How to Feed a Dictator: A Documentary on Chefs Serving Notorious Strongmen

Kim Jong-il loved pepperoni pizza. Saddam Hussein couldn’t resist a fish barbecue. Idi Amin reportedly had the capacity for an entire roasted goat. The menus may have differed, but the appetite was the same. For history’s most notorious strongmen, the dining table doubled as a stage for power. For the cooks who served them, every meal came with extraordinary stakes. [...] Watching it, one is reminded of a certain American president drawn to authoritarian figures past and present, and to the performance of strongman politics itself – even if his taste for fast food and Diet Coke sits uneasily alongside the dictator’s more refined palate. Neel did give some thought to including Donald Trump in his film – even though, “to be clear, he is not a dictator,” he says. “He wants to be one, but he’s not. I did find a chef who cooked for him before he got elected. But after Trump got elected, the chef disappeared. He wouldn’t talk to me anymore. Why? He was probably scared of hurting his job. He probably had a great gig.”