What Do Heads of State Eat in France? | EUROtoday
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A prestigious menu assortment reveals state dinner eating habits…
A tantalizing assortment of greater than 4,000 French state dinner menus spanning 155 years of historical past, from 1868 to 2023, has been bought at public sale. The assortment, which belonged to chef Christophe Marguin, president of Lyon’s Toques Blanches, reveals particulars of dinners loved by the likes of Napoleon III, Emperor Hirohito, Nelson Mandela, Saddam Hussein and final 12 months’s meal at Versailles held for King Charles III, which included a Louis XIV- impressed lobster and crab dish and poultry marinated in champagne.
Then there’s the meal for 23,000 mayors held within the Tuileries Gardens to tie in with the 1900 Universal Exhibition, which concerned 7km of tablecloths, 125,000 plates, 600 kitchen workers, 2,200 waiters, two tons of salmon and 39,000 battles of wine. The menus had been printed on silk or particular paper and embellished by artists together with Marc Chagall.
From France Today Magazine