Chefs

When Idi Amin threatened to shoot the cook

Private chefs keep many secrets and are expected to go to their graves without sharing a morsel of gossip about their employers. Whether cooking for a pop star, tycoon or member of a royal family, chefs must guarantee confidentiality. Chatter can be career-ending or lead to lawsuits. For a few such cooks, revelations could even end in execution. When the Polish journalist Witold Szablowski came up with the winning idea of writing a book about what some of the world’s most notorious dictators ate, it proved a difficult task. Finding just a few living examples of their chefs took more than two years; persuading these individuals to tell their secrets