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Food

Pope Francis’s Plane Food Is Way Better Than Yours

Despite claims that pizza-loving Pope Francis is under strict medical orders to eat only fish and rice, it sounds like he enjoyed one hell of an in-flight meal.
Photo via Flickr user Republic of Korea

Everyone is talking about every aspect of the Pope's current visit to the United States. Who will he meet? Where will he sleep?

But we would like to ask the following question: What does the Pope eat?

We're thinking this: For breakfast, six dozen pristinely bleached Easter eggs taken from the subterranean chamber inhabited by the actual Easter Bunny. For lunch, the Good Friday standby: lanternfish en papillote, forgoing cooking parchment for the Shroud of Turin. Dinner? Perhaps he doesn't eat dinner at all, and just breathes in one pulsating and ever-changing puff of seemingly sentient smoke.

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After hearing that the details Pope Francis's in-flight meal from his recent flight from Italy to Cuba had been released, these are just a few of the Seussian dishes our heathenly minds conjured up.

READ: The Pope Misses Going Out for Pizza More Than He Misses TV

But in actuality, the Pope was served cuisine that looks a little better than the notoriously questionable slop you get on your average domestic flight.

"For a canapé to start, there was an herbed shrimp with asparagus and a stuffed olive," People reports with obvious envy.

"Then pasta, two ways: potato ravioli with a creamy béchamel sauce, and a cheese-stuffed pasta crepe with limcello zucchini and Chinook salmon," they continue. Not bad.

Finally, "a simply sweet fruit dessert with a chocolate truffle and a crunchy chocolate Sfizio cookie."

In addition, Univision correspondent María Antonieta Collins, who travelled on the flight, brought the first Argentine Pope a box of Argentinean empanadas, which he reportedly shared with the other journalists on board.

Can this be the same Pope that everyone else is talking about? According to previous reports, the Pope—with all due respect—is no gourmand. Or at least he can't be, given doctor's orders.

The elaborate plane feast appears to be in direct contradiction with The New York Times' claim that everybody's favorite Sovereign of Vatican City is under strict medical orders to maintain a fairly ascetic diet for all dinners during his highly publicized voyage to the New and Capitalist World.

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According to the Times: "[The Pope] won't be taking advantage of the city's iconic restaurant scene: He is under doctor's orders to eat dinners of only fish and rice. And he's requested bananas and still water for his bedroom."

READ: The Pope Is Dying to Chew Coca Leaves in Bolivia

So what is the Pope eating? Does he indulge on planes only to eat like, well, a monk when he arrives on terra firma?

One thing's for sure—as a pizza aficionado, he is surely craving a classic New York slice.

Keep it Popey, people.