Loaves & Fishes?

A couple of weeks ago the Pope came to town—anyway, to several towns on the East Coast. Apparently, when he wasn’t holding Mass at various venues, meeting with victims of priestly abuse or talking Iraq with the President he was eating.

The wine columnists in the Wall Street Journal wrote a story about one of the banquets in New York. The headline for the article was "What to Serve the Pope". My first thought was Popesicles, but it turns out I wasn’t anywhere near the mark.

No, seems that everyone’s idea was to feed Benedict XVI something…Italian. In DC a local restaurateur wrote about the honour of laying on a lunch for His Holiness. Just an intimate affair, you understand, only 24. The menu:

• Imported Puglia mozzarella, heirloom tomatoes, black cured olive bread
• Zucchini blossom truffle tagliolini, fava beans, artichoke ragout, Pecorino cheese
• Braised veal cheeks, baby spring vegetables, purple mashed potato
• Ricotta cheese, orange fallen truffle, strawberry sorbet

There was also an ornate papal birthday cake, a replica of St. Peter’s Square, complete with image of Benedict.

In New York, the arrangements were somewhat more elaborate. PBS’s madonna of cucina, Lidia Bastianich, prepared no fewer than three all-out meals for Benedict, menus here:

According to Dorothy L. Gaiter and John Brecher, the WSJ’s wine columnists, the NY meals included these wines—all Italian:

• Bastianich Tocai Friulano 2006, $15
• Bastianich Vespa Bianco 2006, $30
• La Mozza Aragone 2005, $35
• Bastianich Calabrone 2003, $75
• Bastianich Perlidia Plus Passito 2003, $75/half bottle

Now all of this got me thinking.

First of all—what’s with all this Italian food and drink? 1) The guy is German. 2) He lives in, you know, Rome. Do we not think he could get all the Italian chow he wants back home? If someone from Des Moines went to Siena or Lille or Munich expecting to be served a T-bone steak and a baked potato he’d be branded as the quintessential Ugly American and a buffoon on top of it. Why go to some foreign place and eat only what you could get at the local Sizzler?

And if that holds for Mr. Des Moines, why should the Pope get a dispensation from the cookery curia?

So why didn’t someone treat the Bishop of Rome to some Memphis style barbecue? Or Tex-Mex menudo, tamales plus a sixer of Tecate? Or California fusion cuisine with some wines from Temecula or Paso Robles?

Or, shoot—going back to point number 1) above, if you want to give him comfort food, why not some brats, potato salad and brewskis from Wisconsin?

Poor guy schleps 5000 miles to get here and all he gets to eat is variations on what he was eating before he got on the plane? Who thought that was a stellar idea?

The other question to arise from these feasts is more troubling. I understand he’s the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and as such probably has to maintain a certain level of, oh, status. But I’m wondering what these meals cost? Sure, it’s an honour to be chosen to serve dinner for the Pope, and of course you want to put out your best dishes, polish the crystal and check the tablecloth for ketchup stains.

But in the same time that the media are full of stories of the global food shortage, when people are rioting over access to basic sustenance as close to us as Haiti and even Costco is rationing its 50-lb sacks of rice to one per customer, what kind of message about caring for his flock is the Vicar of Christ sending by settling down to banquets with 50 of his closest colleagues night after night and putting away several thousands of dollars worth of Wagyu-beef, aged Pecorino, and asparagus? Not to mention $70 bottles of wine?

BTW, this doesn’t count the non-state dinner the White House threw in the Pope’s honor, which Benedict didn’t attend. Apparently he doesn’t do these sorts of things, but that doesn’t stop various heads of state from throwing the parties anyhow.

I can’t figure out whether it’s hubris or oblivion to engage in these ancient régime behaviors. Either way, it leaves a rather bad taste in the mouth. I’d wash it out with a glass of La Mozza Aragone 2005, if I could afford $35 for a bottle of wine.