Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (10 page)

• Rinse the snapper well, then place it in an earthenware or glass bowl, pour the lime juice over the fish, and stir. Cover with foil and refrigerate for 12 hours.
  
• Drain off about half the juice from the bowl, stir in all the other ingredients gently. Serve with a background of limes, avocados, tomatoes, and tortilla chips. Eat with lime and chili salsa.
  

• Place the chilis in a warm oven for a few minutes until they expand, then chop finely. Leaving the seeds in makes it hotter, so be careful.
  
• Combine all the other ingredients in a bowl with 1 tbsp vinegar, adding the chilis a little at a time to get the correct taste. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours before serving.
  

• Remove skin from the turkey breasts and rub them well with the chopped sage, the rosemary, salt, and pepper.
  
• Place slices of apricot and figs over the breasts, attaching them with cocktail sticks. Place skin back on, over cocktail sticks, or omit skin if preferred.
  
• Roast for 2 ½ hours in 325°F oven, covering with foil after breasts brown.
  
• Garnish with fresh sage.
  

Jicama is a Mexican potato, which can grow to the size of an American football. It is dark brown in color and when peeled has a consistency similar to that of the water chestnut.

• Whisk together the oil, vinegar, and seasoning; add the lime juice and jicama.
  
• Lay alternating slices of avocados and tomatoes on a plate and spoon the jicama dressing on top. Finish with a sprinkling of chopped onions.
  

• Combine all the ingredients gently in a glass bowl; refrigerate for 2 hours.
  
• Serve with jicama salad and roast turkey.
  

Montezuma reportedly drank up to 50 goblets of this a day. He considered it a great aphrodisiac.

• Blend all ingredients for 1 minute.
  
• Add 6 shots of tequila for nonvirgin version.
  
• The only real alcoholic drink the Aztecs had was called
  pulque
  , which was made from the pulp of the maguey cactus. For these dishes I recommend Dos Equis or Tecate, excellent Mexican beers, and of course tequila.
  

RASPUTIN

Within months of Rasputin’s death his prophecy was fulfilled: The Russian Revolution of 1917 wiped the Russian imperial family from the pages of history.

Born in Torboisk, Siberia, in 1872, Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin led the typical life of many peasants of the day, uneducated and scrabbling for a living on his feudal lord’s land with little apparent future. One day, without any warning, he thrust his shovel into the grain he was threshing and marched off.

Walking from village to village for more than a year, he claimed he had a vision to seek religious enlightenment. When he returned to his home town he was a changed man. He took to living in a cave, often beating his head against the floor with his newfound zeal. Seemingly from out of nowhere, he claimed he had developed the power of prophecy and healing, also instructing himself in the art of hypnosis.

He began to cross the country on long pilgrimages, using his talents to heal the peasantry and simultaneously using them for his growing sexual appetites. He developed a reputation as a mystic. Expounding the belief that it was necessary to sin in order to obtain forgiveness, he began to build a national name until finally his outrageous behavior brought him to the attention of the Russian rulers, Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra.

On arriving at the imperial court, Rasputin immediately used all his charms and cunning to ingratiate himself with the royal couple. Settling into his role as a devout holy man, he cultivated a meek and radiant demeanor as he sought to develop his influence with his royal benefactors.

Almost immediately, he found the ideal opportunity: Crown Prince Alexei had hemophilia. Even the slightest injury caused the prince to bleed profusely, and no doctor of the court was able to stop it. Each little incident weakened the prince even more, and his despairing parents saw that his end could not be far away. However, Rasputin was somehow able to use his powers of hypnosis to immediately stop the bleeding. A delighted Alexandra took him into her closest circle of advisors and kept him near her at all times. He had saved her son. This was the opening Rasputin needed. With the tsar now concentrating on the upcoming world war, Rasputin was able, through the tsarina, to place all his followers in the highest positions of church and state. Jealous rivals simply “disappeared” or “retired.”

His sinister power and advocacy of sexual ecstasy as a means of religious salvation horrified the nobles of St. Petersburg, who saw their own influence slipping away. The tsarina would hear no words against her new favorite. Even when the head of the Secret Police compiled a report detailing Rasputin’s excesses, the tsar ignored it, and Alexandra dismissed it as jealousy.

Because Alexei’s illness had to be kept from the public, everyone assumed Rasputin was the tsarina’s lover, an illusion he did nothing to dispel. He began calling the tsar “Papa” and his wife “Mama,” so sure was he of his power over them and his permanent place in the royal court.

As much as the nobility hated him, he was curiously loved by most of the Russian peasantry, who viewed him as their champion and as the last hope they had of influencing the imperial family to change the wretched lives they led. But his constant meddling with the tsar’s decisions began to cripple the imperial government, and with war approaching with Germany, many nobles suspected that he might even be a German spy.

Alexandra refused to listen to anyone, looking only at the fact that she believed without him her darling little son would surely die. There were many examples of Rasputin’s uncanny ability to perform his “miracles.” In 1914, when the royal train was involved in a wreck, the lady Anya Vyrvlova sustained life-threatening injuries. As she lay unconscious in the guardroom with both legs broken, a fractured skull, and numerous other injuries, Rasputin, his eyes bulging out of their sockets with strain, whispered gently in her ear, “Anyushka, wake up, look at me.” She did, quickly revived, and was healed in a very short time.

The damage he was doing to the state could not be ignored, however, and two of Nicholas’s own cousins devised a solution to the nation’s problems. Princes Dmitri Pavlovich and Felix Yusupov decided to put their plan into effect on the cold winter night of December 20.

Rasputin made no attempt to hide his sexual obsessions, often sitting in taverns with his trousers unzipped while he groped anyone within reach before dragging them to his drunken orgies, safe in the knowledge that no one could touch him. So they decided that sex would be the bait for the princes’ trap.

Rasputin had long coveted the wife of one of the princes, the Lady Irina Yusupov, and luring him to the Yusupov palace where Irina was promised to him as a “dessert,” they sat in the wine cellar with others for a drunken banquet.

Rasputin had a prodigious appetite for food and drink, and that night was no exception. Unaware that his wine and cakes were
heavily laced with poison he drank on, constantly asking, “When will I get Irina?” Eventually a frustrated Felix, seeing that the poison had no effect, shot him at close range, and Rasputin collapsed to the floor, lying as if dead. The princes went upstairs to organize the disposal of the body and celebrate a good night’s work and the salvation of the royal couple.

Deciding to return to the cellar to look for any documents that Rasputin might have on him, Felix was horrified to find himself seized with incredible strength by a suddenly revived Rasputin. Breaking away, he raced up the stairs, shouting for Dmitri to come and help him, but when they returned to the cellar Rasputin was gone. Frantically they followed a blood trail outside, where they found him crawling to a side gate. Kicking, beating, and shooting him repeatedly, they at last believed him dead, so binding his arms and legs, they rolled him in a carpet and threw him into the freezing Neva River, which ran along the side of the palace.

Incredibly, Rasputin’s body was found the next day on the banks of the river with his restraints broken, and the ensuing autopsy showed his lungs were full of water, meaning that after all they did to him that night, he actually died of drowning.

Although the nobility of the country enjoyed their liberation from “the monster,” the common people mourned him. The revolution quickly gathered pace, and within months the whole Romanov family was murdered by Stalin and his revolutionists. The prophecies of Rasputin were fulfilled to the letter.

Honeyed Cakes

Madeira Wine

Zakuski

Russian Black Bread

The range of Zakuski is infinite, from simple smoked sprats to Beluga caviar, savory stuffed eggs, or tender kidneys in Madeira sauce; they are an integral part of any Russian gathering.

Codfish Soup

Pickled Cabbage

Borscht

Sturgeon in Champagne Sauce

Zakuski

To make 24 2-inch cakes. This recipe dates from 1872.