Richard M. Nixon's Chinese Feast, Ben Somoroff

President Richard Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic of China in February 1972 marked an historic turn in Sino-American relations. The events of that week, well recorded by journalists, have subsequently become the subject of documentary films, of John Adams’s acclaimed opera Nixon in China, and of various writers’ explorations of Chinese culture.
In August 1972, readers in Esquire magazine were treated to a tutorial on the regional varieties of Chinese cuisine. To illustrate the article, Ben Somoroff, widely recognized as a master of stilllife photography, was commissioned to document a tableau of foods offered at banquets in Nixon’s honor during his visit. The article advised that “one of the most attractive of Northern Chinese specialties (and a good way of testing a Chinese restaurant in the U.S.) is an hors d’oeuvres platter called a Ping-Pan.” In the foreground Somoroff featured such a dish, a sumptuous array of jellyfish, meats, and mushrooms, plus 100-year-old eggs, all arranged to look like a peacock. Around the platter revolve
other delicacies, from carved vegetables to Peking duck, plus multiple rice wines. For readers still in their chop suey phase, the presentation might have seemed a challenge to the national palate.
Somoroff was admired for his colorful compositions; objects or portrait subjects were often photographed against intensely colorful backgrounds. In the banquet scene the food sits on a red tablecloth with a background of similarly vibrant color, referencing both pigment and politics (Chinese red, or red Chinese). Surrounded by reds, the smiling President dined alone—or
perhaps sat but did not dine. Nixon was reported to favor meatloaf for dinner and, cottage cheese topped with ketchup for breakfast.
Somoroff was adept with scissors as well as a camera. Nixon’s head was cut from another picture and then affixed to the photo of a seated model. That collage was then re-photographed to produce this illustration, a creative solution before Photoshop. CCE