United States. The Spanish summer soup known as gazpacho also played a role in a dinner that Nixon did not attend but was nonetheless extremely important to his legacy — it was served when his successor Gerald Ford sat down with Henry Kissinger to discuss issuing the famed presidential pardon that absolved him of any Watergate-related crimes.