Dining with Destiny
The volumes in the Dining with Destiny series explore food biography, anecdotally exploring the private eating lives of icons from across the span of literature, art, music, politics and revolution. If you've ever wondered what Lenin lunched on, whether George Orwell really swigged Victory Gin or if there's such a thing as a Freudian supper, then the Dining with Destiny series is for you. Behind every great man and woman is a great meal. Their peccadilloes are explored anecdotally against the backdrops of history and culture, with accompanying delicious recipes. Taste the disconsolate marriage of Marilyn Monroe to Arthur Miller; make red gravy and pasta Sinatra-style or shake up the kind of chocolate malted that Woody Allen likes. How about a banana sandwich with Queen Elizabeth? Or a road trip picnic with Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald? Dining with Destiny is not just for all the ‘foodies' out there – the night time cocoa will lie forgotten as you realise that Malcolm X entered the Civil Rights movement by rejecting anything piggy on his plate and as the Swinging Sixties are revealed through the hedonism and hashish cookies of Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones. The reader will dream of sitting at the table prepared by Hitchcock, Nelson Mandela or Picasso. But beware: Dali's lobster in chocolate sauce means that he has a desire to sleep with you rather than paint. Each of these figures took part in landmark historical and cultural events that have shaped and defined our way of life – but they also had to eat. Now it is time to reveal the real man by looking in his fridge to discover what makes him a revolutionary, a hero, a rogue! Dining with Destiny lets you taste what's on Darwin's fork.

Editor(s): Ken Albala