The great conclave secret: What do would-be popes eat?

This past week, travellers in Rome may have spotted cardinals frequenting their favourite restaurants. Just before the last papal election in 2013, Italian media reported that many of these men were making the time to visit a particular neighbourhood favourite, Al Passetto di Borgo, a family-run eatery located 200m from Saint Peter’s Basilica, where Cardinal Donald William Wuerl is known to order the lasagna and Francesco Coccopalmerio (allegedly the most-voted Italian cardinal in 2013) likes the grilled squid.

Cardinals may feel some urgency to get in a good meal or two because, during the conclave beginning on 7 May, in which 135 cardinals will hold a secret election for a new pope in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, they’ll be entirely secluded from the rest of the world for an indefinite period of time. Voting, sleeping and eating all take place in tightly controlled sequestration.

Papal conclaves are notoriously secretive affairs. The cardinals are secured in a single shared space with no messages allowed in or out, except for the smoke signalling whether a vote has been successful. White smoke signals a new pope and black means another vote is required to reach the two-thirds-plus-one consensus required to crown a new pontiff. What precisely occurs in these conclaves is unknown, but one thing is certain: the cardinals must eat over the days or weeks it takes to elect the new leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics.

But with provisions going in and out, how is the secrecy of the conclave maintained? How can the cardinals ensure the integrity of the vote, unaffected by outside opinion?

Historically, food has presented a potential risk: a cardinal’s ravioli might be stuffed with an illicit message from the kitchen staff; or a cardinal could sneak a vote update to the outside world with a dirty napkin. However, communal eating is also one of the contexts in which furtive negotiations can take place. Recent pop culture representations have made the most of this, using conclave food culture to create a heightened sense of suspicion, intrigue and control.

Take the 2024 film Conclave, where almost all the plot points occur not in the voting chambers, but in the cafeteria. The noisy meals contrast with the almost entirely silent conclave proper, which proceeds without formal debates. The otherwise silent voting is only sparingly punctuated by moments of ritual speech, like the audible oath a cardinal takes as he drops his voting card into the ballot urn. Still, around the ceremonial silence is a great deal of communication, much of which happens with and via food. And while we can’t assume that the film faithfully depicts what happens behind closed doors, it is no doubt true that in papal food culture – as in culture more broadly – what you eat, how you eat and with whom you eat speaks volumes.

The code of conclave secrecy goes back to 1274, when Pope Gregory X established the regulations that still partly dictate how papal elections are run today. As with the coronation of many popes, his was controversial. It also had the distinction of being by far the longest, taking almost three years (1268-1271) to reach the majority consensus required to appoint a new pope. According to Italian canonist Henricus de Segusio, who served in that conclave, local residents threatened to restrict the cardinals’ food to hasten a resolution.