Their Last Suppers: Legends of History and Their Final Meals (9 page)

• Melt the butter over a low heat in a saucepan. Let cool slightly.
  
• Skim the foam from the top of the melted butter. Using a small ladle, carefully remove the clear butter from the saucepan, leaving the remaining milky liquid to discard. Reserve the clarified butter.
  
• Prepare a double boiler by placing a stainless steel bowl over a pot of lightly simmering water. Do not let the bottom of the bowl touch the water. Add egg yolks, water, and lemon juice, whisking vigorously until the mixture thickens and turns pale yellow. Remove the bowl from the pot.
  
• Add the clarified butter slowly, while whisking vigorously, until all the butter is incorporated and the sauce has thickened. Whisk in the hot pepper sauce. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Stir in the orange juice, orange zest, and fresh tarragon. Remove from heat, keeping warm until served.
  

Jacqueline had her own recipe for this dish.

• Combine oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic in a jar with a tight lid. Shake vigorously.
  
• Arrange greens in salad bowl. Add dressing, toss thoroughly, and sprinkle with chopped egg. (You can also add fresh orange segments.)
  

MONTEZUMA II, LAST AZTEC EMPEROR

In 1502, while becoming the first European to eat turkey after running into a tribe of Maya Indians in the Gulf of Honduras, Christopher Columbus decided to follow the winds and headed south, not knowing that, had he followed the Indians northward to the Yucatan Peninsula, he would have found riches and a civilization far greater than anything he had ever dreamed about: the fabulous Aztec Empire.

Situated in the heart of the valley of Mexico and surrounded
by a large lake was the island city of Tenochtitlan, capital city of an empire that held sway from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and southwards into Guatemala. Mighty pyramids and more than thirty great palaces graced the city, with its well laid-out canals, causeways, and flower gardens. The population of more than 300,000 lived in well-ordered houses with running water latrines, a luxury unheard of in Europe.

The great markets, selling goods from all over the empire, had more than 25,000 traders every day, selling a variety of goods that were unknown in Europe at the time but are staples of our diet today. Squash, tomatoes, limes, peanuts, turkeys, pineapples, chewing gum, rubber, vanilla, chocolate, avocados, potatoes, watermelon, corn, and many others were arguably the greatest treasures the Aztecs ever gave up.

In 1518 the power and wealth of this great civilization were centered around one man, the
tlatoani
or emperor, Montezuma II. After leading his people for many years as a fierce and ruthless warlord, Montezuma had ascended to the throne in 1502. He expanded the empire rapidly, and unknowingly, through his harsh treatment of conquered tribes, he sowed the seeds of his nation’s destruction.

In the years after Columbus’s meetings with the Maya Indians, Spanish explorers from Cuba had increasingly encroached along the coastline until in early spring 1519, the most ruthless and cunning of them all landed on the Yucatán Peninsula, the conquistador HernáAn Cortés.

Cortés brought 500 heavily armored conquistadors, cannons, and horses, which the Indians described as “half man, half dog” because they had never seen cavalry. He sought through any means to discover the gold they all dreamed of. At every turn they heard of a shimmering city over the mountains and the power of the emperor who ruled it. Using natives who had met Spanish people before as his interpreters, Cortés laid a dual strategy, crushing any resistance with sharp Toledo steel but also promising any tribe who joined him complete freedom from their Aztec masters.

From the minute of Cortés’s arrival, Montezuma received regular reports about these mysterious white men with beards, and although he could have obliterated them at any time, he had become
very superstitious and wary. The Aztec calendar revolved every 52 years, and the legends told of a bearded white god who would return over the waters in the year “one-reed.” By coincidence, this was that year. Could these be the promised ones of legend? Unsure, he adopted a policy of observing these strangers from afar and sending minor chiefs to ask what they were looking for.

Cortés, for his part, couldn’t really fly his true colors. So he represented himself as an ambassador of a mighty king instead of the booty-loving adventurer he really was. As his allied forces grew rapidly, he finally got up the courage to move inland, and so on the morning of November 8, 1519, Cortés, some 300 conquistadors, and more than 3,000 native troops were greeted at the main causeway into Tenochtitlan by the Emperor Montezuma II himself.

The Spanish were staggered by the gleaming city with a circumference of some 9 miles and even more so by the numbers of fierce warriors around them. They felt real fear. However, Montezuma was intrigued and taken with these never-before-seen strangers with their curious clothes and language. And the legend of bearded white men returning to claim power was always at the back of his mind.

For many years Montezuma had been held in such awe by his people that they did not even raise their eyes to look at him, and simply touching him meant death. Now these strangers looked him boldly in the eye and touched him about his hands and face, gestures that infuriated Montezuma’s nobles. But he restrained them and ordered Cortés and his forces to be quartered in the palace of Axayactl, directly across from his own residence, a huge building that covered more than 6 acres.

Over the next few days Cortés was lavishly entertained by the emperor, who saw no threat from such a small force and appeared to have been fascinated by them. But the Spaniards were getting increasingly nervous, seeing the human sacrifices night after night on the pyramids around them and conscious of the huge forces around them that needed only a nod to seal their fate.

Now Cortés took his boldest step: On November 14 he sought an audience with Montezuma for himself, several officers, and thirty men. The unsuspecting emperor greeted his guest warmly, only to be taken aback when Cortés threatened him with instant death
if he didn’t come with him immediately. The startled Montezuma, not realizing what was happening to him, told his court that he had been visited by the gods and told to stay with the Castilians for a little while, and he moved himself and a part of his court into Cortés’s hands.

Cortés had pulled off a brilliant coup: He would allow Montezuma to seemingly control the empire, but he himself would control Montezuma.

For many weeks the strategy seemed to work, Montezuma continued with his normal lifestyle of taking daily baths, changing his clothing ritually four times a day, and appointing judges and other nobles as the occasion demanded. Every evening he ascended to the roof of the palace to shed his blood at midnight in honor of the North Star and important constellations of the Aztec race.

But behind the scenes, Montezuma, the wall behind which his people took shelter, was losing the affection of those same people as they began to see the hand of the uncouth strangers behind every utterance from Montezuma’s mouth.

Problems began to mount, and although Montezuma still ate his favorite seafood brought by runner every day from the Gulf of Mexico, the people were ready to revolt. The chance came when Cortés left the city to confront a rival Spaniard and left his deputy, Pedro de Alvarado, in command, a decision he came to regret because Alvarado believed force was the only way to treat the natives. As Cortés left the city Alvarado saw his chance to finally cow the heathen population.

The Aztecs were having a large festival in the Great Square where many lords, singers, and dancers, all unarmed, were attacked and slaughtered without warning by Alvarado’s troops, who had become very fearful of such numbers around them. The artillery and slashing swords against unprotected bodies wreaked dreadful havoc. Powerless to prevent the massacre of his people, Montezuma had finally lost their love and respect forever.

Returning to the capital after defeating his rival, Narváez, and incorporating his troops with his own forces, Cortés immediately sensed new dangers around him.

The Aztecs were becoming increasingly confrontational, and
although Montezuma was still treated with some reverence, that too was waning. By June 30, 1520, the Spanish were virtually besieged in their palace. In desperation Cortés sent Montezuma to the palace roof that evening to plead with the people massed below.

They listened quietly for a while, then a rock hit Montezuma, and then another; the Spanish rushed him below, where he was garroted along with thirty of his nobles, and his broken body was thrown to the crowd. The reign of Montezuma II was over. That night Cortés elected to make a dash for the mainland. Loading themselves with as much gold as they could carry, the Spanish army and its allies tried to quietly exit the city.

Within minutes thousands of waiting Aztec warriors, wearing cotton armor and headdresses of eagles and jaguars, swarmed over them. Many Spaniards jumped into the lake, only to be drowned by the weight of their plunder, and many others were hacked apart by the obsidian-edged weapons of the Aztecs. A weeping Cortés staggered from the city at fearful cost.

In what is known as the Noche Triste (“Sorrowful Night”), all Cortés’s native allies were slain, along with more than 1,000 Spanish troops, more than two thirds of his command. It was the largest defeat ever suffered by European armies in the Americas. Some 270 Spaniards in another part of the city were never even told of the escape attempt and joined other captured troops nightly on the sacrificial stones of the great pyramids.

The Aztecs, who were not used to fighting wars of extermination, let Cortés and his survivors retreat to the coast, where he eventually rebuilt his forces and moved once again on their capital. By now smallpox, brought in by Cortés’s troops from Cuba, had hit the Aztec population and killed many thousands of the warriors and citizens, who had no immunity to it. But even without an emperor they fought on, forcing Cortés to reduce the city block by block to defeat them. Today Mexico City is built on the remains of that fabulous empire.

MENUS

Even in the days before his death on June 30, 1520, Montezuma was still being treated as a deity. Although his Spanish captors were being subjected to ever-increasing hostility by the Aztecs, the daily ritual of court life for Montezuma went on. He drank chocolate from golden goblets and enjoyed his favorite seafoods, brought every day by runners from the Gulf of Mexico.