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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.

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.

Entries in chicken (3)

Saturday
Dec312011

Clemente's Fried Chicken Episode

DateSaturday, December 31, 2011 at 04:33PM

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.

Authormark & matthew | Comments Off |
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Tuesday
Jun212011

The Champion Ate Chicken

DateTuesday, June 21, 2011 at 07:33AM

On Friday night, golf pro Rory McIlroy ate chicken for dinner.  Rotisserie chicken, to be precise.  The venue was Redwood, a restaurant-bar in Bethesda, Md.  Roughly 48 hours later, he became the youngest golfer in nearly 90 years to win the U.S. Open tournament.

Authormark & matthew | Comments Off |
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Saturday
Feb122011

When Chicken was Egypt's Crisis

DateSaturday, February 12, 2011 at 08:40AM

For many days, Hosni Mubarak tried to overlook the mass rallies and dissent in Egypt, but eventually he decided to resign as the country's ruler.  By contrast, Egyptian President Anwar El Sadat faced an easier and less public decision in 1973.  Early that year, as tensions grew between Israel and her Arab neighbors, Sadat asked his minister of supplies to provide a status report.

"He told me that we had money for frozen chicken meat but not for fertilizers," Sadat said.  "So I directed him to rather import fertilizers and cut down on frozen chicken budgets."

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