What the Great Ate: A Curious History of Food and Fame

What was eating them? And vice versa.

In What the Great Ate, Matthew and Mark Jacob have cooked up a bountiful sampling of the peculiar culinary likes, dislikes, habits, and attitudes of famous—and often notorious—figures throughout history. Here is food

• As code: Benito Mussolini used the phrase “we’re making spaghetti” to inform his wife if he’d be (illegally) dueling later that day.
• As superstition: Baseball star Wade Boggs credited his on-field success to eating chicken before nea...