On New Year’s Eve in 1870, with Paris under siege by Prussian forces, chefs in the few restaurants that remained open were determined to put a haute-cuisine spin on the limited available ingredients.
Severe rationing had forced Parisians to eat rats and zoo animals , and so while Prussian army chiefs dined off vol-au-vents in Versailles, customers at one restaurant in the city enjoyed an exquisite, if unusual, feast of their own. The only catch: they had to bring their own bread.
The menu, featuring illustrations, is part of an exhibition opening this weekend at the Museo della Cucina , a museum in Rome dedicated to food history and cooking. “They were under siege but Parisians weren’t giving up on going out for dinner,” said Rossano Boscolo , an Italian chef who founded the museum.
More than 400 menus are on show at the museum, which is housed in an ancient palazzo next to Circus Maximus in central Rome, in what organisers say is the biggest exhibition of its kind to be held.
The menus off er a glimpse of what nobility, political leaders, royals and popes ate throughout history, as well as what the passengers of the ill-fated Titanic had for lunch on 14 April 1912, the day the ship sank.
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