A Menu Fit for Sir Winston

Jennings Brown
Posted: April 1, 2009

Sir Winston Churchill relished the good life, even during tough times, and a recent discovery has shown that he didn't even let a commonplace airline meal plan interfere with his hunger for excess and style.

Churchill, voted Man of the Century by Cigar Aficionado readers, didn't approve of the scant breakfast provided by a British Overseas Airways Corp. flight in June 1954, so he took matters into his own hands, writing a complete revision on the back of the menu. The meal memorandum, described in an article posted this week in Britain's Daily Mail, read as follows:

"1st Tray. Poached egg, Toast, Jam, Butter, Coffee and milk, Jug of cold milk, Cold Chicken or Meat.

"2nd Tray. Grapefruit, Sugar Bowl, Glass orange squash (ice), Whisky soda."

He concluded the epicurean play-by-play with the instructions, "Wash hands, cigar."

The revised menu, snatched by a BOAC flight attendant during the flight—Churchill's last to America as prime minister—gives historians insight into how the statesman kept his rotund figure and lets cigar aficionados know that one of history's most renowned smokers liked to start his day off with a cigar and a glass of whiskey.

The menu will be sold at Mullock's Auctioneers in Ludlow, Shropshire, England on April 23. Mullock's expects the article to sell for around £1,500, or about $2,150.

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