The Truly Frightful Gourmet

Boing Boing today has a post about an LA Times story on the staggering eating habits and predelictions of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il, also known as Our Dear Leader. Here's an excerpt from the story:

Kim insists that his rice be cooked over a wood fire using trees cut from Mt. Paektu, a legendary peak on the Chinese border, according to a memoir written by a nephew of Kim's first wife. He has his own private source of spring water. Female workers inspect each grain of rice to ensure that they meet the leader's standards. (The nephew, Lee Young Nam, who defected to South Korea in the 1980s, was assassinated by suspected North Korean agents in Seoul in 1997.)

Kim's refined palate is not merely a matter of idle gossip, but the subject of serious study by political psychologists trying to understand the North Korean leadership.

Jerrold M. Post, a psychiatrist who founded and was the longtime director of the CIA's Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, says Kim's obsession with eating the best food comes from being the son of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, revered by the propaganda machine as a god-like figure. Post diagnosed the younger Kim as a malign narcissist in large part based on information about his eating habits.

"This is how you prepare food and water for a god."

Unfortunately the bastards at the LA times force you to register and then once you're registered insist on sending you SPAM weekly, so I don't recommend it.

Instead, Here is a link to an excerpt from the book by Kim Jong Il's former cook translated to English.

Posted by: Alder on June 27, 2004 3:31 PM: Tweet; Share this post elsewhere: Digg it! - Add to del.icio.us - Add to Stumbleupon - Add to Reddit; Filed under: Ramblings and Rants

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Comments (2)

hb herr wrote:

07.01.04 at 11:48 AM

Take the spam -

Switch your Email software to Eudora - set the Junk Filter at 50% and then "teach" the software to Junk the stuff from the LA Times -

I subscribe to everything - and as a result i get about 20 to 30 THOUSAND messages a week - after what could best be described as a "learning curve" - the Eudora performs as its supposed to - I do a scan for key words once a week - before auto trashing the Junk Mailbox - just in case a key document has been misplaced - as small price to pay -

HBH

Alder Yarrow wrote:

07.02.04 at 12:56 PM

I was just informed of the incredibly useful site: bugmenot.com which will provide you with a username and login for most sites like this. Use it to get an LA times login and view the original story here.