In the yearly editions of the Guinness Book of Records I read growing up in the early noughties, there was a French gentleman who fascinated me, Monsieur Mangetout. The man from Grenoble, real name Michel Lotito, gained notoriety, or some kind of fame, for eating, well, everything. Mangetout started eating metal aged 16, and ate all sorts, including a Cessna light aircraft, and the award he was given by the Guinness Book of Records for being the person with the strangest diet.
Mangetout followed a tradition of Frenchman who consume seemingly everything, with Tarrare, a late 18th century showman and soldier another example, eating it all to entertain.
