Cobra stew, dog-meat soup, and Georgian cuisine. These were just some of the favorite meals of some 20th-century dictators.
Victoria Clark and Melissa Scott, authors of "Dictators' Dinners: A Bad Taste Guide to Entertaining Tyrants," have expressed their surprising opinions with regards to eccentric eating habits and fears of poisonings of some of the world's well-known dictators.
Kim Jong Il is North Korea's supreme leader - from 1994 to 2011. Under his regime, the country's people suffered a period of famine.
Believing that it gives him immunity and virility, Kim Jong Il's choice of food were known to be the shark-fin soup, salo, and dog-meat soup. He was also known to be the biggest customer of Hennessy's, home of the finest cognacs in the world.
Kim Jong Il even had a team of women to make sure that the grains of rice that will be served to him were all identical when it comes to their shape, size and color
Adolf Hitler, the ruthless leader of the Nazis in Germany who ordered the death of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals, was known to be a vegetarian and until the end of his life. It was reported that he only ate mashed potatoes and broth.
Hitler's vegetarianism was considered to be brought by his ideological reasons but can also be caused by his motivation to his belief that a meatless diet would relieve his chronic flatulence and constipation.
In order to make sure that a certain food would be considered edible, Hitler had a team of 15 food tasters. After 45 minutes and none of the tasters have dropped dead, only then will he eat.
Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. He was responsbile for the quick industrialization and collectivization, which coincided with mass starvation and the "Great Purge." This ruthless dictator loved the traditional Georgian cuisine.
Brought by his fascination to the Georgian cuisine, Stalin enjoyed power-play drinking games and elaborate six-hour dinners prepared by personal chefs which features walnuts, garlic, plums, pomegranates, and wines.
One of Joseph Stalin's personal chef was Spiridon Putin, the grandfather of the current Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.
