I Ate Like Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for an Entire Day

Much has been made about Kamala Harris’s cooking prowess –— her knife skills and comfort in kitchen settings have spawned numerous think pieces. After four years of ice cream and angel hair pasta, chefs and personalities from the world of food and beverage are clearly thrilled at the prospect of having a gourmand in the White House.

This contrasts sharply with her opponent in the race for the presidency, Donald Trump. A germaphobe and fast food aficionado, the former president’s best-known culinary achievements include ordering fast food for Clemson football players and enjoying a well-done steak slathered in ketchup. 

In theory, there could not be two more diametrically opposed presidential candidates when it comes to food. And the recipes on Cooking with Kamala and Trump’s “I love Hispanics” taco bowl don’t tell you much about the person; they tell you more about the carefully crafted political persona.

To get to the person behind the persona, I decided to take two days to eat exactly like Kamala Harris and Donald Trump for an entire day in an entirely unscientific experiment based purely on masochistic firsthand experience. And yes, that meant staring down four McDonald’s sandwiches in one sitting. We’ll get there.

Breakfast 

The Trump breakfast: Diet Coke

Trump prefers to skip breakfast, often fasting for 12–16 hours a day. As a coffee drinker, I found it difficult to subsist on just the caffeine from his beloved Diet Coke all morning. Even after downing three before 9 a.m., it was a hazy start to the day.

The Harris breakfast: raisin bran with almond milk

For Harris, breakfast is similarly unceremonious. She often eats “over the sink,” sticking to classic Raisin Bran, opting for almond milk instead of regular. Like Trump, she forgoes coffee, though her beverage of choice is green tea, giving me a similarly small nip of caffeine. Both diets left me fully aware that even at a heart-healthy two cups per day, coffee has won the war with my body; I’m chemically dependent.

Snacks

An unexpected overlap in the diets of Trump and Harris? Doritos. Both of them favor the nacho cheese-flavored chip when it comes to snacks.

Lunch

The Trump lunch: overcooked steak smothered in ketchup

By the time lunch rolled around, I could not wait to ingest a well-done steak with ketchup, even though I dislike ketchup and prefer most meat prepared medium-rare. With only maltodextrin cheese dust and sub-optimal levels of caffeine in my bloodstream, I cooked the puck of beef until it “curled off the plate,” as described by a former White House employee. The ketchup was a much-needed addition in terms of safety, as the well-done steak was so dry it would have remained a choking hazard without the tomato-based lubricant. I fought through the steak with a side salad topped with Roquefort cheese dressing, appreciating the greens.

The Harris lunch: curd rice

Harris’s lunch is where the two diets truly diverged for the first time. Until now, the snacks were the same and the breakfasts were comparable. Curd rice, an Indian dish of mashed rice, unsweetened yogurt, salt, pomegranate arils, and spices brightened my day immediately. Filling, delicious, and layered with the flavors of coriander, green chile, cashews, and coconut oil, the dish reset my day as if speed-eating Raisin Bran had never even happened.

Dinner

The Trump dinner: two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, two Big Macs, and one chocolate milkshake

Dinner was always going to be the Mount Everest of this endeavor. I sat in the drive-through lane at McDonald’s, sipping my sixth Diet Coke of the day (Trump often drinks up to 12). The cashier opened the pickup window and handed me my order: two Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, two Big Macs, and one chocolate milkshake. He asked, “Do you guys need napkins?” and I thought how polite it was that he assumed there were multiple people eating this meal.

I came home, unboxed my four sandwiches and sat down to eat what Trump has been known to consume in a single sitting. I knew speed would play a role in whether I could successfully eat this outrageous amount of food, so I went about it methodically, channeling Chestnut, Kobayashi, the Black Widow, and my 18-year-old self. As I took the last sips of my chocolate shake, I contemplated whether I should turn all the lights off and lay down or go out into the world and start a fistfight. Both felt right.

The Harris dinner: gumbo over white rice

Dinner on my Kamala Harris day of eating was markedly different, though almost as heavy. Gumbo is one of her favorite dishes, and I made mine from scratch — the roux, the stock, the spice mix — taking me almost two hours, which also felt authentic to Harris. She finds peace in cooking Sunday dinners, so zooming through breakfast and downing a delicious yet easy lunch made sense. I’d saved time and space in my day for a hearty bowl of gumbo over white rice. Packed with chicken, shrimp, Andouille sausage, celery, onion, plus herbs and spices, the New Orleans regional specialty filled me up. I’m anxiously waiting for Kamala HQ to drop an official gumbo recipe. 

Dessert

The Harris dessert: bourbon pecan caramel cake

Trump’s dessert was included with dinner, but Harris’s came a few hours after I had digested the hefty gumbo. Much like Joe Biden, Harris adores a sweet treat. With her being a fan of caramel and chocolate, I enjoyed a warm bourbon pecan caramel cake with a chocolate drizzle. And to unwind, a bath and a cup of chamomile tea.

The aftermath

A day of eating like Kamala Harris was confusing at times, but it all came together to leave me feeling full, happy, and well-rested. A day of eating like Donald Trump left me feeling bludgeoned, thirsty, powerful, and strangely accomplished. 

Each day felt like one that began with a packed morning schedule, moving through breakfast as more of a hindrance than a source of enjoyment. Up until the early afternoon at 1 p.m., both the Harris and Trump diets left me feeling the same — a little hungry, a little tired, and deeply against the idea of a light breakfast.

While Trump’s eventual meals were consistent in terms of regionality (or lack thereof) and flavor, Harris’s were wildly different: Raisin Bran, Doritos, curd rice, and gumbo cover a wide swath of gastronomy. It’s a high-low blend, like something off a David Chang tasting menu. None of her food lacked punch, either. The curd rice was creamy and salty, the gumbo was herbaceous and spicy, plus the dessert and tea brought sweetness and floral notes. The day was an exercise in power clashing, and even if it started a little rocky, it ended with calm.

Trump’s dinner was an act of aggression and achievement, and though I couldn’t decide between darkness and fistfighting immediately afterward, I did eventually go to sleep that night. The next morning, I was hungover in a way I thought only alcohol could inspire. The 50-plus ounces of Diet Coke I’d ingested, plus a few days’ worth of sodium, gave me the same morning-after feeling as a half-liter of $8 boxed wine. I stumbled through my usual walk around the neighborhood at 8 a.m., searching my calendar to see if I needed to cancel any meetings before taking a half-day to recover. I couldn’t shake the headache for three hours and vowed never again to eat four McDonald’s sandwiches in one sitting unless it would be really, really funny.

The upshot

A single food preference can’t define a person — ketchup on well-done steak shouldn’t signal that someone is without sophistication and curd rice shouldn’t project that someone is elitist. When a collection of preferences is taken together like this, the picture becomes clearer.

If I were to play a little word association, it would go a little something like this:

• Kamala Harris: fiery, diverse, random, warm, work
• Donald Trump: bold, salty, cheap, accessible, frat-boy 

Am I describing the person or their diets? I’m willing to bet neither campaign would take issue with 80% of the word associations either (“frat-boy maybe, but who else besides 19-year-old athletes eats more than a single Big Mac at a time?). Most importantly, these two days of eating finally highlighted some political common ground for Harris and Trump: the supremacy of nacho cheese Doritos. That’s probably all we’re going to get.