bush broccoli and bans

George H. W. Bush, the 41st president of the United States, mentioned his distaste for broccoli a number of times. The first mention of broccoli during Bush's presidency was in March 1990, when he made a joke that the workers in the Office of Personnel Management would get merit pay "in broccoli". Shortly after, a journalist from U.S. News & World Report broke a story that Bush had banned the vegetable from Air Force One. In response, the broccoli-growers of America pledged to send a number of trucks of the vegetable to the White House.
When asked if he'd lost the "broccoli vote" because of his comments, Bush made the following casual remark about the vegetable outside the White House in an exchange with reporters:
I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid. And my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States. And I'm not gonna eat any more broccoli! ... For the broccoli vote out there, Barbara loves broccoli. She's tried to make me eat it. She eats it all the time herself. So, she can go out and meet the caravan of broccoli that's coming in from Washington.
George S. Dunlop, President of the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, gave First Lady Barbara Bush a bouquet of broccoli and an additional ten tons of the vegetable in trucks. A few days afterwards, Bush hosted a state dinner to honour Tadeusz Mazowiecki, Prime Minister of Poland, and journalists noted there was no broccoli on the menu, as most of the broccoli given to the president's family by the farmers had been donated to the Capital Area Food Bank.

View More On Wikipedia.org