It's Good To Be King

Radley Balko | July 8, 2008

G-8 leaders gathered at a posh resort in Japan this week to dine on taxpayer-bought 19-course meals*. The Guardian reports that just one such meal included caviar; sea urchin; "a fan and decorated with bamboo grasses, including diced fatty tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce, and pickled conger eel with soy sauce"; "hairy crab Kegani bisque-style soup"; "salt-grilled bighand thornyhead (a small, red Pacific fish) with a vinegary water pepper sauce"; and "milk-fed lamb, roasted lamb with cepes, and black truffle with emulsion sauce."

Top item on the G-8 agenda: global food shortages.

*CORRECTION:  Eight courses, 19 dishes, not 19 courses.

Comments

|7.8.08 @ 11:03AM|#

I can see Bush's response...

"Just let them eat cake. Mweeheeeheee... Yellowcake that is.... Mweeheehee-hee-hee... Hey, where's my new British poodle? I wanna scratch behind his ears like I do with Barney."

.|7.8.08 @ 11:09AM|#

Guys in my high school ate seared eel all the time. It was no big deal.

Elemenope|7.8.08 @ 11:10AM|#

Someone should run a hunger banquet for these fuckers...

Episiarch|7.8.08 @ 11:16AM|#

A few years back the UN had a conference on hunger in (I believe) Johannesburg, South Africa, to which they flew in some huge number of lobsters and various other delicacies, while one of the nearby neighborhoods was filled with poor, hungry people.

Anyone who believes these people don't consider themselves above the rules of the little people is delusional.

Guy Montag|7.8.08 @ 11:20AM|#

That menu sounds a lot better than the DNC menu.

Perhaps Japan is trying to drum up some convention business?

Trzesniewski|7.8.08 @ 11:20AM|#

Since dishes are quite small in the classic Japanese Kaisei school of cooking, 19 courses really aren't that much -- a real Gargantua might eat them all and have still enough appetite for another dozen or so.

KyleG|7.8.08 @ 11:24AM|#

Along with anyone who doesn't think these people want to keep it that way.

Nigel Watt|7.8.08 @ 11:25AM|#

One person eating well doesn't have anything to do with other people not eating well, though. Still crappy PR.

|7.8.08 @ 11:26AM|#

19-course meal!? Holy crap. No fricking way. Even the most offensively pretentious diners don't go past 9-courses.

RTFA
...an eight-course, 19-dish dinner...

Ahh yes well that explains it. Nice hyperbole Balko. Fact check much? I bet Mississipi runs a model Medical Examiner's office. [/sarcasm]

Guy Montag|7.8.08 @ 11:28AM|#

As long as Godzilla was not injured in the preperation of the meal I am fine with it.

Next issue!

jeff|7.8.08 @ 11:31AM|#

All of the world's staple foods are about to run out but black truffles are still abundant so the G8 folks took one for the team by serving truffles.

|7.8.08 @ 11:41AM|#

Guy Montag | July 8, 2008, 11:28am | #

As long as Godzilla was not injured in the preperation of the meal I am fine with it.

Next issue!

Of course not. Godzilla's an endangered species. In the 50s, Godzilla reproduced almost every year. Now, we're lucky (?) if we see one every 10 years.

In fact, after that last fiasco in New York, we may never see one again!

|7.8.08 @ 11:42AM|#

The server squirrels are turning on their masters and eating the comments!

RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES

KyleG|7.8.08 @ 11:43AM|#

It's not the menu but the fact that they are eating such a grandiose meal on the dime of the very people suffering from rising food prices.

|7.8.08 @ 11:44AM|#

If your gut response to this article was "hey it was really only 8 courses".... you may be a bootlicker.

If you said "the servings are actually very small so it is that big a deal".....you may be a bootlicker

guys the point is that us taxpayers are being told to make human sacrifices, stop having children, it is wasteful to use a air conditioner and we need to pay more taxes to be forgiven for our sins...yet when it comes to demanding tribute from us teh politicians have no regard at all for living modestly and spending our hard earned money in a frugil manner....no it is us who produce who are told to flog ourselves while the rulers tell us what higher sacrifices we need to make.

|7.8.08 @ 12:02PM|#

What? None of the puffer fish that poisons you if they cut it wrong?

ed|7.8.08 @ 12:08PM|#

And no ethanol chaser?

Franklin Harris|7.8.08 @ 12:55PM|#

caviar; sea urchin; "a fan and decorated with bamboo grasses, including diced fatty tuna fish, avocado and jellied soy sauce, and pickled conger eel with soy sauce"; "hairy crab Kegani bisque-style soup"; "salt-grilled bighand thornyhead (a small, red Pacific fish) with a vinegary water pepper sauce"; and "milk-fed lamb, roasted lamb with cepes, and black truffle with emulsion sauce."

So, the G-8 are celebrity judges on Iron Chef?

Guy Montag|7.8.08 @ 1:19PM|#

In fact, after that last fiasco in New York, we may never see one again!

I am still boycotting that NYC version due to the absance of Blue Oyster Cult from the soundtrack.

Jeff,

guys the point is that us taxpayers are being told to make human sacrifices, stop having children, it is wasteful to use a air conditioner and we need to pay more taxes to be forgiven for our sins...yet when it comes to demanding tribute from us teh politicians have no regard at all for living modestly and spending our hard earned money in a frugil manner....no it is us who produce who are told to flog ourselves while the rulers tell us what higher sacrifices we need to make.

Um, you are confusing the folks who attended with the folks who will be eating unfried blue food in Denver.

|7.8.08 @ 1:49PM|#

Of course, people would poke just as much fun at those G-8 folks if they dined on PB&J.

|7.8.08 @ 2:10PM|#

Sea urchin is an abomination.

|7.8.08 @ 2:14PM|#

Sea urchin is an abomination.

I once compared it to having a corpse's severed tongue in your mouth. The only thing I've ever spit out at a sushi bar.

|7.8.08 @ 2:17PM|#

I required the sushi chef who served me sea urchin to commit seppuku. I was feeling generous that day.

|7.8.08 @ 10:53PM|#

Wow. Sounds like each diner might've eaten about a hundred bucks worth of food (it's a nice round number). So let's say they banqueted 100 people. Heck, I have no idea how many people there are at these things, so let's say 200.

Hmm. 200 people at $100 per = $20,000.

Yep. That would've solved world hunger.

Come on people, don't we already have enough to be angry about without manufacturing piddly shit like this?