Food fit for a king
Rulers usually eat well.
Queen Victoria of Great Britain (1819– 1901)
While the poor were fighting over bones or chewing on scraps of stale bread, Queen Victoria was living a very rich life. The Queen never seemed to realize that her poor subjects were starving.
In 1839 she went to a banquet with the Lord Mayor of London. Compare that banquet of two and a half hours with the food of Robert Crick’s family. Robert was a Suffolk farm worker, and his banquet had to last the whole family a whole week.
And they said Henry VIII was a great greedy glutton!
Victoria’s doctor had the pleasure of seeing her without her clothes on. He said:
King George I of Great Britain (1660–1727)
Gorging George was seasick. He tried to cure it by pigging out on melons. That probably brought on the stroke that killed him.
King George II of Great Britain (1683–1760)
George had a disgusting habit of making very loud botty-burps. One evening he went off to the toilet and his servant heard a huge explosion from the King’s backside.
When the servant opened the door he found George dead. He’d fallen off the toilet and smashed his head into a cabinet.
Maybe he had blown himself off the toilet! If the cabinet hadn’t been there to stop him, he might have been the first ruler in space.
King George III of Great Britain (1738–1820)
George III was mentally ill when he started burying beef steaks in the palace gardens. He thought they would grow into beef-steak trees.
King Louis XVI of France (1754–1793)
Lou had a huge appetite. What did his servants call him?
a) Lardy Lou
b) King Kong
c) The Fat Pig
Answer: c) The French Revolution cured his bad habit and Louis lost a couple of kilos of ugly flesh in a few moments. The guillotine sliced off his head. The Fat Pig’s neck was so thick it took two chops to get through.
Emperor Vitellius of Rome (ruled AD 15–16)
This Roman was about the greediest man who ever lived. His nickname was ‘The Glutton’.
He never stopped eating. When a sacrifice was cooked for the gods, Vitellius ate it all.
Then he seemed to be going for a world record.
He had a single dish made – the size of a large room. He ordered the dish to be filled with the rarest foods around.
These included:
• pike livers
• pheasant brains
• peacock brains
• flamingo tongues
• eel spleens
These were all to be covered in tasty sauces.
How did piggy Vitellius kill his own mother?
a) He fed her till she burst.
b) He starved her.
c) He fed her a poisoned peacock pie.
Answer: b) Well, at least he didn’t eat her.
You will be pleased to know he died a really suitable death: he was scoffing a crow for dinner and choked on its beak.
Sultan Abdul Aziz of Turkey (1830–1876)
Sultan Aziz was fat. He weighed around 105 kilos and needed a bed about 2.5 metres wide.
How did he get so fat? From eating eggs – boiled or fried.
The bits that he didn’t eat he used to pelt at his servants. This explains the famous Turkish saying:
He ate off golden plates encrusted with rubies. This must have made his fried eggs taste better. (Try eating your school dinner’s lumpy mashed potato off gold plates and see for yourself.)
His hobby was chasing chickens round the royal palace. When he caught one he didn’t eat it – he put a medal round its neck.
He had 900 wives. They probably egged him on, crying ‘Come on, your egg-celency!’
Fat Abdul was thrown off his throne and killed himself. How?
a) He stuffed a hard-boiled egg down his throat till he choked.
b) He cut his throat with a pair of scissors.
c) He escaped from his palace window and jumped into the swimming pool below – but he was so fat he plunged to the bottom and cracked his skull. (He also damaged the tiles at the bottom of the pool.)
Answer: b) He asked for a pair of scissors so he could trim his beard. After he’d trimmed his beard, he just sort of kept going with the scissors.
Did you know…?
The Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194–1250) was interested in how our bodies digest food. So he found out. He invited guests to dinner. Then he killed them and cut them open.
Nice man!
Emperor Shih Hu of China (ruled AD 334–349)
Lots of men like to take a woman friend out for dinner.
Emperor Shih Hu liked to have a girlfriend for dinner. The difference with Shih Hu’s girlfriend is that she was the dinner.
At a big feast he would have a girl beheaded and cooked. Then her head was passed around the table. He wanted to show his guests how lucky they were. He was saying:
Richard I of England (1157–1199)
Richard went on the Crusades to Jerusalem and learned to like curry.
But one evening he enjoyed a particularly spicy and spiteful dish. He had the head of a Saracen enemy cut off and curried. Then he ate it.
Richard was nicknamed ‘Lionheart’ and is supposed to be an English hero – but they don’t tell you about his terrible tastes in school.
Or in skull.
Sioux Indian Chief Rain-in-the-face (1876)
He was one of the native Amerians who fought at The battle of the Little Big Horn. This battle is better known as “Custer’s Last Stand”.
The US cavalry were massacred. It was said that Chief Rain-in-the-face ripped out the heart of the US soldier Tom Custer and ate it.
The Chief himself said, “No. After the battle we young men were chasing horses all over the prairie. The old men and women robbed the bodies, and if any damage was done to the corpses, it was done by the old men.”
President Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic (1921–1996)
When Jean-Bédel took over the country he had a huge party for his coronation. He invited all the world leaders.
Most countries sent the invitations back or said no – they knew Bokassa was a cruel killer.
But some countries, like Italy and Germany, did send ministers to the coronation. Big mistake.
What they didn’t know was that a few weeks before, 100 children from Bangui, the capital city of the Central African Republic, had held a protest march.
The children were arrested for not wearing school uniforms.
Then they were murdered.
Then they were cooked and served at the coronation feast.
Four months later Jean-Bédel Bokassa was overthrown and put on trial. He was not executed, but he did spend a few years in jail before he was released.
Deadly drink
1) Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) had boozing competitions. The person who could drink the most wine was the winner (or the winer). In one contest, 35 men died from the alcohol. Alexander’s friend Hephaestion died drinking half a gallon (over 2 litres) of wine for breakfast.
On another occasion Alex became so drunk that he killed three friends with a spear.
But in the end the winner was the booze. Drinking killed Alexander.
2) Queen Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) had terrible skin – all wrinkled and marked with spots. How did she try to make it better? She drank puppy pee.
How do you get a puppy to pee in a cup? You can’t. You just have to wait until it makes a poodle on the floor; soak it up with a cloth, then squeeze the cloth into your cup.
Yummy.
She also made hair cream from apples and puppy fat. Tudor times were terrible for mini-mutts.
3) When Mehmet II of Turkey (1429–1481) found a melon had gone missing he was sure one of 14 servants had stolen it.
Did he send for Sherlock Holmes to solve the mystery of the missing melon? No, he didn’t.
Did he check the fruit-bowl for fingerprints? No.
Did he cut open the stomachs of the 14 servants to find it? Yes, he did.
Did he eat the melon afterwards? What do you think?