Meals that changed history
From Franz Ferdinand’s assassination to the Battle of Culloden, food has influenced the course of history, says Struan Stevenson
There is an old Spanish proverb that says: “The belly rules the brain.” This is clinically proven. Food is the original mind-control drug. Every time you eat a good meal, you bombard your brain with a feast of chemicals, some of which are known to make you more receptive to persuasion. This is why lobbyists invite politicians to lunch and dinner. It is why business deals are discussed over a meal, and why state occasions almost always have lavish banquets. It was what Churchill referred to as “dining diplomacy”, or the method of influencing people and winning arguments at the dinner table, a skill that has been deployed for centuries.
When Prince Charles-maurice de Talleyrand-perigord, French foreign minister, was asked by King Louis XVIII what he needed to win the arguments for France at the Vienna Congress in 1814, he said: “I need saucepans more than instructions. Let me work and count on Carême.” He was referring to Paris-born MarieAntoine Carême, first of the celebrity chefs. Despite France’s defeat, as the victors met in Vienna to divide up the spoils of the exiled Napoleon, Talleyrand’s adroit deployment of Carême’s culinary skills enabled him to take command of the conference.
Thomas Jefferson also learned the art of dining diplomacy. Having served as America’s minister to France from 1785 to 1789, he had fallen in love with French and Italian food and wine. When George Washington made him America’s first secretary of state in 1790, he and friend James Madison, leader of the House of Representatives, had crossed swords with the young and pugnacious Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, over the settling of debt from the Revolutionary War and the locus of the new capital. Hamilton wanted the debt shared evenly among all US states. Jefferson and Madison believed that would be unfair to the poorer southern areas.
Jefferson’s solution was to invite the pair to a private supper at his New York apartment. Over capon stuffed with Virginia ham, boeuf à la mode and a dish that would become known as baked Alaska, he and Madison persuaded Hamilton to compromise. Dinner was washed down with vintage French wines from Tain l’hermitage, Graves and Gevrey-chambertin and a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano from Tuscany. In return for supporting the federal “assumption” of the debt, Hamilton agreed to the capital being located farther south, on the banks of the Potomac River (after 10 years, during which Philadelphia – which had been promised the accolade – would become temporary capital). With the future of Washington DC secured, Jefferson filled three glasses with French cognac to clinch the deal.
But the persuasive power of good food and wine was perhaps never so fateful as on the evening of June 27 1914, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, attended a dinner in the Hotel Bosna in Ilidža, near Sarajevo. The archduke had finished an inspection of the Austro-hungarian military, which had been the primary focus of his visit. Several senior officials had told him that there were rumours of a planned attempt on his life, so when he arrived at the dinner, he announced that he had decided not to visit Sarajevo the next morning. Instead, he would return to Vienna. But his advisers warned him that if he skipped the visit it would be seen as an insult and Austrian prestige in Bosnia would be undermined. They claimed that the Sunday programme would consist of a brief trip to City Hall, a stop-off at the museum and lunch at the Governor’s mansion. Nine extravagant courses and six opulent wines may have helped to weaken the archduke’s resolve and, against his better judgment, he gave in.
The next morning, two bullets fired by a 19-year-old student in a Sarajevo street killed both Franz Ferdinand and Sophie, setting in motion a train of events that shaped the world. The First and Second World Wars, the partition of Europe and even the Cold War can be traced back to that assassination. One can only wonder if history would have been markedly different had the pair dined quietly on Saturday evening and, having listened to the sage advice from officials, agreed to cancel their intended morning visit.
Sometimes wine may have influenced historic decisions more than food. Alcohol was almost certainly a contributory factor to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s crushing defeat at the Battle of Culloden, on April 16 1746. Only 36 hours previously, eviously, at a lavish dinner in nearby y Culloden House, the Young Pretender etender toasted his loyal commanders mmanders with gallons of claret and whisky as they talked of their coming victory. They feasted sted on lamb, cheese and cream m crowdie while their foot soldiers ers starved. A series of false alarms arms and abortive, tive, exhausting ng manoeuvres vres over the following hours was to spell disaster for the Jacobite army.
Reeling from fatigue, the young prince and his troops prepared to meet the Hanoverian army. The battle lasted less than an hour. The Duke of Cumberland’s Hanoverian troops lost just 50 men, while the bloodstained
‘One can only wonder if history would have been different had the pair dined quietly’
bodies of more than 1,200 Jacobites were scattered on the moor. The Jacobite dream lay dead in the mud and with it a Royal Stuart era that had lasted for more than 400 years. The Young Pretender Preten escaped to France and , in 178 1788, Bonnie Prince Charlie died d in Rome of liver failure caused ca by excessive drinking. drinking His final dinner may have set the seal on his fate in more ways way than one.
As a lifelong life politician, I have witnessed “dining “diplomacy” first hand. I was wa first elected as a councillor counc at 21, spending 22 years yea in local government before be being elected as an MEP representing Scotland Sc from 1999 to 2014. I have shared meals with royalty, presidents, diplomats and leaders across the globe. I began to explore how food had transcended its primal role as life-giving sustenance to become a weapon of unimaginable power, used throughout history as a potent motivator.
The ten momentous meals in my book The Course of History have revealed how food, far from being an intriguing historical footnote, has always played a central role in epoch-making decisions.
It is also fascinating how many of the key negotiations over Brexit seem to have taken place at the dinner table in Brussels or Downing Street. Repeated leaks of these talks have appeared in the German press, fuelling suspicions that Jean-claude Juncker’s German chef de cabinet – Martin Selmayr – is being less than tight-lipped following sumptuous meals accompanied by Europe’s finest wines. There may be meaty revelations that merit a chapter in volume two – The Second Course of History – already stewing.