From bear chops to borscht, how menus helped shape world politics

In a world of QR code menus and takeout meals, it's easy to forget that menus - both the physical objects and the dishes they list - for centuries played an important symbolic role.

The "A World of Menus" exhibit that opened in Rome last week at the Garum Li‐ brary and Museum of Cuisine lays out some 400 menus from major private and pub‐ lic collections.

They offer a fascinating glimpse into defining mo‐ ments of diplomatic aspira‐ tions, displays of wealth and power, creative acts of defi‐ ance and calm before cata‐ strophe.

"We tried to put together an exhibit where you can see history on many different lev‐ els through meals that tell a story," said Matteo Ghirighini, Garum museum director and exhibit co-organizer.

The menus on display in‐ clude those of the final meals aboard the Titanic; Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini's first lunch; Pope Francis's first (and probably last) meet‐ ing with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill; and the coro‐ nations of Queen Elizabeth II and the last czar of Russia.

"A menu is the most direct witness of a moment in time and the gastronomy of that moment," said Ghirighini. "A menu doesn't lie."

Class differences on the Titanic

The menus from the Titanic afford a look at the class dif‐ ferences aboard the ship.

On April 14, 1912, when the ocean liner began sink‐ ing, taking with it more than 1,500 people, first-class pas‐ sengers would have dined on everything from fillets of brill fish and chicken à la Mary‐ land to grilled mutton chops, with a variety of meat, fish and cheese options from the buffet.

Third class would have

eaten roast beef and gravy with boiled potatoes for din‐ ner, with a supper of gruel, cabin biscuits and cheese. The menu tellingly came with a note at the bottom direct‐ ing passengers where to make complaints regarding "food supplied, want of at‐ tention or incivility."

Hitler and Mussolini in Venice

The menu of Mussolini and Hitler's first meal - and first meeting - in Venice on June 15, 1934 reveals details of both how the fascist dictator perceived the Nazi, and Mus‐ solini's nationalist push.

Hitler had risen to power the year before, and aspired to Mussolini's dictatorial status.

The menu was written in German as a diplomatic cour‐ tesy, but showcased food like Adriatic crabs to Piedmon‐ tese beef - a reflection of Mussolini's nationalism, high‐ lighting Italian regional ingre‐ dients and recipes.

Still, Ghirighini called it a boilerplate diplomatic offer‐ ing, void of signs of trying to impress or pander.

"At the time, Mussolini didn't care about Hitler," said Ghirighini. "He found him an‐ noying, with all the things he wanted, uniting Germany with Austria and so on. After they met, he called Hitler 'a little stupid clown.'"

Nicholas II menu

In the size-counts category, the metre-long menu for the 1896 coronation of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, looms largest.

A mix of traditional fare, the meal's simple entree was borscht soup and boiled stur‐ geon, as a nod to the masses - although it also featured touches of extravagance for its time, like ice cream.

But the actual menu, elab‐ orately decorated and in‐ fused with imperialist sym‐ bols - peacocks and eagles and men in armour - tells a different story.

"It probably cost more than the meal," said Ghirighi‐ ni. "You only need to try to impress that much when you're in deep trouble."

It's a record of an empire's last gasp. In 1918, just over two decades after the coro‐ nation meal, Bolsheviks shot and bayonetted the czar and his family to death in what was the start of the Russian revolution.

Eating the Paris Zoo

A pair of menus that make for interesting contrast are those preserved from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The Germans had set up their headquarters in Ver‐ sailles, where on the evening of Dec. 14, they dined on volau-vent, or puff pastry shells filled with meat, as they sur‐ rounded Paris to starve the city into defeat.

Parisians had resorted to eating cats and rats, and on Christmas, 99 days into the siege, slaughtered animals in the zoo.

A renowned chef served up a multi-course meal to up‐ per-class Parisians that in‐ cluded appetizers of stuffed donkey head and sardines, pureed bean soup made with elephant stock and a main course of roast camel, kan‐ garoo stew, bear chops and even cat flanked with rats.

Rossano Boscolo, cook‐ book and menu collector and founder of the Garum museum, calls it an act of de‐ fiance, a way to say, "'You think you eat well in Ver‐ sailles, well, look how we dine in Paris.'"

Transformation into to‐ day

A gradual transformation in menus began around the time the first one was printed in 1803 (for a private ban‐ quet in London), with a shift away from the French menu, said Boscolo.

"From the 16th to 18th centuries, the demonstration of power was always present around the table," said Boscolo. "Dishes were lavish‐ ly spread out to dazzle guests. By the 1800s, they began to be brought out one by one, stressing elegance and stability."

Several decades later, as French fell out of favour as the dominant language in royal courts and cuisine, menus began to be written in different languages.

Today, Ghirighini laments the loss of menus as artifac‐ ts.

For the birth of his second daughter, he prepared a menu of deer, mushrooms and tagliatelle, to reflect au‐ tumn, the season she was born in. It's an object he cherishes.

"It's rare now to bring home anything from the ex‐ perience of a significant meal," he said, "not only for the memory, but because the artifact itself matters."