Rösti für Winston Churchill

A review of Werner Vogt's new book, Rösti für Winston Churchill. Food, glorious food and plenty of it, fit for a global icon with a civilisation to save.

Vinsdon Jurjill, global icon

About twenty years ago I was involved in a project within a large Swiss company. Every few days on my way through the foyer to the lifts I would hear an unchanging greeting in a fine bass-baritone: 'Gudd Morrning, Sir! Godd shave the Kween! Vinsdon Jurjill!'

The speaker had some function in the maintenance of the building. He originated from Poland. He had learned that I was English and after that, with characteristic Polish politeness, sincerely meant, he chose to greet me with the few scraps of English that he had picked up over the years. 'And you, too', was all I could respond.

Pondering these exchanges sometime later, I realised that 'Vinsdon Jurjill' may be a rather unusual greeting, but the name somehow didn't seem out of place. He was after all arguably the greatest Briton of the 20th century. Substitute the name of any other British Prime Minister – Harold Wilson, John Major, Tony Blair, Lizz Truss etc. – and the greeting would definitely be beyond out of place, quite bizarre, in fact.

Which just goes to show Churchill's status as the giant who rescued the 20th century: his name alone is sufficient. In today's sloppy modern terminology we would say he was 'iconic'.

Years later – only a couple of months ago, in fact –I was stuck in a hospital bed being intubed, infused and fed pills every few hours. The nursing staff were kind, caring and brutal when required. Among them was a chap from Mexico, who liked to talk to me in English. He would enter my room and shout cheerily 'Vinsdon Jurjill'. He was clearly at the limit of his vocabulary, but it was sincerely meant.

We can conclude without fear of contradiction that Winnie is not just an iconic giant in Britain, nor in Europe nor in the Anglosphere, he is a global icon.

Recovering the icon

But time flies past, one generation gives way to another. Churchill died in 1965. Few are left whose lives overlapped with the life of the great man, which means that for anyone under sixty, Churchill is now an icon from days long gone, an icon only on paper, from that distant country we call the past (©L.P. Hartley).

Historians have occupied themselves with his life, his deeds and his significance and have produced a mountain of scholarly material. Add to this Churchill's own copious writings and speeches and it is a brave person indeed who would be a Churchill specialist. Werner Vogt is one such person.

The mountain is so huge that it is important to give the non-specialist, down the generations, readable insights into the icon's life and works. Werner Vogt supplies this need for German-speaking readers by taking a thematic approach to the great man. His latest book, Rösti für Winston Churchill, is classic Vogt: light-hearted, urbane, well-researched and consequently full of surprising knowledge from the nooks and crannies of a great statesman's life.

This is not to trivialise: great people are usually complex people. In Churchill's case each aspect of that complexity reflects the underlying character of the great man, particularly his humanity and his sociability.

Looking after the pensioner

It is one of the many remarkable facts of Churchill's iconic status, that this late Victorian leftover, who had ridden in cavalry charges in distant places of the empire, was sixty-six when he was called to greatness at the start of the Second World War. How did the pensioner cope with this enormous challenge? Werner Vogt gives as one of the reasons the rigorous daily routine which was shaped exactly to his needs:

That included a robust breakfast in bed, a substantial lunch, an afternoon nap followed by a bath and finally a lavish evening meal. In this way the Prime Minister was able to study documents or write speeches until two or three in the morning, enlivened by champagne at dinner and brandy to follow. A fixed element of this ritual was a fine Cuban cigar after dinner, something which he also smoked appreciatively during the day.

Dazu zählten ein robustes Frühstück im Bett, ein währschaftes Mittagessen, ein Mittagsschlaf mit anschliessendem Bad sowie ein reichhaltiges Abendessen. So konnte der Premierminister ohne Weiteres bis um 2.00 Uhr oder 3.00 Uhr morgens Dokumente studieren oder Reden schreiben - beschwingt von Champagner während des Essens und Brandy zum Ende der Tafelrunde. Zum festen Bestandteil dieses Rituals gehörte unmittelbar nach seinen Mahlzeiten der Genuss feiner kubanischer Zigarren. Letztere rauchte er gerne auch tagsüber.
Rösti für Winston Churchill, p 13.

The connoisseur

Days long gone, indeed! No Western politician of our day could afford to be caught by the media in such sybaritic indulgence. Even I can remember a time when the humble business lunch could take up to several hours, from the clink of ice in glasses as the drinks trolley arrived ('Any other business? No? I declare this meeting closed.'). In those days meetings ended on time and a relaxed lunch ended in the return to the desk in a slightly befuddled but altogether more rational state of mind.

I knew years before that a certain large Swiss bank was doomed, its americanisation complete, when I was offered a salami baguette and a can of an energy drink. These days things are much worse: the best one gets is a small slice of something called tofu and a glass of mineral water. It is no coincidence that, ever since sobriety and moderation became the norm, western civilisation has been in inexorable decline.

The writer and heroic drinker Kingsley Amis (1922-1995) noted that the thing he most hated to hear at dinner parties was his hostess saying, 'Shall we go straight into dinner'.

There has to be an exception, in this case it is Kamala Harris, who is reported to have got through several bottles of wine a day, the which effected in her no improvement at all. In contrast, Donald Trump, though teetotal, has a figure which betrays the love of a good snack – and the American people voted accordingly.

Yes, the days are gone when Churchill and Stalin could pass the time into the early morning hours shovelling down large quantities of the finest caviar and other delicacies, washed down with dozens of glasses of vodka. As it happens, Howard Brenton's much praised dramatisation of this episode is currently running at the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond, London (3 February to 8 March 2025 – don't bother, it's already sold out).

For his latest Churchill book, Werner Vogt has given readers an illuminating culinary biography of the global icon, richly illustrated with photos as well as attractive decorative drawings by Angelina Gruber. 'You are what you eat' – indeed. Only the best, well-portioned and frequent, for the global icon.

The Swiss connection

Swiss cooks played a major role in keeping the wartime Prime Minister supplied with the fuel he needed to carry the burden of his great task. Churchill's existence was divided between his country estate, Chartwell, 10 Downing Street and his private apartment in London.

Many of the catering staff were Swiss, so that by the end of the war the Churchills had developed a taste for Swiss gastronomy. Clementine Churchill had seemingly acquired the taste during her frequent winter holidays in St. Moritz. Vogt writes of the 'Swiss Girls': Georgina Landemare, Berta Mäder, Lilli Wyss (from whom we hear of the special place that Rösti had in the Churchills' hearts), Liselotte Kaufmann and others. In Churchill's later years a central figure was Fritz Schmied, who was requred to cope with the flood of visitors to the houses of the global icon.

Recipes from a bygone age

So it is more than appropriate that two thirds of the book consists of a hundred recipes out of the collection compiled by Georgina Landemares, Churchill's long time head cook, which she wrote in her retirement.

Days long gone, indeed! It can be said of the recipes in Georgina's cookery book that there is mercifully no trace of the later culinary nonsense that was known as nouvelle cuisine, those trying times when an expensive meal at the likes of Agnes Amberg would almost inevitably end with the deeper satisfaction of a pizza from the place round the corner. Georgina's food fed you and filled you.

There is a certain nostalgia for those glorious bygone times in which the many desserts and pastries in Georgina's repertoire gave you cheer to bear with indifference whatever the enemy might throw at you. Churchill's favourite, Vogt tells us, was Caramelköpfli, unfortunately not listed among Georgina's pudding recipes.

All in all Rösti für Winston Churchill is an accessible, thought-provoking read that will take you back to that distant country that is the past and to the great man who saved it for the future we now have – the global icon who lived, ate and drank there. The global icon as human being.

Given that the Swiss Federal Councillor responsible for Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications is called Albert Rösti, he naturally became a special recipient of the book.