Dining with Leaders, Rebels, Heroes, and Outlaws

By (author) Fiona Ross

Not available to order

Publication date:

05 May 2016

Length of book:

220 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442252301

Dining with Leaders, Rebels, Heroes and Outlaws is a marvelously funny journey into the gastronomic peccadilloes of the great, the good, and the not-so-good. Based on the findings of the British gastro-detective Fiona Ross, the Dining with Destiny series establishes a new genre: the food biography, with scandals, recipes, and their stories, allowing you to taste the culinary secret lives of presidents and prime ministers; dictators and revolutionaries; heroes and geniuses - and serve them up at your own dinner table. From Winston Churchill to Malcolm X, Golda Meir to Albert Einstein, and more, each of these figures took part in landmark historical and cultural events that have shaped and defined our way of life – but they also had to eat. Now it is time to look at their plates to discover what makes them a revolutionary, a hero, a rogue! Dining with Leaders, Rebels, Heroes and Outlaws lets you taste what’s on Darwin’s fork.

Introduction
1: Dining with the Leaders: Apparatchiks and their appetites will appeal to all those readers with a transcontinental interest in behind-the-napkin politics. Candidates include: Golda Meir; Lyndon B Johnson; Boris Yeltsin; ‘Peanuts’ Carter; Margaret Thatcher; Richard Nixon; Churchill; Bill Clinton; Gorbachev; Ronnie Reagan; and JFK and Jackie.
2: Dining with the Rebels: From the shores of Cape Town to the menu at Charlestown Penitentiary, we follow the crumb trail of the world’s leading revolutionaries. Ordering a Molotov are: Mandela; Marx; Castro; Ché; Malcolm X; Lenin; Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat.
3: Dining with the Heroes: serving up supper with heroes, geniuses and explorers. On a pedestal are: Lawrence of Arabia; Freud; Scott of the Antarctic; Gandhi; Martin Luther King; Charles Darwin; Einstein; and Men on the Moon.
4: Dining with the Outlaws: If you are what you eat, could we all be dictators too? This accessible volume investigates the unusual appetites of these men with something to hide. The roll-call: Hitler; Tito; Pinochet; Mao; Mussolini; Saddam; Osama bin Laden; Stalin; and Peròn.

British gastrodetective Ross pairs a wide range of politicians, dictators, revolutionaries, heroes, and geniuses with their cuisine preferences, providing both recipes and descriptions of the dishes. She names Israeli leader Golda Meir’s heartwarming gruel, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s beef ribs, Russian head Boris Yeltsin’s favorite fish soup, Margaret Thatcher’s conservative 'Iron Lady Ginger Cake,' and JFK’s beloved fish chowder, among others. Her 'Rebel' and 'Outlaws' sections are full of historic detail and tongue-in-cheek relish, and they possess a real comic edge. Ross samples Nelson Mandela’s biryani of spicy lamb, Lenin’s 'Comrade’s Cabbage and Dumpling Soup,' Malcolm X’s savory pecan pie, and Osama Bin Laden’s toxic Swedish delicacy of smoked sausage with potatoes and mustard. Her heroes include Martin Luther King Jr., Charles Darwin, and Albert Einstein, and she especially enjoys Sigmund Freud’s Viennese rindfleisch goulash and Gandhi’s 'Seaman’s Roti.' Most of the civilization’s famous and infamous appear in Ross’s slyly humorous food dossier, which is concocted to be taken seriously while producing a belly laugh or two.