Pass The Pandowdy, Please: Chewing on History with Famous Folks and Their Fabulous Foods

This book is about sixteen famous people and what they ate and how they ate. George Washington only had one tooth left by the time he was president. Babe Ruth ate a lot of hot dogs. Napoleon ate sloppily. Paul Revere ate lots of pudding. Hokusai ate a lot of rice. Neil Armstrong squirted water into food pouches when he was in space.

I don’t like Christopher Columbus. He enslaved people. He brought corn, avocados, and guavas to Europe. Tasters in Europe made sure the foods he brought weren’t poison. (They must have had a lot of tasters.)

In the back of the book, there is a timeline and more information about the famous people. There is a recipe in the book for pandowdy. Abe Lincoln liked pandowdy. It has apples.

I like the drawings. I learned a lot. I didn’t know Napoleon ate messily. I didn’t know who Moctezuma was. I didn’t know George Washington cracked walnuts open with his teeth. Cleopatra made her own lipstick by crushing ants and beetles. Queen Victoria’s underwear sold for $18,000 at an auction. (I wonder who bought it.) I’ll read this book again in the future.