Food has played a starring role in the lives of so many famous or infamous people. Diplomatic agreements have been negotiated over elaborate feasts, novels have been fueled by strong coffee, and marriages have ended over a meal gone bad.

In What the Great Ate, brothers Matthew and Mark Jacob have cooked up a bountiful sampling of the peculiar culinary likes, dislikes, habits, and attitudes of famous — and often notorious — figures throughout history.

In this photo from the 1920s, First Lady Grace Coolidge samples a cookie that was made by a Girl Scout troop in New York State.  President Calvin Coolidge made derisive comments about his wife's kitchen skills.

Rube Waddell was one of baseball's outstanding pitchers during the early 1900s.  But he had a habit that greatly aggravated his catcher and roommate — eating animal crackers in bed.  The team's owner got Waddell to sign a contract in which the pitcher agreed to cease this annoying habit.

Buy the Book!

PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:

  • "... a smorgasbord of amusing tidbits on the favorite foods of prominent artists, scientists, sports stars and, yes, politicos."
  • The Washington Post
  • "... many fascinating facts" CBS News' Health Blog
  • An "amusing grab-bag of food-related anecdotes"
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • "... an impressive catalogue of food-related tales about the world's most famous people." New York Daily News
  • "Brims with fun-filled anecdotes ..." Andrew W. Smith, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food & Drink
  • "This is a fascinating read." Jeff Houck, The Tampa Tribune

  • "... a good helping of the book's pleasure comes from the cognitive dissonance of the 'great' eating, well, the small. Does it trivialize the president to learn that Ronald Reagan was a lover of jelly beans?" The New Yorker
  • "... one of the most enjoyable, enlightening, informative and, frankly, simply fun books." Rick Kogan, Chicago's WGN radio
  • One of "17 Food-Themed Books You'll Want to Eat Up"
  • More magazine
  • The Jacob brothers "must've mucked through skyscraper-size piles of research materials to put together this book."  Philadelphia City Paper
  • Named one of 13 "Books on Foodies' Beach Blankets" for the summer. 
  • Publishers Weekly
  • "This is one book I had a hard time putting down."
  • Food editor, Winston-Salem (NC) Journal
  • "... it was with gusto that I devoured [this] book ..."
  • The Montreal Gazette
  • The book is "one that I'm certain you will enjoy sharing with your friends and family."  Around the Horn, a baseball blog
  • "It's a book to nibble on, not consume all at once, but will provide plenty of curiosities with which you can fascinate friends."
  • Albany (N.Y.) Times-Union
  • "There are enough interesting stories in here to spark many good dinner party conversations."
  • The Calgary Herald
  • "This book has a massive collection of amusing food trivia ..."
  • ifood, a web portal
  • "... on our list of must reads"
  • "Let's Just Talk," WQRT radio in Cincinnati
  • "... a book that's full of fun food facts, trivia and other tidbits ..."
  • The Post-Bulletin (Rochester, MN)
  • "This looks like an interesting book." ExploreMusic.com
  • A "delicious book"
  • Francophilia Gazette
Enter a State of Foodphoria
Foodphoria is the Weblog written by co-author Matthew Jacob. Foodphoria offers Matthew's irreverent, no-nonsense commentary on eating, drinking and dining. Click here to visit the blog.
10 Things You Might Not Know...
... about beer, France and lots of other things. Click here to read samples of the Chicago Tribune's "10 Things You Might Not Know ..." series, which is written by co-author Mark Jacob.
Saturday
Jan212012

A Passion for Pigs' Feet?

On this day in 1793, King Louis XVI was executed in Paris. The year before, he had been arrested by revolutionaries in the town of Varennes.  But a leader of the uprising spread the false tale that the king had been captured in the Sainte-Menehould because Louis wanted to eat pigs' feet, a dish for which this village was renowned.  However, the story was believable because of the monarch's gluttonous appetite.

Tuesday
Jan172012

Gilmore's Departing Dinner

On this day in 1977, convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was shot by a firing squad in Utah, becoming the first person executed in the U.S. after a Supreme Court ruling that upheld death penalty statutes. Gilmore gained notoriety by insisting that his death sentence be carried out with no delay.  The night before he was executed, Gilmore was served his final meal: a steak, potatoes, milk, coffee and a six-pack of beer.  He reportedly consumed only the milk and coffee.

Monday
Jan092012

Pork Got Punched from Ali's Diet

On this day in 1976, filming of the movie "Rocky" began. Sylvester Stallone was the flick's leading actor, portraying a fictional Philadelphia boxer named Rocky Balboa.  Yet the movie was inspired by a real-life boxing match that occurred in 1975 between heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and a virtually unknown fighter by the name of Chuck Wepner.

Do you have an appetite for boxing?  Then consider some of the strange things that a few famous boxers ate:

* When Joe Louis was living in Chicago, his trainer would take him to the city's stockyards, where the boxer drank blood fresh from the slaughterhouse.

* Early in his boxing career, Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) converted to Islam.  A Muslim mentor recalled that Ali had no problem adjusting to the dietary rules of his new religious. "We used to eat together at the Famous Chef Cafe," said Abdul Rahaman. "And when I first sat down with Cassius, no one had taught him about not eating pork. But it wasn't hard to get him to change."

* Robert De Niro was an actor, not a boxer, but he played a prize-fighter in the highly acclaimed 1980 movie "Raging Bull".  De Niro packed on at least 50 pounds in order to portray the boxer Jake LaMotta.  To gain the weight, De Niro said he ate "three square meals a day . . . y'know, pancakes, milk, beer."

Saturday
Dec312011

Clemente's Fried Chicken Episode

On this day in 1972, baseball star Roberto Clemente died after the plane in which he was traveling crashed.  Clemente had been destined for Nicaragua, seeking to bring food and other relief supplies to survivors of an earthquake.

Our book includes a strange story involving Clemente and food.  In 1969, while in San Diego for a ballgame, the outfielder left a restaurant with a box of takeout fried chicken when a carload of men approached and ordered him into the vehicle at gunpoint.  The men drove him to an isolated part of the city, demanded he strip down to his underwear and then took his All-Star ring and wallet.

Clemente pleaded for his life and finally told the men who he was.  The bandits then allowed Clemente to leave the car with his clothes and personal items, and then drove away.  Moments later, Clemente heard the same car approaching at a high speed and feared that the gunmen might have decided to kill him after all.  But they were only returning his box of chicken.

Friday
Dec232011

Christmas Vittles

Neither turkey nor ham highlighted the Christmas dinner that Flannery O'Connor ate in December 1956. The acclaimed author and Georgia native wrote to a friend that "for Christmas I demanded and got meatballs and turnip greens."