The politics of food: A convention digest

The Philly cheesesteak is a popular choice among conventioneers

By Beth Nissen
CNN.com Senior Correspondent

PHILADELPHIA (CNN) -- Almost 5,000 delegates and alternate delegates are here to chew the fat. More than 15,000 members of the media are here, hungry for news. There is also a pack of lobbyists, a wad of contributors, and a rank of protesters. And everybody needs to eat.

With the convention in session only in the evening, those attending are free for breakfast, lunch and an early dinner. Most have had no trouble finding food: The city has stocked up.

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Parking lots around the convention hall are salted with white refrigerator trucks containing fresh produce and pre-cooked meals. Alleyways are stacked with pallets of bottled water and cans of soda. Area restaurants have ordered double deliveries of eggs and milk, cold cuts and hoagie rolls.

“We’ve had the BEST food here,” said Karen Kirk of the Ohio delegation.

“The seafood’s good, and we’re going to have western barbecue tonight,” said Cindy Moyle, an Idaho member of the Republican National Committee.

Many convention visitors are eating in their hotels, but many more are venturing out to the city’s 471 restaurants, 498 pizza parlors, its corner delis and food courts. Most are in search of local specialties: soft pretzels, hoagies, cheese steaks.

Roger Zion, a member of the Indiana delegation, tried his first Philadelphia cheese steak, or at least a sandwich called a Philly cheese steak that seemed to be made of some kind of gooey cheese and some meat from the steak family. “It isn’t like southern Indiana barbecue,” he said, not seeming altogether pleased by that.

Philly cheese steaks and hoagies are popular with the political rank and file. Political fat cats can afford finer fare.

The renowned French restaurant Le Bec Fin has been fully booked for convention week since the fall, by gourmands eager to try the escargots in champagne sauce, wild mushroom ravioli, crab galettes in mustard sauce, and a caviar-laced tuna napoleon.

Diners will have to fork over $120 each for a set six-course dinner, not counting wine and gratuities. Still, the hopefuls have been calling all week, lobbying for a reservation, or trying to play personal politics with Le Bec Fin owner and chef Georges Perrier to get a table. “They say, ‘oh, I’m a friend of Georges Perrier,” says Perrier. “Or, ‘I live next to Georges Perrier,’ or ‘I’ve known Georges Perrier for 25 years.’"

Republican cookies decorate convention banquet tables

Perrier is trying to be accommodating, keeping his restaurant open an extra hour, until midnight, and serving the full menu in the bar. “We wish we were this busy every night,” he said.

Members of the media here wish they weren’t so busy every night: The scramble to find a story, some story, any story, during the day -- and then cover the three-and-a-half hours of the convention session at night -- means most are forced to grab what they can on deadline, no matter how long it may have been sitting out and congealing.

For the most part, the media mob is eating food prepared by Aramark, the food services giant and the official convention caterer. One thousand Aramark chefs have been cooking up vats of pasta and cauldrons of carbonara sauce -- and, perhaps inevitably, those pans of meatloaf of indeterminate color, that seem to be the staple of large-scale food service from school cafeterias to military mess halls.

So all week, the news-starved, food-starved media have been crashing the Party’s parties, grabbing sound bites and bites of dinner at the same time. Most of the buffets at these gatherings are lavish banquets of fresh fruit and crisp salads, broccoli rabe and herbed chicken, and grilled Chilean sea bass in such quantity that Chile must be depleted of the fish.

“There’s too much good food,” said Bob Osky, a delegate from Oregon. “Too much variety -- you want to try everything.” Ohio delegate Janet Folger disagrees, in a rare show of intra-party dissent. “This may surprise you, but I don’t come to the Republican National Convention for the food,” she said.

To Republican Party planners, food is just one more way to get the GOP message across: There are Republican cookies in the shape of the party’s symbol, for those hungry enough to eat an elephant. And Aramark has prepared many items that have a meaningful Texas connection.

“We have a lot of briskets going out, a lot of barbecued chicken, some jalapeno cornbreads and some things like that,” said Bennett Fass, the chief Aramark chef at the convention.

That’s relegated to the delegates. The candidate, Gov. Bush, will be offered a customized menu of foods designed for his palate, not taken from some pallet. “We’re bringing in veal chops, extra filets, some Chilean sea basses, lobsters, all kinds of special items,” said Fass.

Hardly seems democratic. Then again, maybe that’s the point.