Yearning for a novel recipe from political women

Yet another political scandal has boiled over.

Tagged “Recipegate,” the latest incident involved ahi tuna, passion fruit mousse, and Republican arm candy Cindy McCain. After being touted as “Cindy’s own” on the official campaign Web site, the “McCain Family Recipes” were discovered to have been lifted verbatim from the Food Network, as first reported in the Huffington Post online. An intern took the heat and Cindy’s Recipes were swiftly replaced by Cindy’s Travels.

The plagiarism and lack of culpability are shameful, but it’s the archaic idea behind the ahi that makes my stomach turn. As a society, why do we still require a recipe collection for a woman to gain admittance to the White House?

America’s electoral history is brimming over with spouses hoping to stir up votes with a spoonful of culinary camaraderie. In 1969, as waves of feminism were sweeping across amber waves of grain, “The First Ladies Cook Book” served up the details of preferred presidential dishes. The sexism of a slightly more modern oppressive culture is satiated with “Mrs. Bush’s Recipes,” which can be conveniently downloaded from the White House Web page (take note of “White House Easter Egg Roll Salad a la George”). Come July, ballots will be cast in Family Circle’s “Presidential Cookie Bake Off.” It’s Cindy’s – or somebody’s – Oatmeal Butterscotch Cookies facing off against Michelle Obama’s Shortbread. Democracy never tasted so sweet.

While I may try these recipes, I can’t be sugar-shocked into falling for a politician’s half-baked attempt to identify with the populace by way of the kitchen. Political wives have scant in common with their constituents when it comes to feeding their families. Neither Cindy nor Michelle is struggling to put food on the table due to an economy plagued by the continuing astronomical price increases of necessities such as eggs and milk.

Divided by a famine of faith in our own political system, America’s starving for something other than ahi tuna. A woman president may be on the back burner for now, but we still need to demand a powerful female presence in the White House. As a nation, we deserve a first lady whose influence reaches beyond the dining room table, a woman who recognizes that we’re hungry for something much more substantial that just another pirated recipe for passion fruit mousse.