How to Feed a Dictator

amazed, because it was the most popular soup in Cambodia.

 

"Give me a pot," I said.

 

And when he took me to the kitchen, I found that I knew perfectly well how to make that soup. You get some Chinese long beans, sweet potato, pumpkin, marrow, melon, pineapple, garlic, some meat-chicken or beef-and eggs. Two or three. You can add tomatoes, too, and lotus roots if you wish. First you boil the chicken, and then you add sugar, salt, and all the vegetables. I'm afraid I can't tell you how long you have to cook it for, because we didn't have watches in the jungle and I did everything by feel. I think it's about half an hour. To finish, you can add some tamarind root.

 

I also knew how to make papaya salad. You cut the papaya into very small pieces and then add cucumber, tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, morning glory, garlic, and a dash of lemon juice.

 

But the first time I made it, Pol Pot didn't eat it. Only later was it explained to me that he liked it prepared the Thai way: with dried crab or fish paste and peanuts.

 

I also knew how to make mango salad, how to bake fish, and how to roast chicken. Clearly as a child I'd watched how my mother did the cooking. Brother Pouk didn't expect any more than that. I was fit to be his cook.

 

I went into that kitchen and stayed there until nightfall. I made the lunch, then the supper; then I tidied up and washed the pots and pans.

 

And that's how I became Pol Pot's cook. I was very pleased that I could help. I wanted to stay at the base for the revolution. And for him, gentle Brother Mattress.

 

Breakfast

 

Thieves' Fish Soup

 

The Story of Abu Ali,

Saddam Hussein's Chef

 

One day, President Saddam Hussein invited some friends onto his boat. He took along several bodyguards, his secretary, and me, his personal chef, and we set off on a cruise down the river Tigris. It was warm-it was one of the first spr

betrayal so sudden that the book may as well have been titled In the Kitchen With Machiavelli . . . [The] moral ambiguity . . . is both the fascination and the horror of the book. . . . Chilling.   Bloomberg

Fascinating. Minneapolis Star Tribune

Reveal[s] the capricious and often banal underbelly of power. The Economist

Riveting, and utterly convincing . . . Viscerally transports us to an alien time, an alien place . . . The dictators are reanimated, transformed from creatures of mythology back into flesh and blood. . . . Exceptionally juicy. The Sunday Telegraph

Winning . . . Szab owski s dogged pursuit across continents was rewarded. . . . This book tells all that we know about the power of good suppers, whoever they are fed to. The Spectator

Fascinating . . . A beguiling mix of the dark and the comic, combining fancy cuisine with torture and genocide. Its tone is reminiscent of Armando Iannucci s recent movie The Death of Stalin, in which the absurd and the monstrous, the funny and the horrifying are so entwined as to be indivisible. The Mail on Sunday

A very special book . . . We need a new word to describe the uncomfortable hunger one feels reading this book. Maclean s

These are the tales from Hell s Kitchen the real kitchens, in presidential palaces and retreats, where food was prepared for men so evil they seemed to be the Devil in human form. Al Bawaba

Food and history buffs will find these firsthand accounts irresistible. . . . Throughout, Szab owski entertains with disturbing rumors, such as [Idi] Amin eating human flesh (whatever the case, his chef never cooked it for him), and strange obsessions ([Fidel] Castro preferred the milk from a single cow named Ubre Blanca, or white udder ). . . . These are the kinds of stories only a chef could know. Publishers Weekly

Its originality and topicality in a world increasingly governed by political strongmen [are] intriguing. . . . The author shares intimate historical insights into the meaning of life under dictatorship. Kirkus Reviews

Fascinating . . . A new perspective on horrible people . . . Interesting anecdotal revelations . . . The chefs biographical narratives . . . present variations on the themes of rare opportunity, terrifying pressure, and lives permanently warped by proximity to power and cruelty. Booklist

A great book . . . Really a fascinating idea. It s kind of like Chicken Soup for the Soul, except with vicious, bloodthirsty dictators. Stu Does America

A quick read, but tense. I was surprised at how fast my pulse was going when reading. Victoria Irwin, FangirlNation
 
An interesting combination of politics and food . . . It hit the spot. Reading Envy

A very profound meditation on the relationship between food and power. Larry Wolff, New York University
 
A startlingly intimate portrait from the palace kitchen . . . It blew me away. Krishnendu Ray, New York University

Unique and startling an amazing book. Here s Abu Ali, describing the fish soup with tomatoes, almonds, and apricots that was Saddam Hussein s favorite. And here s Otonde Odera, reminiscing about the steak and kidney pie that won him a huge pay raise from Idi Amin. These accounts of killers at table, delivered in the cooks own words and placed in historical context by Szab owski, are all the more hair-raising for Szab owski s matter-of-fact prose. He isn t writing about monsters, but monstrous human beings and that s the scary part. Laura Shapiro, author of What She Ate and Julia Child: A Life