There are several ways to approach history and politics, why not through cooking. By the stomachs, to be more precise, in this case those of a few dictators: Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin Dada, Enver Hodja, Fidel Castro and Pol Pot. For four years, Polish journalist Witold Szablowski searched the four corners of the world for their cooks to find out what they liked to eat and how. “In general, I had difficulty convincing them to talk to me,” he explains at the opening of the book. He also posts photos of them; the only one who did not want to show his face was Enver Hodja’s cook, still traumatized today by the terror that reigned for many years in Albania. Let’s go into detail about some of the eating habits of the dictators presented in this book. For breakfast, Saddam Hussein usually ate eggs, fish or lentil soup. Amin Dada’s cook sometimes prepared a whole stuffed and roasted goat for him, to which he glued his goatee back before serving it. Enver Hodja had diabetes and he couldn’t eat more than twelve hundred calories a day: “He spent most of his life going hungry because of this diet, that’s why he was always upset” , confides his cook. Fidel Castro ate a lot of dairy products, little meat and he loved vegetables. As for Pol Pot, he often had a stomach ache but “it was very important that he did not starve (he who starved the Cambodians, editor’s note.), our life depended on it, the success of the revolution depended on it,” remembers his cook who was a little in love with him. Beyond culinary anecdotes, How to feed a dictator is also a historical reminder, that doesn’t hurt.
