Dinner meals

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"This is a decoction from a dead animal," said Adolf Hitler, watching his companion eat a fragrant broth. He himself began to eat a decoction of soy, which was then called "Nazi beans."

The German leader propagandized soy as an alternative to meat. But his taste, he clearly did not enjoy. "I ate more mechanically, I spent very little time at the table," one of the German soldiers recalled in his diary about Adolf Hitler.

Dictators usually chose high quality food for themselves and did not worry that there was a famine and devastation in the country. What culinary masterpieces were they ordering themselves? Although the menu of two of the most famous dictators of the 20th century was affected by digestive problems ...

Stalin loved to watch drunken comrades

Soup, a decanter with water and a bottle of vodka on the table. Beginning of the 30th of the XXth century Yosif Vissarionovich Stalin sits down to dine at his dacha in Kuntsevo near Moscow. It was a warm, gay summer day, so he was covered by a table on the veranda. After the death of his second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1901-1932), he changed his eating habits. Dinners were now made up of fewer dishes. Over time, he began to invite guests, with whom he savored the main dish of the evening.

The clock was beaten off at 23.00, and Stalin entered the dining room. Servants bring huge plates with chicken in Georgian sauce satsivi. Stalin utters a toast, everyone present should drink to the bottom. Who does not drink, offends the owner. No one, of course, will dare to do it. To guests Stalin gladly added vodka, and himself drank Georgian wine, which he brought from Ateni. "Destroy the enemies of our country!" he says, raising his glass. Guests who, by order, grab for their full-fledged glasses ... The Soviet leader is pleased to observe how, after several glasses of vodka, people opened their true essence before him. This also applies to foreign guests. For example, the Yugoslav comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892-1980) was eager to stay on the same footing with the Russians, but ended up pouring himself into his sleeve.

Stalin's favorite entertainment to solder his guests brought them to a miserable state. The evenings lasted 5-6 hours and ended in the morning. Guests could eat as much as they wanted - tables bent from food. Stalin loved traditional Georgian dishes, dressed with garlic, plums and walnuts. When I did not organize the reception, I ate simple meals. He loved stew, soups, jam from unripened walnuts, which his mother prepared for him.

Mussolini did not like pasta and ate a lot of garlic

"Quiet, Dad is coming," Rachel Mussolini cried (1890-1979) to her son Roman (1927-2006), who played with his sister Anna Maria (1929-1968). She stood with her five children near the oval table, because her husband Benito Mussolini attached great importance to family dinners. He said that they must wait for him, before serving. Only when I sat at the table, the rest of the family could start eating. But when he was invited to dinner at the royal palace, he was not very pleased. Long formal meals with King Victor Emmanuel 3 (1869-1947) made him bored.

Mussolini most liked rough-cut garlic, filled with olive oil, with lemon wedges. "This is the best medicine for the heart," Mussolini said. I could eat a whole plate of this dish. His wife is not delighted with the culinary tastes of her betrothed. "I could not even approach him, at night I went to sleep with the children," she recalled.

Mussolini was not very fond of potatoes and pasta. The Italian pasta did not satisfy his taste. "My head hurts," - he moved the plate with pasta when he was forced to eat them at a party. But he highly valued another Italian dish - the sweet dessert of the zyambelone, like a rum-woman. This dessert always decorated family feasts.

At the same time he ate and drank a lot. Always had a good appetite. From such a not too healthy way of life almost died. Doctors during the Second World War diagnosed with high blood sugar, deformity of the stomach and constipation. They were prescribed a diet, warning the patient of the imminent consequences of eating. I decided to change my tastes and introduced dietary poultry and rabbit meat into the diet.

Hitler felt sorry for the lobsters in the restaurant aquariums and forbade the foie gras

The flavors of the dishes cooked in the kitchen for Adolf Hitler were carried throughout the rooms. However, no one was in a hurry to lay out the plates on the table. At first we had tasters, which he had 15 pieces.
When a message came from the kitchen that everything was all right, plates with food were served on the table of Hitler. The leader of the Nazis was sure that they want to poison him, so he waited patiently until the food was tasted. If someone from the tasters had any problems after eating, then they threw away all the food. Margit Wolf, one of the tasters, later confirmed that only the best products were served on the table of Adolph Hitler: sparring with Dutch sauce, soup with meatballs, baked red pepper, rice, different salads. Meat in the menu of Hitler was not. Instead, he ate soups, vegetables, side dishes. But it was not always so.

Baked pigeons are the dish that Adolf Hitler regularly ordered during lunch at the Hotel Hamburg, when he was not yet a vegetarian. Birds with pistachio nuts were his favorite delicacy. This was later written by the British chef Diona Lucas (1909-1971), who worked in that restaurant in those days. But the future Fuhrer ate not only this. "There is nothing more delicious cheesecake," - said. He liked to eat Bavarian sausages or a piece of boiled pork. But over time, completely abandoned the meat and even started to fight for the rights of vegetarians. He said that lobsters in restaurant aquariums suffer and forbade the production of foie gras (Strasbourg pate from overfed ducks and geese, which was considered a great delicacy).

Almost all the leaders of Nazism switched to vegetarianism following the example of the chief. "When we win the war, the Germans will be a nation of vegetarians," Hitler said in 1942 in a conversation with Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945). The truth was that on his part, the transition to vegetarianism was associated with frequent bloating and constipation, and not out of pity for animals.

To treat problems with digestion, the leader of Germany used more than 28 medicines, including rather curious potions. Doctor Theodore Morel (1886-1947), who was advised by Hitler's photographer Heinrich Hoffmann (1885-1957), in the second half of the 30s of the 20th century had special methods of treatment. Pain in the stomach was treated with a medicine that included hormones, vitamins, phosphorus and sugar. The leader was delighted with such treatment. He said that no one had explained to him the problems with his health, and the process of Morel's treatment is logical, that's why he believes him. "I will carry out his orders to the last point," he said. He trusted him so much that he dismissed his doctor, Karl Brandt (1904-1948). Morel experimented with the health of the Nazi leader. Gave him an essence of waste fumigation. "I only want mashed potatoes," Hitler said a few hours before the end of World War II. Apart from mashed potatoes and soup, I was already unable to eat anything.