Q.
Which foods have bewitched well-known historical figures?

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A.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s wrote mounds of  letters – to his wife ‘Stanzi’, to friends, to family. Amongst all the interesting details, we get a keen peek into appetites of the day.

One meal that Mozart craved from a young age? Liver dumplings and sauerkraut.

As his father Leopold wrote to Mozart’s mother on January 5, 1771: ‘On Thursday we had lunch with Madame von Asteburg, formerly Mariandl Troger, who treated us to liver dumplings and sauerkraut, which Wolfgang. had particularly asked for, as well as other fine dishes including a splendid capon and a pheasant.’

Some other food cravings from historical figures …

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Historical Food Cravings

• Louis Armstrong: Creole red beans and rice
• Frédéric Chopin: Cabbage and beef cutlets
• Agatha Christie: Devonshire cream
• Emily Dickinson: Home-baked bread and sweets
• Aretha Franklin: Soul food, including chitlins, corn bread, and banana pudding
• King George IV: Peaches in brandy
• Victor Hugo: Coffee and two raw eggs
• Louis XVIII: Strawberries, cream, and champagne
• Claude Monet: Vert-vert cake
• Napoleon: Chicken Marengo
• Pablo Neruda: Dulce de Alcayota
• Georgia O’Keefe: Home-grown vegetable juice
• Marcel Proust: Espresso, madeleines, English Channel sole
• Oscar de la Renta: Dominican rice pudding and champagne
• Giaoachino Rossini: Turkeys stuffed with truffles
• Jean-Paul Sartre: Halva
• Joseph Stalin: Bananas
• Igor Stravinsky: Royal jelly honey
• Diana Vreeland: Peanut butter and marmalade sandwiches and scotch
• Andy Warhol: A chocolate bar between two pieces of bread

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Photos by Brooke Lark