ROME (RNS) Baked skinless chicken, salad, fruit and a glass of simple wine hardly seems like food fit for a king. But it does seem to be a meal fit for a pope.
Pope Francis is becoming well known for his simple tastes: As Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, he carried his own bags when traveling, preferred public transportation to chauffeur-driven limousines, and, the stories go, cooks meals for himself.
His humble lifestyle extends to the kitchen, a stark contrast with his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who before becoming pope relished feasting on fettuccine with shrimp, zucchini and saffron.
- READ: Yes, the new pope cooks, but he’s no foodie (NPR)
Many of the men favored to become pope going into the conclave also had fancier tastes. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, an Italian, hosted an elaborate vegetarian dinner to celebrate Benedict’s 60th anniversary as a priest in 2011, featuring fresh-picked fare from the area near Venice, including chicory, white asparagus, peas and cherries.
New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan has waxed poetic about the seductive charms of food in the Italian capital, enthusiastically describing meals of fettuccine Bolognese, lamb cutlet, spinach and peppers, with Sicilian cannoli and homemade tiramisu as his favorite choices for dessert.
Pope Francis waves from the pope-mobile during his inauguration Mass at St. Peter’s Square on Tuesday (March 19) at the Vatican. RNS photo by Andrea Sabbadini
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The new pontiff’s preferences are far less elaborate. Staff at La Venerina and Il Passetto di Borgo, the two most popular restaurants for cardinals and bishops in the Borgo Pio, the neighborhood adjacent to the Vatican City, could not recall ever serving Cardinal Bergoglio at their tables.
Francis is the church’s first Jesuit pope, and Jesuit traditions favor simple cuisine — one of the rules of the order is for diners to fill up on bread because it avoids the “disorder” that comes from being “tempted by other foods.”
It’s something the new pope has apparently taken to heart, but that does not mean he does not enjoy an occasional luxury, at least in relative terms.
As a cardinal in Buenos Aires, he admitted enjoying an occasional “Bagna Cauda” prepared by nuns. “Bagna Cauda” — a name in the Piedmont dialect spoken by his parents whose families hailed from northern Italy — is a classical farmer’s dish that requires dipping roasted carrots, celery, artichokes, cauliflower and onions into a piping hot broth made from garlic, olive oil and butter, then serving the dish in a terra cotta bowl with a candle underneath.
After being selected as pope and making his appearance to the massive crowd in St. Peter’s Square, Francis ate dinner with the College of Cardinals. The menu was a simple pasta dish that may have seemed extravagant by the new pontiff’s standards.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has petitioned Francis to honor the legacy of his nature-loving namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, and refrain from serving factory-farmed meat, eggs and dairy at the papal dinner table.
Eventually, PETA spokeswoman Colleen O’Brien said, she’d like to see the Vatican get “veganized” and go entirely meat-free. A similar request made of Pope Benedict XVI failed to gain traction.
“Today’s factory farms are a living hell for chickens, pigs, cows, and other animals,” said O’Brien, a self-described devout Catholic. “Jesus would be appalled to witness the meat, egg, and dairy industries’ harmful effects on animals and human health.”
(Eric J. Lyman writes for USA Today. Kevin Eckstrom contributed to this report)
3 Comments
JEB
Jesus would NOT approve of church leaders living in luxury like royalty!
The Catholic church is as bad as the TV “preachers” that get rich while their supporters struggle and go hungry. If you see a “preacher” in a limo or an expensive car he is NOT living as he should be; he is preaching for the paycheck. (How many preachers are “called” to go to a lower-paying preaching jobs??)
REAL SERVANTS OF GOD do not live like this; they should live humble lives like Pope Francis…he is the first Pope I have really respected.
Thomas A. Szyszkiewicz
I’d like to know where the reporter got his information that Pope Benedict “…relished feasting on fettuccine with shrimp, zucchini and saffron.” There is absolutely no attribution for this claim, so either this the reporter’s own assertion or it’s some rumor he heard. But since it is unattributed, readers should dismiss it as hearsay.
And PETA’s request is totally asinine. It displays their total ignorance of who St. Francis was. One year, Christmas fell on a Friday and one of the brothers was concerned because they usually abstained from eating meat on Friday. So he asked Francis if they were going to do that on Christmas Day. “When the question arose about eating meat on Christmas Day, because it fell on a Friday, St. Francis replied to Brother Morico, ‘You sin, Brother, calling the day on which the Child was born to us a day of fast. It is my wish,’ he said, ‘that even the walls should eat meat on such a day, and if they cannot, they should be smeared with meat on the outside.’” From the Second Life of St. Francis by Celano, Chapter CLI (http://portiunculathelittleportion.blogspot.com/2010/12/walls-should-be-smeared-with-meat.html)
Joanna Boge
Pope Benedict was in fact known for his extremely simple tastes in food – something that her shares with Pope Francis. And, as Cardinal Ratzinger, in a series of frank interviews with journalist Peter Seewald which became best-selling books, he spoke out forcefully against factory-farming. It is all too clear from Pope Benedict’s lean frame that he has never been a man to indulge himself at the table, and his austerity was well known among those with whom he worked – he would often be so absorbed in a project that when sandwiches were brought in they were left untouched and unnoticed. Please stop trying to invent a story-line that creates a message of tension between Popes Francis and Benedict: the story isn’t there, and the attempt to create it is crude and clumsy.