PARIS—UN climate summit host France will seek to titillate the taste buds of 150 world leaders on Monday with a 75-minute lunch it hopes will put them in the mood for making history.
The meal will break what is set to be 12 hours or more of back-to-back, three-minute speeches by heads of state and government tasked with injecting a sense of mission into the conference meant to stave off disastrous global warming.
The four-course menu will be prepared by five top-notch chefs, all volunteering their services, to show off local, biological produce.
Accompanied, of course, by the finest French wines.
“A lunch reflecting France’s environmental and gastronomic excellence… but without ostentation,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, the president of the conference, told reporters on Sunday.
Digging into the French offering will be the likes of Barack Obama of the United States, Xi Jinping of China and Narendra Modi of India—even rivals Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey have been invited to break bread together, as have Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The feasting will start with a “Modern Freneuse turnip soup with scallops cooked in floral steam,” followed by “Free-range poultry from Licques, stuffed celery preserve with truffles and parsleyed creamed spinach,” according to the menu.
The cheese course will be an organic Reblochon from France’s Mont Blanc region, and dessert a traditional Paris Brest cake with stewed citrus fruit and a “light praline cream.”
The wine selection includes a white Meursault 1er Cru Santenots 2011, a red Domaine Marquis d’Angerville Chateau Beychevelle 2009, and the Champagne a Philipponnat Cuvee 1522—with a fruit juice option for those averse. AFP