Most members of the animal kingdom’s lives are consumed by food—the hunt to find it, the struggle to not become it. Our ape ancestors spent 80% of the day chewing. While civilization freed us from such shackles—only about 5% of our time today is spent eating—food remains arguably our most important input, influencing our mood, immune system, sex drive, skin, energy, and health. 

In my opinion, the best way to learn about a culture is to eat their food. Could we say the same about a human? Biographers sketch extensive portraits of their subjects but often overlook the food they ate. Similarly, while international scholars furiously study world leaders like Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, they often neglect to examine their plates—the foods that determine, possibly more than anything else, the temperaments of history’s shapers.

I would not make such a mistake. I decided to become a gastrojournalist, fractionally fusing with my subjects by replicating their stomach contents for a day. Perhaps by eating their food I could understand their minds. And I did—I discovered how Trump’s massive McDonalds order is actually a potent source of energy, how Putin’s diet contributes to the man’s hardiness, and why North Korean cold noodles likely inflame Kim’s appetite for foreign foods. 

Donald Trump

In his book, Let Trump Be Trump, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski revealed Trump’s go-to McDonald’s order: “two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.” This peculiar and massive order caused much guffawing and revulsion in the media—2,430 calories total, what a joke!

Some journalists even decided to eat the meal themselves, ending up bloated and groaning, like a beached whale: “I did it, but at what cost? I find it hard to focus on any task at hand, and I feel rather sweaty,” wrote one. But, classically, they overlooked the most crucial aspect of the meal—Trump removes the buns. 

“He never ate the bread, which is the important part,” Lewandoski elaborated on CNN. Each bun is 150 calories, meaning that by discarding them, Trump dodges 10 pieces of bread (each Big Mac has a 3-part bun) and approximately 750 calories. Lewandowski also said that Trump only ate once, and at the conclusion of the day, meaning that his total daily caloric consumption was only about 1,700 calories.

I resolved to eat Trump’s McDonald’s order the right way. I visited a nearby franchise and brought the meal home. I first tried the Filet-O-Fishes. Lewandowski has been ambiguous in how Trump consumes them, alternately implying that he eats them with the bun, with no bun, or only half a bun, so I ate one sandwich in full and removed the top bun of the other. 

I next dove into the Big Macs. I first removed all the buns, six in total. I grimly flashed back to my time on the Alaskan frontier eating the “Denali Mac,” a secret regional menu item with supersized beef patties and extra special sauce. Trump’s order, in uncharacteristic fashion, goes the opposite direction, stripping the burger of its empty carbs. I grabbed a fork and knife and began shoveling forkfuls of breadless Big Mac into my mouth.

The naked Big Macs retained their flavor and were easy to chow. Sometimes, there would be so much lettuce and cucumber on my fork that it actually tasted like…a Big Mac salad. This was “Paleo Mcdonald’s”: vegetables, cheese, beef, and fish, washed down with a chocolate shake.

After finishing, I didn’t feel tired or overstuffed. Removing the bread made a big difference. But it was still fast food. The meal gave me an unsettling buzz, as if a coffee percolator was gasping in my gut. I felt vaguely aggressive and slightly twitchy. Like I was ready to jump onstage and whip up the masses into an angry froth.

In Trump’s world, we often learn that there is a method to the madness. The nicknames, the Tweets, and the McDonald’s order—while unsavory—all serve a purpose. 2 Big Macs, 2 Filet-O-Fishes, and a chocolate shake may sound like a caloric atomic bomb, but removing the carbs make it a lighter meal than most McDonald’s combos, while still providing enough red meat and processed sugar to make one want to beat their chest and cause chaos in the Western world. 

Vladimir Putin

Putin is a ruthless autocrat, but he may be the most rational leader on this list. In contrast to Trump’s instinctual barrages, or Kim Jong Un’s Napoleon complex, Putin adheres to a geostrategy aimed at restoring the glory of the Soviet Union—and, more mystically, the Mongol Empire—using the principles articulated in Aleksandr Dugin’s 1997 tome Foundation of Geopolitics.

Putin loves to build his legend, and has been filmed “beating” opponents in judo, “discovering” ancient urns under the Black Sea, “leading” a group of endangered birds to safety on a hang glider, and saving a camera crew from a “wild" tiger. Naturally, the Kremlin depicts similar machismo in his eating habits, for example this video showing him lifting weights before grilling steaks for breakfast. 

Over the years, Putin has let slip his favorite foods: he prefers fish, enjoys cucumbers and tomatoes, and drinks raw quail eggs. He loves the fermented milk drink kefir—“when you want to discuss something with him, you wait [for] his arrival at the kitchen table for his evening glass of kefir,” his wife once said. And his absolute favorite dish is pistachio ice cream, which he has gifted to world leaders in the past.

I decided to create a menagerie of Putin’s favorite foods, along with a steak for breakfast. Of course, many such foods are not found in the Western grocery store! I visited a Russian supermarket in Brooklyn to buy the quail eggs, kefir, and Russian-style fish.

Upon rousing the next day, to give my morning a distinctly Russian character, I did a kettlebell workout. The kettlebell is a Soviet-era steel ball brought to the United States by Russian trainer Pavel Tsatsouline, who once wrote: “Vodka at night. Pickle juice in the morning (the best thing for a hangover). Throwing some kettlebells around…A Russian’s day well spent.” 

After 100 kettlebell swings, it was time to cook the steak. I normally eat my steak blue (extra-rare), but the thick tissue of my ribeye cut demanded a medium-rare sear. While I let the steak rest, I cracked the quail eggs, chopped the cucumbers and tomatoes, warmed the fish, poured the kefir, and uncovered the pistachio ice cream.

I sat down and surveyed the plates in front of me, like I imagine Putin surveys the vast reserves of the Russian homeland. I picked at each dish in a clockwise manner, admiring their essence, grunting and nodding.

All of Putin’s foods have a similar quality—simple but subtle, with a touch of exquisiteness. They verge on fulfillment but veer off: the kefir is intoxicating but not sweet, the delicate quail yolks are dissolved quickly, the fish is slightly bitter, the pistachio ice cream is more nutty than sugary. The food is a feast, but also feels like an exercise in self-restraint. 

I felt strong and good after the meal. Unlike Trump’s fast food, which made me feel aggrieved, Putin’s meal filled me with the desire to swing my muscles around, to accomplish physical feats, to be an outdoorsman. I went for a walk in Prospect Park, my mind blooming with ideas, whispers of Russian in my head—admiring the birds, the fish, the beautiful landscape that so reminded me of the Old Country! I even began dancing to the faraway sound of a flute. 

Kim Jong Un

Kim Jong Un, like the nation he rules, is shrouded in secrecy. Whereas America’s split media takes turns denigrating incumbent Presidents, and Russia’s media belligerently embellishes theirs, North Korea chooses to shield Kim from the outside world. Reports of his diet do trickle out, revealing a despot who—while his people starve—fattens himself with late Roman levels of decadence, consuming Emmental cheese, sushi, shark fin soup, Kobe steak, caviar, lobster, Brazilian coffee, and Russian vodka.

It’s hard to discern exactly what Kim Jong Un’s favorite dish is, but he does eat one thing in common with his citizens: mul naengmeyon, or cold noodles. Thin buckwheat noodles are soaked in chilled broth and topped with slices of cucumber, beef, and Asian pear. The noodles surged in popularity after Kim and his South Korean counterpart, Moon Jae-in, ate them during the 2018 Korean summit.

I’ve wanted to try naengmyeon for a while. If they couldn’t help me totally understand Kim, at least I could better understand his countrypeople. I assumed naengmeyon were cold because North Korea lacked heating, but one has to boil the noodles and have access to refrigeration to cook them, which means that their temperature is likely a response to the hot and humid summers of the Korean peninsula. 

I must confess, especially to any Koreans readers, that I likely butchered this meal. As someone who grew up eating every type of East Asian cooking, my culinary instincts in that domain are normally correct. But my naengmyeon dish was a Frankenstein of packaged cold noodles from the Korean store and online recipes.

Still, my noodles had the essential ingredients: iced buckwheat noodles topped with boiled beef, pickled cucumbers, crushed seaweed, hardboiled egg, and kimchi, served with hot mustard and rice vinegar. The dish was surprisingly refreshing, with the mustard adding a nice kick. Parts of it, though, felt paltry; the pieces of beef swimming in ice were quite dreary.

To be honest, this was no food for a dictator. Ice-cold noodles, while certainly a warm-weather treat, are more of a delicacy than sustenance. My stomach full but not satisfied, I began craving roasted duck, salmon sushi, chocolate donuts, stinky cheeses, and other foods rich in fat and sugar. While it would be just for Kim to only eat cold noodles forevermore, after trying his country’s signature dish—with all due respect—I now understand why he feasts on other fare.

Follow Zachary Emmanuel on Twitter.