World leaders attending the UN Food Summit in Italy will be met with modest meal choices come lunchtime. Well, sort of.

According British paper, Times Online, officials at the Food and Agriculture Organization are keen on avoiding claims of hypocrisy for serving lobster and foie gras while discussing global starvation. Said one official, “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.”

As someone who has planned many events for a Jewish environmental non-profit, I know how challenging it can be to model an organization’s values at its events. Somehow, even with the most careful planning, there’s always an overlooked detail - disposable cups where there could be real glass, kosher food but not Chalav Yisroel dairy, or garbage cans where there could be a compost bin. So I sympathize with the FAO organizers who probably spent so much time planning the Summit sessions that they forgot how much every meal is a micro-session in itself. Then I looked at the menu.

At the last Summit in 2002, attendees were treated to:

Foie gras and toast with kiwi fruit
Lobster in vinaigrette
Fillet of goose with olives
Seasonal vegetables
Compote of fruit with vanilla
Vins multiple fine wine

Yikes! Foie gras AND lobster? And…goose?! After a lunch like that, its hard to believe they got anything done in their afternoon sessions. Talk about a food coma.

In 2008, the menu “was toned” down to:

Vol au vent with sweetcorn and mozzarella
Pasta with cream of pumpkin and shrimps
Veal olives with cherry tomatoes and basil
Fruit salad with vanilla ice cream
Vin Orvieto Classico Poggio Calvelli 2005

Um, yes the foie gras is gone, but I wouldn’t exactly call 2008’s menu “meager.” It’s a far cry from the “3rd world dinners” that many college campuses host where students are surprised with a meal of rice and beans (and that’s it) in the dining hall to raise awareness about how the other half (two-thirds? three-quarters?) lives.

Did they absolutely need to serve veal, or could they perhaps have managed without the controversial meat (or - to make a bold statement, no meat at all)? The organizers still get brownie points for making a conscious effort to serve less obnoxiously luxurious food this year - but despite the changes, the meal continues to seem all too indicative of the problems behind the global food crisis, rather than a hopeful model of what sustainable, equitable eating might look like.

Photo: At the World Food Security Summit