PARIS |
(Reuters) - A handful of people in the world know that German
Chancellor Angela Merkel loves popping over to Paris because of her penchant
for French cuisine, while it's best to avoid serving artichokes to French
President Francois Hollande.
They are the top chefs from the kitchens
of the world's leaders, masters of the art of sweetening international
relations with a sumptuous meal, who gather in Paris this week to swap recipes
and tips on dinner-party diplomacy.
If Winston Churchill was right when he
said a century ago that "the stomach governs the world", then this
club of 27 culinary maestros have an unseen influence on leaders' moods as they
seal decisions on everything from the crisis in Syria to the euro zone's debt woes.
"Presidents come and go, but chefs
stay," said Gilles Bragard, the French businessman who started the club of
chefs to the world's presidents and monarchs in 1977.
"I often say that if politics
divides, then the table brings people together," he told a news conference
in Paris at their latest annual get-together.
In a wink at the cooks' importance, the
club's name - "Le Club des Chefs des Chefs" - plays on the fact the
French word for chef and leader is the same. It could translate as "The
Club of Chefs of the Chiefs" or "The Club of Chiefs of the
Chiefs".
"I think what I cook can really make
a difference to how discussions happen," Daryl Schembeck, head chef from
the kitchens of the United Nations who recently cooked for a party of 200 world
leaders, told Reuters.
"If it's easy to eat and people are
enjoying it, it's something they can talk about and that can start another
conversation. I think I can impact that," he said.
Attending the gathering from the White
House kitchen is Cristeta Comerford, chef to Presidents Bill Clinton, George W.
Bush and now Barack Obama. From Paris comes veteran Bernard Vaussion, chef to
French leaders for nearly 40 years.
The chefs, from as far afield as China, Sri Lanka and
Israel, met in Berlin last week as part of a week-long annual get-together.
They arrived in Paris on Monday for a three-day tour of the French capital, to
sample ingredients and share recipes.
FROM NAPOLEON TO THATCHER
Chefs throughout history have played a
vital, behind-the-scenes role in diplomacy, helping to ease fraught relations
and smooth the way for talks.
As Bragard recounts, the great French
strategist Talleyrand, credited with the rise of the diplomatic banquet, once
told Napoleon Bonaparte: "Give me a good chef and I shall give you good
treaties."
Keen to smooth tensions over the euro zone crisis when Hollande and Merkel met
this month to mark 50 years of Franco-German reconciliation, French chefs chose
to reproduce the famous meal of filet of beef and raspberry macarons prepared
in 1962 for post-war leaders Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer when they
signed their friendship treaty.
On the day of Hollande's inauguration in
mid-May, Merkel treated him to a feast of veal schnitzel and asparagus in
Berlin, washed down with a fine red French wine.
The chefs, some of the few people who have
daily access to the world's power-brokers, have the utmost trust of their
employers.
Only the Kremlin still has an official
taster on hand to sample the Russian president's food and make sure it hasn't
been tampered with. Other world leaders put their stomachs entirely in the
hands of their cooks.
The chefs are firmly discreet regarding
any secrets they pick up from the world of diplomacy - though they spill the
beans more freely on former leaders, relating anecdotes that can give insight
into presidents' and prime ministers' characters.
London-based Anton Mosimann, a visiting
chef to 10 Downing Street who has cooked for a string of British prime
ministers, recounts how Margaret Thatcher once asked for a lavish meal to
entertain the then French President Francois Mitterrand.
He complied with a copious dish of veal
steak with delicate morille mushrooms. During a conversation several years
later, the famously frugal Thatcher congratulated him on the meal but added
with a frown: "It was very expensive."
"That was Mrs. Thatcher, she never
missed a thing," Mosimann said.
A current taboo at French diplomatic meals
for American guests is foie gras, recently banned in California due to the
force-feeding of geese used to produce it, even if White House chef Comerford
said she had no qualms about serving up American-produced goose liver.
"Our aim, of course, is always to
avoid shocking our guests," Elysee chef Vaussion told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Johnny Cotton;
Editing by Catherine
Bremer and Pravin Char)
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