What was eating them? And vice versa. A In What the Great Ate, Matthew and Mark Jacob have cooked up a bountiful sampling of the peculiar culinary likes, dislikes, habits, and attitudes of famousa??and often notoriousa??figures throughout history. Here is food As code: Benito Mussolini used the phrase “we’re making spaghetti” to inform his wife if he’d be (illegally) dueling later that day. As superstition: Baseball star Wade Boggs credited his on-field success to eating chicken before nearly every game. In service to country: President Thomas Jefferson, America’s original foodie, introduced eggplant to the United States and wrote down the nation’s first recipe for ice cream. A From Emperor Nero to Bette Davis, Babe Ruth to Barack Obama, the bite-size tidbits in What the Great Ate will whet your appetite for tantalizing trivia.