Jeff Houck

The Tampa Tribune’s food writer since 2005, Jeff Houck covers the way people live through their food. He also hosts the Table Conversations food podcast and believes that everything crunchy is good.

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Mike Tyson Loves Caesar Salad [Famous People Eat, Too]

Posted Jul 28, 2010 by Jeff Houck

Updated Jul 29, 2010 at 06:52 AM

I collect odd things. Not like a hoarder. At least I don’t think so. Hoarders never think they’re hoarders.

I have a chunk of Berlin Wall concrete. I have bits of tire and lug nuts I scooped from the Daytona 500 infield. I have an oil glop from the Exxon Valdez spill. I guess I’ll need one from the Gulf of Mexico, too.

I also collect photos of celebrities taken as they’re eating and drinking. I know it’s weird. I’m aware. But something about that intrigues me.

When you think of Clark Gable, you don’t picture him eating watermelon on the patio with his wife, Carole Lombard. Or comedian Dave Chappelle eating a plate of ziti. Or Ace Frehley in full Kiss makeup drinking a Coke backstage. But one snapshot can change that.

My favorite photo is of Mike Tyson eating a salad.

There’s Iron Mike, in a red stocking cap with a tribal tattoo on the side of his face, shoving a forkful of salad into his giant mouth.

I watched this guy destroy giant men in the boxing ring with a scary ferocity. I cannot relate to that kind of power.

But a salad? I can totally identify. I love salad. Mike loves salad. It gives me something to hold on to. It makes Mike human for me, which, given his turbulent history, is no easy accomplishment. Mike cares about his fiber intake.

It’s why presidential candidates spend an inordinate amount of time eating food they would never otherwise touch at diners and restaurants. It makes them look normal. It gives them that common touch while pursuing a rather uncommon job.

Which is why the new book “What the Great Ate; A Curious History of Food & Fame” by Mark and Matthew Jacob is such a great read. The book (Three Rivers Press, $14) is a fascinating catalog of dining habits of the rich and famous.

Until I read their book, I didn’t know that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ate lunch in the same hotel restaurant every workday for 20 years. Or that Jackie Gleason would order pot roast with a scoop of ice cream on it at a diner in New Jersey. Or that boxer Joe Louis trained for matches by drinking blood fresh from the slaughterhouse. That one I think I could have lived without knowing.

“We care about famous people, and we care about food, so it seemed like a good combination,” Mark says.

While doing their research, the Jacob brothers discovered:

* Al Pacino doesn’t like to read when he eats. And he gets annoyed watching others do it, too.

* Civil War Gen. Ulysses S. Grant once told his superiors, “I will not move my army without onions.”

* President Grover Cleveland, who didn’t care for the White House chef’s gourmet meals, got so frustrated that he ordered an attendant to grab the dinner the servants were eating and switch it with his.

* Saddam Hussein became so enamored with Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch that he became irate in prison when soldiers brought him another cereal. One morning he screamed, “No Froot Loops!”

* NASA Astronaut John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich in his space suit aboard Gemini 3. And he offered it to fellow astronaut Gus Grissom, who gladly accepted. The caper led to a congressional investigation.

“That was more than just hijinks,” Mark told me. “That anecdote showed NASA as a culture clash between flyboys and techno scientists.”

The lesson the authors learned: “The famous people we’re so in awe of can seem as silly or pedantic as the rest of us.”

Yeah? I’ll let you tell that to Mike Tyson.

You can listen to my Table Conversations podcast with Matthew and Mark Jacob by clicking here.

If you’re curious, here’s my gallery of photos of celebrities getting their eat on: