Only a handful of presidents have had a keen interest in cooking. Dwight Eisenhower popularized a method for grilling steaks directly on the coals. Jimmy Carter considered himself a good country cook. Abraham Lincoln was known to put on an apron.

But no candidate this close to the White House has the kitchen skills of Vice President Kamala Harris, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidency. In the way Donald Trump uses the golf course as both a source of relaxation and a political backdrop, Ms. Harris uses the kitchen.

“I don’t think there has been anybody who understands the power of cooking quite like Kamala,” said Alex Prud’homme, who wrote “Dinner With the President: Food, Politics and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House.”

Ms. Harris has turned cooking videos into campaign assets and has taken a particular interest in food issues like hunger and farm labor. But she also turns to cooking as a meditation.

“Everything else can be crazy, I can be on six planes in one week, and what makes me feel normal is making Sunday-night family dinner,” she told The Cut in 2018, when she was a senator. “If I’m cooking, I feel like I’m in control of my life.”