UN Food Summit plays up fresh produce

Well, more precisely, the United Nations is downplaying the meat and extravegant portions of its menus.

At the last UN Food Summit six years ago, world leaders were accused of hypocrisy for having a fine dining experience while trying to determine how best to feed the world's malnourished and famine-stricken poor.

This time, the meals are less haute cuisine, according to this article from TimesOnlineUK.

Lobster, goose and foie gras have given way to pasta, mozzarella, spinach and sweetcorn. "It does not look good if leaders discussing global starvation are seen to be dining lavishly," an official of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said. "At the last summit in 2002 we did not give enough thought to the menu and were open - unfairly, in our view - to the charge of hypocrisy."

The 2002 menu read like a gourmet restaurant: foie gras on toast with kiwi fruit and lobster in vinaigrette, followed by fillet of goose with olives and seasonal vegetables and ending with a compote of fruit with vanilla, all accompanied by an array of fine wines.

The 2008 menu is this: vol au vent stuffed with sweetcorn and mozzarella, followed by a pasta dish with a sauce of pumpkin and shrimps, and then veal meatballs and cherry tomatoes, with a fruit salad and vanilla ice-cream for dessert. The wine was a "straightforward but very acceptable Orvieto Classico", officials said.

Maybe it was toned down a bit this year, but it still sounds like a pretty nice meal. And most importantly, there is plenty of fresh produce on the menu.