A chilling look from within the kitchen at the appetites of five of the twentieth century's most infamous dictators, by the acclaimed author of Dancing Bears
Witold Szablowski is an award-winning Polish journalist and the author of Dancing Bears- True Stories of People Nostalgic for Life Under Tyranny. At age twenty-five he became the youngest reporter at one of Poland's largest daily newspapers, where he covered international stories in countries including Cuba, South Africa, and Iceland, and won awards for his features on the problem of illegal immigrants flocking to the European Union and the 1943 massacre of Poles in Ukraine. His book about Turkey, The Assassin from Apricot City, won two awards and was nominated for Poland's most prestigious literary prize. Szablowski lives in Warsaw.
Winner, Gourmand World Cookbook Awards
“A very accomplished piece of historical journalism and brilliant
story-telling . . . Just an outright pleasure to
read.” —Bill Buford, bestselling author of Heat and Dirt
“Fascinating . . . Moving . . . Reveal[s] the complicated web of
feelings (and morals) involved in cooking for a despot . . . A
chilling read.” —The Washington Post
“Lively . . . Szabłowski . . . devoted three years to tracking down
and personally interviewing the cooks . . . [and] provide[s]
historical context for the worlds in which these tyrants operated
and makes sure we remember how evil they were, even as we read
about their fondness for grilled cheese with honey or refusal to
eat dried elephant meat.” —The Wall Street Journal
“I loved the book because it hit my personal sweet spot—food and
history. . . . I kept turning the pages . . . with the same
gape-mouthed shock I got from reading The Orphan Master’s Son.”
—Joel Stein, Air Mail
“Anecdotal and easy-going . . . Throughout, the
chefs are rendered as compelling and complex characters.
Szabłowski’s skill is to hang back from judgment . . . Like
his compatriot, the literary non-fictioneer Kapuściński .
. . Szabłowski lets his subjects speak for themselves . .
. [offering] behind-the-scenes glimpses of hypocrisies,
capriciousness and bullying . . . [and] posing . . . universal
questions about collusion and responsibility. . . . Szabłowski
is a limpid and gently brilliant storyteller.” —Financial
Times
“A fascinating journey through four continents . . .
Szabłowski paints a gripping picture of the autocracy seen through
the eyes of tyrants’ personal chefs. It’s delicious and devastating
at the same time.” —Karolina Wiercigroch, quoted in National
Geographic
“A piquant food travelogue with dimensions that are both comic and
Faulknerian, with court intrigue and betrayal so sudden that the
book may as well have been titled In the Kitchen With Machiavelli .
. . [The] moral ambiguity . . . is both the fascination and the
horror of the book. . . . Chilling.” —Bloomberg
“Fascinating.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Reveal[s] the capricious and often banal underbelly of power.”
―The Economist
“Riveting, and utterly convincing . . . Viscerally transports us to
an alien time, an alien place . . . The dictators are reanimated,
transformed from creatures of mythology back into flesh and blood.
. . . Exceptionally juicy.” —The Sunday Telegraph
“Winning . . . Szabłowski’s dogged pursuit across continents was
rewarded. . . . This book tells all that we know about the power of
good suppers, whoever they are fed to.” —The Spectator
“Fascinating . . . A beguiling mix of the dark and the comic,
combining fancy cuisine with torture and genocide. Its tone is
reminiscent of Armando Iannucci’s recent movie The Death of Stalin,
in which the absurd and the monstrous, the funny and the horrifying
are so entwined as to be indivisible.” —The Mail on Sunday
“A very special book . . . We need a new word to describe the
uncomfortable hunger one feels reading this book.” —Maclean’s
“These are the tales from Hell’s Kitchen—the real kitchens, in
presidential palaces and retreats, where food was prepared for men
so evil they seemed to be the Devil in human form.” —Al Bawaba
“Food and history buffs will find these firsthand accounts
irresistible. . . . Throughout, Szabłowski entertains with
disturbing rumors, such as [Idi] Amin eating human flesh (whatever
the case, his chef never cooked it for him), and strange obsessions
([Fidel] Castro preferred the milk from a single cow named Ubre
Blanca, or “white udder”). . . . These are the kinds of stories
only a chef could know.” —Publishers Weekly
“Its originality and topicality in a world increasingly governed by
political strongmen [are] intriguing. . . . The author shares
intimate historical insights into the meaning of life under
dictatorship.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Fascinating . . . A new perspective on horrible people . . .
Interesting anecdotal revelations . . . The chefs’ biographical
narratives . . . present variations on the themes of rare
opportunity, terrifying pressure, and lives permanently warped by
proximity to power and cruelty.” —Booklist
“A great book . . . Really a fascinating idea. It’s kind of like
Chicken Soup for the Soul, except with vicious, bloodthirsty
dictators.” —Stu Does America
“A quick read, but tense. I was surprised at how fast my pulse was
going when reading.” —Victoria Irwin, FangirlNation
“An interesting combination of politics and food . . . It hit the
spot.” —Reading Envy
“A very profound meditation on the relationship between food and
power.” ―Larry Wolff, New York University
“A startlingly intimate portrait from the palace kitchen . . . It
blew me away.” ―Krishnendu Ray, New York University
“Unique and startling—an amazing book. Here’s Abu Ali, describing
the fish soup with tomatoes, almonds, and apricots that was Saddam
Hussein’s favorite. And here’s Otonde Odera, reminiscing about the
steak and kidney pie that won him a huge pay raise from Idi Amin.
These accounts of killers at table, delivered in the cooks’ own
words and placed in historical context by Szabłowski, are all the
more hair-raising for Szabłowski’s matter-of-fact prose. He isn’t
writing about monsters, but monstrous human beings—and that’s the
scary part.” —Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate and Julia
Child: A Life
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