I'll assume that the taster has been around for many presidents. If asked to blind guess, I'd say started in FDR years. So, no news. What is news to me is the president has no leadership. Sit around not eating because your taster isn't there like a 1st grader waiting for the bus? Wow. How about "I'm the president, I own the secret service, so lets say screw them, I'm eating lobster."
The whole concept is pretty offensive to me, just not his fault in particular. So we can assume all the man of the people crap of stopping restaurants out of the blue is all highly staged?