From bear chops to borscht, how menus helped shape world politics

In a world of QR code menus and takeout meals, it's easy to forget that menus — both the physical objects and the dishes they list — for centuries played an important symbolic role.

The "A World of Menus" exhibit that opened in Rome last week at the Garum Library and Museum of Cuisine lays out some 400 menus from major private and public collections. 

They offer a fascinating glimpse into defining moments of diplomatic aspirations, displays of wealth and power, creative acts of defiance and calm before catastrophe.

"We tried to put together an exhibit where you can see history on many different levels through meals that tell a story," said Matteo Ghirighini, Garum museum director and exhibit co-organizer.

The menus on display include those of the final meals aboard the Titanic; Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini's first lunch; Pope Francis's first (and probably last) meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill; and the coronations of Queen Elizabeth II and the last czar of Russia.

"A menu is the most direct witness of a moment in time and the gastronomy of that moment," said Ghirighini. "A menu doesn't lie."

Class differences on the Titanic 

The menus from the Titanic afford a look at the class differences aboard the ship.

On April 14, 1912, when the ocean liner began sinking, taking with it more than 1,500 people, first-class passengers would have dined on everything from fillets of brill fish and chicken à la Maryland to grilled mutton chops, with a variety of meat, fish and cheese options from the buffet.

Third class would have eaten roast beef and gravy with boiled potatoes for dinner, with a supper of gruel, cabin biscuits and cheese. The menu tellingly came with a note at the bottom directing passengers where to make complaints regarding "food supplied, want of attention or incivility." 

Hitler and Mussolini in Venice

The menu of Mussolini and Hitler's first meal — and first meeting — in Venice on June 15, 1934 reveals details of both how the fascist dictator perceived the Nazi, and Mussolini's nationalist push.

Hitler had risen to power the year before, and aspired to Mussolini's dictatorial status.

The menu was written in German as a diplomatic courtesy, but showcased food like Adriatic crabs to Piedmontese beef — a reflection of Mussolini's nationalism, highlighting Italian regional ingredients and recipes.

Still, Ghirighini called it a boilerplate diplomatic offering, void of signs of trying to impress or pander.

"At the time, Mussolini didn't care about Hitler," said Ghirighini. "He found him annoying, with all the things he wanted, uniting Germany with Austria and so on. After they met, he called Hitler 'a little stupid clown.'"

Nicholas II menu 

In the size-counts category, the metre-long menu for the 1896 coronation of Nicholas II, the last emperor of Russia, looms largest.

A mix of traditional fare, the meal's simple entree was borscht soup and boiled sturgeon, as a nod to the masses — although it also featured touches of extravagance for its time, like ice cream.

But the actual menu, elaborately decorated and infused with imperialist symbols — peacocks and eagles and men in armour — tells a different story.  

"It probably cost more than the meal," said Ghirighini. "You only need to try to impress that much when you're in deep trouble."

It's a record of an empire's last gasp. In 1918, just over two decades after the coronation meal, Bolsheviks shot and bayonetted the czar and his family to death in what was the start of the Russian revolution.  

Eating the Paris Zoo

A pair of menus that make for interesting contrast are those preserved from the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The Germans had set up their headquarters in Versailles, where on the evening of Dec. 14, they dined on vol-au-vent, or puff pastry shells filled with meat, as they surrounded Paris to starve the city into defeat.

Parisians had resorted to eating cats and rats, and on Christmas, 99 days into the siege, slaughtered animals in the zoo. 

A renowned chef served up a multi-course meal to upper-class Parisians that included appetizers of stuffed donkey head and sardines, pureed bean soup made with elephant stock and a main course of roast camel, kangaroo stew, bear chops and even cat flanked with rats.

Rossano Boscolo, cookbook and menu collector and founder of the Garum museum, calls it an act of defiance, a way to say, "'You think you eat well in Versailles, well, look how we dine in Paris.'"

Transformation into today

A gradual transformation in menus began around the time the first one was printed in 1803 (for a private banquet in London), with a shift away from the French menu, said Boscolo.

"From the 16th to 18th centuries, the demonstration of power was always present around the table," said Boscolo. "Dishes were lavishly spread out to dazzle guests. By the 1800s, they began to be brought out one by one, stressing elegance and stability."

Several decades later, as French fell out of favour as the dominant language in royal courts and cuisine, menus began to be written in different languages.

Today, Ghirighini laments the loss of menus as artifacts.

For the birth of his second daughter, he prepared a menu of deer, mushrooms and tagliatelle, to reflect autumn, the season she was born in. It's an object he cherishes.

"It's rare now to bring home anything from the experience of a significant meal," he said, "not only for the memory, but because the artifact itself matters."