‘A man of great appetites’: what’s it like to be a dictator’s personal chef?
A man of great appetites – In the shadow of tyranny, where power is both a weapon and a meal, the kitchen becomes more than a place of sustenance. It transforms into a stage for control, a backdrop for the personal rituals of those who rule with iron fists. The documentary How to Feed a Dictator, directed by Andrew Neel and premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival this week, offers a glimpse into the lives of five chefs who served some of the world’s most feared leaders. Their stories reveal how the act of feeding a dictator—whether it be Kim Jong-il’s obsession with pepperoni pizza or Saddam Hussein’s craving for grilled fish—was more than a matter of taste. It was a calculated performance of loyalty, a silent agreement between cook and ruler that every plate carried the weight of survival.
The Menus of Power
Though their menus varied, the hunger for power remained consistent. Kim Jong-il, the reclusive North Korean leader, indulged in pepperoni pizza, a symbol of his desire to blend Western opulence with his own regime’s dominance. Saddam Hussein, by contrast, reveled in the simplicity of a fish barbecue, his appetite for comfort mirrored by his appetite for conquest. Idi Amin, the Ugandan despot, was said to have devoured entire roasted goats, a display of both his carnivorous joy and his disregard for human life. These choices were not random—they were tools of influence, designed to reinforce the image of the leader as both invincible and indulgent.
For the chefs who served them, the stakes were as high as the dishes they prepared. Their work was not just about feeding the powerful; it was about maintaining their favor in a world where a single misstep could mean exile, imprisonment, or worse. Director Andrew Neel, reflecting on the film’s premise, says:
“It goes back to Hannah Arendt’s banality of evil a bit. These everyday things that are beloved to us, like food, can take on an entirely different dimension within the context of a dictatorship.”
The documentary explores how the act of preparing meals for leaders became a microcosm of their regimes’ cruelty, blurring the lines between sustenance and spectacle.
A Tasting Menu of Tyranny
Structured like a decadent culinary journey, How to Feed a Dictator weaves together the glamour of cooking with the grim reality of state-sanctioned violence. The film’s directors present a series of vignettes that juxtapose the elegance of gourmet dishes with the brutality of political machinations. For instance, Keo Samoun, a Cambodian chef, recounts how she laid out a simple spread of fish, fruit, and rice at the gravesite of Pol Pot, a man she still regarded as almost divine. By contrast, Ermanno Furlanis, an Italian pizzaiolo, describes the terror of crafting pizzas for Kim Jong-il, where even the placement of olives was scrutinized by state officials. These contrasting perspectives highlight the spectrum of experiences within the same oppressive system.
The film’s framing is deliberate, casting the kitchen as a battleground where morality and survival clash. Charles Otonde Odera, Ugandan chef to Idi Amin, offers a particularly haunting account. He recalls how his life changed overnight: from a poor villager scraping by to a man enjoying the comforts of a Mercedes, multiple wives, and a life of ease as Amin terrorized the populace. Odera’s story underscores the paradox of complicity, where the promise of prosperity often overshadowed the cost of guilt. “It was a great gig,” Neel observes, “but that phrase can excuse almost anything. Like, ‘It was just business.’”
From Fear to Reflection
The documentary also delves into the moments of doubt that haunted these chefs. For Odera, the turning point came when Amin’s second wife, Kay, was discovered dead in a car trunk, rumored to have been killed for infidelity. “I missed my low wages from before,” he says, “at least my heart was at peace.” This admission reveals the internal conflict between the tangible rewards of the job and the intangible burden of moral compromise. Odera’s story is further complicated by Amin’s alleged belief in the power of food to suppress the spirit of the condemned—his order to cook a human heart, which he claimed would prevent the victim’s soul from haunting him.
Similarly, the film explores the fragility of loyalty. One of Amin’s children suffered a stomach ache after a meal, an innocuous incident that was enough to condemn the chef to death. Such moments highlight how even the smallest act of carelessness could be weaponized. The chefs’ narratives are not just about their encounters with dictators, but also about their own psychological transformation. As Odera recalls, he now prepares a roasted goat with a team of cooks, the same dish that once symbolized his darkest days.
The Weight of the Plate
The film’s juxtaposition of food and violence is not merely symbolic—it is a deliberate narrative choice. Images of gourmet platters are paired with footage of state-sanctioned atrocities, creating an unsettling contrast that lingers in the viewer’s mind. For the crew filming these scenes, the experience was a dual challenge: capturing the sensory appeal of the cuisine while bearing witness to its darker origins. “The food does get cold when you’re designing for shots,” Neel admits, “and we didn’t get to try everything.”
Yet the documentary’s appeal lies in its ability to make the viewer question their own complicity. The film subtly suggests that the chefs’ silence was not born of apathy, but of necessity. As Furlanis notes, “There was plenty of food where I was,” he says, recalling how his Italian grocery orders would arrive in the Hermit Kingdom within a day. This highlights the paradox of abundance under scarcity, a theme that runs through the film’s exploration of the chefs’ lives. Even the most mundane act of cooking becomes a political statement, a testament to the power dynamics at play.
One of the most striking elements of the film is its focus on the symbolic significance of certain dishes. Samoun’s fish dip, a favorite of Kim Jong-il, becomes a metaphor for the dictator’s desire to merge the familiar with the exotic. Meanwhile, the grilled carp dish, masgouf, which Saddam Hussein reportedly could not live without, was later instrumental in the US military’s pursuit of him. When his regime collapsed in 2003, Hussein was found hiding in a spider hole in the desert, his love for masgouf a haunting reminder of the tastes that once defined his rule.
Ultimately, How to Feed a Dictator invites audiences to reflect on the choices these chefs made—and the choices they were never truly free to make. The film’s structure, like a tasting menu, serves to remind us that the most powerful leaders often leave behind a legacy as rich in cruelty as it is in opulence. As the chefs recount their stories, the audience is left to ponder whether the act of feeding a dictator is a sign of devotion or a quiet surrender to the forces of tyranny.
