culinary diplomacy

Image of a feast by Rawpixel.com via freepik.com

CPD Research Fellow Elisabeth King looks at both high-level culinary diplomacy and everyday gastrodiplomacy to foster understanding between hostile communities.

Photo via Unsplash

This video interview recounts a U.S. State Department-led collaboration between two chefs—one American, one Pakistani—that resulted in a miniseries for a popular Pakistani TV food network.

For a majority of Indians living in metropolitans, a meal at a restaurant consists of the usual Chinese, Italian and American fare with Japanese food presumably lying somewhere at the bottom of the list of preferred cuisines. However, if Prime Minister Narendra Modi has his way, gastronomic delights from the land of the rising sun will enthrall the tastebuds of more and more Indians with the PM inviting Japanese business community to open more restaurants chains throughout the country.

On Monday evening, members of the Philadelphia, Chinese and Mexican communities got together to have dinner with some of the city's Mummers. As the latest in a string of after-hours, invitation-only dinners, they each prepared a dish unique to their culture. A Chinese chef demonstrated how to make pork dumplings, traditionally made for Chinese New Year. The Mummers shared their own New Year's tradition, made with the same meat: an Italian stuffed pork loin. Rocco Gallelli demonstrated how to make an Italian stuffed pork loin.

Chef Dicky Cheung is the former co-owner/chef of Golden Willow Chinese Restaurant in Concord. [...] The good news is that Chef Dicky hasn’t hung up his apron just yet. Since his retirement, he has been volunteering his kitchen mastery “wok-ing” to help various nonprofit organizations raise money for worth causes. [...] The Concord Ambassadors organization was established in 1974 when executives representing Concord and Kitakami, Japan, met in Concord to draw up a charter of lasting friendship between the two cities. 

The Thai Ambassador said: “The Royal Thai Embassy is very pleased to work with Serena Hotel to present authentic and Halal Thai food to Pakistani guests. Thailand is famous for excellence in food and for its wonderful cultural heritage as well as the amazing cultural performances. The Royal Thai Embassy in Islamabad hopes that everyone will enjoy authentic Thai cuisine and the very lively performances by the professional cultural troupe from Thailand.”

President Trump's hard-to-swallow travel ban has sparked a new series of local culinary tours and restaurant maps showcasing food from the seven affected countries. The new offerings were cooked up by a collective of fund-raising foodies who came together last weekend and named themselves Breaking Bread NYC.

The UAE and India have enjoyed historic and cultural ties for over 350 years. As both nations share centuries-old ties of commerce, culture and kinship, the UAE has derived a number of cultural elements from India. Most significant was the food. If there's no Indian meal in the modern Emirati house - which rarely happens - there's Emirati food influenced from India. Chicken machboos, for example, is similar to the Indian chicken biryani, which is widely popular among Emiratis.

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