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What does one eat while discussing world hunger?

Answering that question is a surprisingly delicate task when feeding world leaders gathered this week at the United Nations Food Summit in Rome.

At the 2002 summit, also held in Rome, The Times of London reported that attendees dined on foie gras on toast with kiwi fruit, lobster in vinaigrette, fillet of goose with olives and compote of fruit with vanilla.

This year, the menu is somewhat more modest, part of an effort to avoid controversy - although if optics were really the issue, they could have kept the foie gras and got rid of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe.

For lunch yesterday, the assembled dignitaries ate vol-au-vent, or puff pastry, stuffed with sweet corn and mozzarella, as well as pasta with pumpkin and shrimp, veal meatballs with cherry tomatoes and a fruit salad with ice cream.

Today's lunch will reportedly include cheese mousse, pasta, green beans and pineapple. Tomorrow, guests will eat a zucchini tart, Parmesan risotto, ragout of veal with potatoes and lemon mousse with strawberry sauce.

An official with the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, which hosts the summit, told the Times that "it does not look good if leaders discussing global starvation are seen to be dining lavishly."

The summit's guest list includes some heads of state, including Japan's Yasuo Fukuda and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, Britain's secretary of state for international development Douglas Alexander, and Canada's ambassador to Italy, Alex Himelfarb, are also attending.

At the summit's opening, UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for an increase in food production and urged his guests to help feed 862 million hungry people around the world.

"Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when it is man-made," he said. "It breeds anger, social disintegration, ill health and economic decline."