POPE LEO XIV
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If you’re the kind of person who likes to theme your dinners around liturgical events, you might be wondering what foods to enjoy during the conclave.
We suggest three ways to approach that question: the present, the past, and the personalized.
The present
The first and simplest “conclave food” is what the cardinals are actually eating in Rome right now. Here are the details from the BBC:
For the upcoming conclave starting on 7 May, the nuns at the Domus Sanctae Marthae – the modern residence where cardinals live during their sequestration – will prepare simple dishes characteristic of Lazio, the Italian region surrounding the Vatican, and nearby Abruzzo: minestrone, spaghetti, arrosticini (lamb skewers) and boiled vegetables.
Minestrone, spaghetti, meat kebabs and veggies add up to a nicely balanced meal that’s pretty accessible to put together. And it feels really special to share the same meal as the cardinals as they deliberate and discern.
The past
The next approach is to recreate what cardinals ate in years past. You might start with baby-back ribs, but there are so many more options.
A look through the 16th-century cookbook of celebrity chef Bartolomeo Scappi, who planned the menu for the 1549 conclave, reveals this impressive list:
The Cardinals may have had pasta, including ravioli and rabbit parpadelle. Those hampers may have been carefully packed with cheesy breads, veal croquettes, roasted bear, grilled beef ribs, open faced mushroom crostatas, pheasant in red-currant sauce, and maybe even caviar omelets (made with cinnamon, sugar, orange juice and pepper). Eels cooked in wine, fried anchovies and razor clams, roasted broccoli, stuffed eggs and chickpea fritters may also have filled the Cardinal's bellies. Scappi even had recipes for early Neapolitan pizza, which were sweet, made of almonds, raisins, dates, figs, eggs and rosewater cooked on a flat, flaky pastry round.
Roasted beer and pheasant might be hard to source at your local grocery store. But ravioli, cheesy breads, broccoli, and chickpea fritters (falafel-like, perhaps?) could all be easily incorporated into a meal this week. And Neapolitan pizza is always a win, conclave or no.
The personalized
A final approach is to choose foods themed around individual cardinals. With 133 cardinals voting in the conclave, this approach could give menu ideas for months — or inspire a truly magnificent international potluck!
One clever writer, Micah Murphy, shared a fun list of foods “to celebrate the election of any of the papabili.” Check out the full list over at White Smoke in the Kitchen.
For example, for Cardinal Ambongo, who is Congolese, he writes, “Try moambe chicken with fufu. This is a peanutty chicken stew, eaten with the edible utensil fufu, a cassava flour dough you form into little scoops.”
Or for Cardinal Erdo, who is Hungarian, “You might really like goulash, a meat and potato stew with plenty — PLENTY — of paprika.”
And for Cardinal Zuppi, an Italian, he writes, "Much has been made of one Italian cardinal’s amusing name [Editor's note: He's probably referencing Cardinal Pizzaballa, whose name literally means pizza-dance], but not enough of another’s. If Cardinal Zuppi wears the white, I hope you’ll consider a popular Italian soup: minestrone."
"La zuppa" means soup in Italian, so this last approach is ideal to continue the culinary fun after the papal election is concluded.
Is it silly?
You might be wondering, “Isn’t it kind of silly to plan food around the conclave?”
I would say, “Not at all!”
Food is a powerful way to connect to a global event in a deeply personal way. By preparing and sharing these meals, we feel united across time and space with the long tradition of electing a pope, a Successor to St. Peter.
Whether we’re enjoying the same simple pasta as today's cardinals or attempting a recreation of a 16th-century papal feast, each bite connects us to centuries of history and to Catholics around the world watching and waiting for white smoke.
Breaking bread — whether it's Italian focaccia or Indian naan — reminds us that despite our different cultures, languages, and cuisines, we're all part of the same Church, sharing in the same hope and anticipation.
