Pope Francis starts his day at 4.15am, is a dab hand at making paella and once
gave a baby a dummy dipped in whisky to stop it crying, a new book has
revealed.
The Jesuit Pope
rises before dawn, has a shower and a shave, and then starts the day
with a cup of his beloved "maté" – a caffeine-rich, tea-like
beverage from his native Argentina.
He loves cooking and is used to preparing meals for himself from when he was
archbishop of Buenos Aires, according to a new biography by an Italian-born,
Argentine journalist, Elisabetta Piqué.
"He always cooked fantastic paella for us," Angel Rossi, a Jesuit
priest, told the journalist, whose book, Francis: Life and Revolution,
is published this past week.
The South American pontiff has managed to teach the chefs at Casa Santa Marta,
the Vatican
guesthouse where he chose to live in favour of the much grander
Apostolic Apartments, how to prepare his favourite dessert – a sweet milk
pudding called "dulce de leche".
The book is based on interviews with Pope Francis by Ms Piqué, 46, who has
known him since 2001.
The book includes recollections from friends and relatives of Jorge Mario
Bergoglio, as he was known before becoming Pope.
His nephew and godson recalled the future pontiff using unconventional means
to stop him crying as a baby.
"My parents told me that when I cried he dipped my dummy in wine or
whisky to calm me," said the nephew, also called Jorge.
An old friend, Oscar Crespo, said that he and the future pontiff would go out
tango dancing as teenagers in the hope of meeting girls.
"We used to go dancing at the clubs in the Chacarita district (of Buenos
Aires) because there were a lot of girls," he said. "Jorge was
going out with one of them".
But by his mid-teens the future pontiff had decided that he wanted to become a
priest and had to end the relationship.