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High steaks: Meaty differences at Trump-Kim summit
HANOI, March 3, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Sanctions and nuclear plants are not the
only bones of contention between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un: while the US
president likes his steaks well done, the North Korean leader has rarer
tastes.
Paul Smart, the executive chef at the Metropole hotel in Hanoi, worked
closely with two of the North Korean leader’s personal chefs on the meals
prepared during the two-day summit.
An intimate dinner on the first day featured marinated tender sirloin
served with kimchi-stuffed pear, but the principals missed out on a foie gras
and snow fish lunch as negotiations over the North’s weapons programmes and
international sanctions ground to a halt.
The team had strict instructions on how to prepare the meat, Smart said.
“Kim had medium-rare to rare, very rare,” he told AFP. “And Trump had well
done.”
The US president is known for his simple culinary tastes, but Kim’s
preference for bloodier meat showed an appreciation for quality, Smart said.
“He really likes to dine and experience cuisine for what it is.”
According to his chefs — both of them called Kim — the North Korean
leader has expensive tastes, Smart added. “He likes caviar, lobster, really
luxurious product. Foie gras, he really likes to indulge in cuisine.”
Each side in the Metropole kitchen prepared dishes of its own, with the
North Koreans bringing all their own ingredients — including the steaks,
carried in a chilled metal container on board Kim’s train.
The beef was “very natural and marbled, very red”, Smart said, suggesting
that — as with Japanese wagyu — cattle may be allowed to roam free in North
Korea.
But aside from ox-drawn carts, bovines are a rare sight in the North Korean
countryside.
The impoverished country consistently fails to produce enough food to feed
itself and according to the United Nations, more than 10 million people —
around 40 percent of the population — need food aid.
But for those who can afford it, there is an increasing number of coffee
shops in Pyongyang, where restaurants offer cuisines ranging from Western to
Japanese.
– Sanctions breach? –
Trump previously stayed at the Metropole during a state visit in 2017 — in
the $4,800 a night top suite — when Smart stocked the freezer in his room
with six tubs of vanilla ice cream to ensure his sweet tooth could be
satisfied.
On Wednesday Trump ate every last morsel of his chocolate lava cake
dessert, while the main course was almost certainly the first time the US
president has consumed North Korean beef.
MORE/MSY/0828 hrs
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For an ordinary American citizen eating a steak provided by the North
Korean leader could potentially violate the sanctions Washington has imposed
on Pyongyang over its weapons programmes.
In June 2016, the US Treasury designated Kim and other North Korean
officials as subject to sanctions for their roles in human rights abuses by
the North.
Under Section 6 of Executive Order 13722, the legislation, which applied to
Kim, US citizens are barred from receiving “goods” from any sanctioned
person.
But as US president on official business, the rule does not apply to Trump
himself: another clause says that transactions “for the conduct of the
official business of the Federal Government” are not prohibited.
– Shrimp cocktail –
Sniffer dogs were brought in to sweep the kitchen ahead of the summit, and
food samplers from both sides tasted each dish before it went out to the
Metropole tables.
“Everything was individually wrapped, it was very hygienically packed and
everything,” Smart said of the North Korean supplies.
“They even brought a little alcohol swab to swab down their knives, swab
down their chopping boards. In a clinical way they prepared the food very
nicely.”
The two chefs were talented and “very nice”, the Australian added, and
“very intrigued by the way that we’re doing things and the style that we’re
cooking”.
They had one culinary blind spot: they had never before seen a shrimp
cocktail, the 1980s American classic which Trump requested for the opening
dinner.
“They were really intrigued by the taste” of thousand island dressing,
Smart said. “So I gave them the recipe and they took it home with them.”
In return, they explained how to make kimchi, the fermented cabbage side
dish that is a mainstay of Korean cuisine.
For lunch on the summit’s second day, the North Koreans were responsible
for the apple foie gras jelly appetisers — again providing their own
ingredients, and carving long-beaked birds of out of a white seaweed jelly
for presentation.
“It was really kind of a masterpiece,” Smart said.
They were laid out on the table, but the leaders never sat down as the
summit deadlocked over Washington’s demand the North close its Yongbyon
nuclear complex and Pyongyang’s desire for relief from UN Security Council
sanctions.
The leaders left without a signing ceremony or the scheduled meal, to the
disappointment of the culinary team.
Instead, hotel staff ate Smart’s main course of grilled snow fish, roasted
vegetables and rice pilaf.
“It was delicious,” said Anthony Slewka, Metropole’s sales and marketing
director — and the hotel is now considering offering guests the same menu.
BSS/AFP/MSY/0828 hrs