Constant campaigning must be a pretty grueling business, all right: case in point, Joe Biden. He’s pretty slim and trims. Yet, according to a campaign food diary published by a national publication during his second vice-presidential bid in 2012, the man has no fear of the almighty calorie. His diet pays homage to several of the essential foods: fat, sugar, and so much dairy. The one thing he eschews is alcohol, and through the years he’s never succumbed to temptations and remain a teetotaler.
Despite his wealth, Biden’s tastes make him out to be a pretty regular Joe. No champagne (or sparkling fruit juice), caviar or truffles for him; he’s more of a Joe Sixpack (of soda) kind of guy. He’s not usually all that big on fast food apart from Dairy Queen, although he did enjoy a visit to Whataburger on a recent visit. Still, he’s entirely at home in diners and will even happily chow down on gas station sidewalk cuisine. Although he has his faults such as ketchup on scrambled eggs, Biden would probably make for an enjoyable dining companion. If he ever gets tired of politics, he’d be a natural to co-host a Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives reboot.
The presidential candidate is also well known for his extreme ice cream love. As he confessed while visiting the Columbus, Ohio headquarters of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream in 2016, “I can consume more ice cream than three other people combined.” Jeni’s is his go-to brand of choice, not only for its super-premium flavors but also for the campaign support he gets from founder Jeni Britton Bauer. The support goes both ways, since, by the time Biden clinched the nomination back in April, his campaign had spent over $10,000 on Jeni’s ice cream.
Although Jeni offers gourmet flavors such as goat cheese with red cherries and orange blossom chiffon, Biden’s own favorite ice cream is something a little more basic: like old-fashion chocolate chip. He even had a special edition of this flavor produced and named for him when he gave the commencement speech at Cornell University in 2017. The batch of Big Red, White, and Biden (the “Big Red” part refers to the university’s sports teams, rather than to its coloring) sold out immediately, but at least Biden did get a scoop of his namesake treat. I am not sure the flavor is available here in Rhode Island but will look into it and hopefully get my fix.
Note: Jeni Britton Bauer is an American ice cream maker and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the artisan ice cream movement, she introduced a modern, ingredient-driven style of ice cream making that has been widely emulated across the world but never duplicated. Jeni opened her first ice cream shop, Scream, in 1996, then founded Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in 2002. More on Jeni here.
