YUGOSLAVIA: Pig’s Head & Caviar

When Marshal Tito was a boy, he and his six brothers and sisters lived in two rooms. “Often there was not enough bread,” he wrote later. “One feast day our parents went somewhere . . . We were hungry. Up in a garret hung a smoked pig’s head we were keeping for the New Year. My brothers and sisters were crying, so I brought the head down and dropped it into a pan of boiling water. I added a bit of flour and cooked it for an hour or two. What a feast we had! But the meal was so greasy that we all became sick.”

Last week, dressed in a gold-incrusted field marshal’s uniform trimmed with red and made of the finest gabardine, Comrade Tito stood on rich, oriental rugs in the courtyard of Belgrade’s grand White Palace and happily awaited his homage. Relay runners from all over the land were speeding gifts and eulogies for his 62nd birthday. As Tito waited, a U.S. correspondent remarked that he certainly didn’t look his age.

“How old do I look?” said Tito with interest.

“Well, I’d say about 50,” the correspondent replied.

“That’s too old,” the marshal said and turned away, a large diamond flashing on his left hand.

Down the broad avenue lined with pink-blossomed chestnut trees came the runners, ending 3½ months of relay races that had sent 1,500,000 Yugoslavs churning 100,000 kilometers. They gasped to a halt before the marshal, and as the nation listened by radio, he took his due from Yugoslavia’s mountaineers—a green marble marshal’s baton topped with edelweiss; from others—elaborately carved batons of metal and wood.

Then Tito waved his arm and invited his well-wishers to follow him. There, in the private dining room of the White Palace, a feast was spread: black caviar from the Danube, pâté de foie gras, lobsters, cold chicken, boned and in aspic, spring lamb, cold meats, fish, cakes, fruit, salads and—for drinking—weak Martinis, slivovitz, beer and white wine. Afterwards, the party watched entertainment on the lawn until rain forced them all inside. Tito spread rugs on the floors for the gymnasts and went around patting little girls on their heads and lining them up for the dancing. The palace shook with the whirling, prancing and tumbling. Boys stood on tiptoe combing the rain from their hair in front of magnificent mirrors. What a feast they all had!