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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.

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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.

What the Great Ate is not an academic tome, but it relies on work by millennia of scholars and enthusiasts. Some of our favorite experts are Paul Freedman, Waverley Root, and James Trager. We also thank the libraries that fed our project — the Skokie Public Library in Illinois and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library in Washington, D.C. In the case of the former, library staffers Laurence Johnson, Gary Gustin, and Frances Roehm offered strong support.

We are indebted to our agent, Gary Heidt of the Signature Literary Agency. He believed in our book and found the right publisher. This book could not have happened without him.

Editing was vital. The credit goes to Stephanie Chan and the rest of the Three Rivers team, including Lucinda Bartley and Jude Grant. They challenged our illogical notions and untangled our tortured sentences.

Others played special roles. Charlie Manzo of the PaceWildenstein Gallery in New York helped us find out whether Maya Lin really ate those mashed potatoes. Richard Lutz translated the words that French writer Denis Diderot spoke before he ate an apricot — and died moments later. Archives assistant Lesley Zlabinger of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in Corona, New York, shared details of Satchmo's unique approach to food and "physics." Nutrition expert Dawn Jackson Blatner provided a reality check on how many calories Elvis Presley could have consumed.

We are grateful for friends and colleagues who offered fresh ideas, spicy feedback, and solid support: Christina Bartolomeo, Cate and Richard Cahan, Jim Conzelman, Larry Doyle, Paul Gordon, Bill Hearst, Tom and Lucy Keating, Lauren Luchi, Kyle Mantyla, Dan Murphy, Rob Reinalda, Nathan Richter, Vincent Russell, Gael Sammartino, John Schlitt, Esther and Richard Triffler, Ted Weinstein, and Michael Williams.

Mark thanks his Chicago Tribune colleagues, especially Gerry Kern, Jane Hirt, Peter Kendall, Phil Jurik, Robin Daughtridge, John Kass, Kerry Luft, Stephan Benzkofer, Monica Eng, and Colin McMahon. Matthew thanks Chris Hertz and Eric Fidler of New Signature for giving him some free pointers on website construction.

Finally, love and gratitude to the great, supportive family with whom we've shared many a meal and tale: our spouses, Lisa and Jeff; our parents, John and Jane; our siblings and their families: Tim, Kathleen, Paul, and Anne; and Mark's daughters (otherwise known as Matt's nieces), Maureen and Katherine.