4,000 historic French state dinner menus up for auction

PARIS: From cooking for dictators to rushing to accommodate Barack Obama´s love of cheese -- a collection of French state dinner menus offered a unique insight into 150 years of diplomatic and gastronomic history on Wednesday.

The 4,000-plus menus were on display in Paris before going up for auction on Friday, with the oldest dating back to an imperial dinner given by Napoleon III in 1868 that carries a few wine stains from the moment.

They offer a who´s who of royalty, statesmen and dictators, from John F Kennedy and Nelson Mandela to Saddam Hussein and Vladimir Putin -- right up to the sumptuous meal at Versailles for King Charles III last year.

They were obsessively collected by a Lyons-based chef, Christophe Marguin, who has put them up for auction with the Millon auction house at estimations ranging from 10 to 1,500 euros ($1,600) per lot.