motravelgirl | Visit MO Bistro | April 12, 2013
"It has become fashionable to honor (Winston) Churchill at commemorative events by duplicating the meals he was served." ~ "Dinner with Churchill, Policy-Making at the Dinner Table," by Cita Stelzer
I recently experienced a Churchillian meal when I joined author Cita Stelzer, and a small group of others, for a lunch that duplicated the meal served to Winston Churchill when he delivered a speech at Westminster College in Fulton.
Churchill delivered the Sinews of Peace speech as a part of the John Findley Green lecture series. President Harry Truman, Missouri's native son, also was present that day in 1946 when Churchill first stated that "an iron curtain has descended across the Continent." That phrase remains in our vocabulary more than 50 years later.
Westminster is home to the National Churchill Museum, which is housed below the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Aldermanbury. This 17th century London church, severely damaged during World War II, was moved to Fulton in the 1960s and restored brick by brick to the architect's original specifications.
Stelzer has written a book about Churchill's dinner-table diplomacy and has combed many archives to describe the meals at dinners where Sir Winston used "good food, excellent champagne and Havana cigars" to engage with others and cajole them to his point of view. She was on campus at Westminster earlier this week for a book signing, and the school re-created the meal served to Churchill.
“Leave the past to history especially as I propose to write that history myself.”
