Dining with the Rich and Royal is a marvelous journey into the gastronomic peccadilloes of the great, the good, and the not-so-good. When the world is at your feet, what is on your table? Dining with the Rich and Royal serves up the glamour of the jet set on a plate, from the silver spoon to the last Kleenex wipe. We follow the food adventures of Hilton, Hefner, and Howard Hughes; the great transatlantic dynasties: Onassis, the Vanderbilts, the Astors and the Rothschilds.Royals watchers and history twitchers will find out the effect of too many fairy feasts on Ludwig of Bavaria; how Hirohito and Ibn Saud tasted East-Meets-West diplomacy. Would you try the cake that killed Rasputin or suck on a suicide sweet with Antony and Cleo? Was it sex or raspberry soufflé that won Mrs. Simpson a king's heart? It's all here: a succession of abdications, executions, revolutions, coronations, tales of toothache and posh picnics spiced with the odd military coup or two. Mind your manners now.