Dedicated readers of the Culinary Diplomacy blog,
It’s been far too long since I’ve posted here, so I thought I’d start a new tradition for 2014: a semi-periodic roundup of insightful, relevant, and interesting links (or they may be asinine and irrelevant, but hopefully still interesting). Many of these I’ve tweeted about (@culinarydiplo) but here they are with a little more editorial than the Twittalitarian 140 characters allow.
- Local, Global Charities Help Feed the Hungry (The Washington Diplomat, by Larry Luxner, January 2014 edition)
- DC Central Kitchen, the amazing community kitchen located in downtown Washington DC, hosted a group of ambassadors from around the world to engage in some pre-Thanksgiving community service, culinary diplomacy-style. They spent two hours cooking Thanksgiving meals, learning how their own embassies could reach out to the DC community. The meal was co-hosted by the State Department Office of the Chief of Protocol.
- Culinary diplomacy quote of the article, courtesy of Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack: “You [ambassadors] can help make their day just a bit brighter by the work that you do. They, in turn, might learn something about the country you come from. You are obviously a conduit through which information about your country is transmitted to Americans.”
- Quand les diplomates passent à table (Le Temps, by Véronique Zbinden, January 6, 2014) [text in French, and may be behind paywall, but I’ll work on posting a free translation here with the author’s permission]
- Le Temps, the Swiss newspaper, interviewed a colleague of mine, the scholar Alessandra Roversi (follow her @il_fritto_misto) about her work in the field of culinary diplomacy. She recently completed her Master’s degree at the Università Degli Studi de Scienze Gastronomiche, or the University of Gastronomic Sciences, in Bra, Italy, and wrote a fascinating thesis on culinary diplomacy and gastrodiplomacy.
- So says Le Temps: «La nourriture est aussi une forme de «soft power», constatent désormais les chercheurs.» (“Food is also a form of ‘soft power,’ researchers now find.”) Those researchers? Well, Alessandra, Paul Rockower, Mary Jo Pham, and … me!
- Tehran foodies flock to American-style burger joints (Washington Post, by Jason Rezaian, January 4, 2014)
- Although burgers and fries may not be the American food about which we’re proudest, the combo does certainly embody American cuisine as our best known culinary export. Apparently upscale Tehranis are embracing burger joints, and have started frequenting places like The Garage Grill, BurgerLand, and BurgerHouse.
- Says Arash Farhadpout-Shirazi, co-owner of Garage Grill, “Our concept is purely American: burgers and cars.” Gastrodiplomacy meets gasoline-diplomacy in Tehran.
- Swede-iopian Recipe Roundup (Chef Marcus Samuelsson’s website, January 14, 2014)
- Well, this isn’t news per se, but Chef Marcus Samuelsson has an interesting multi-national background, born Ethiopian and raised Swedish, which combine to inform his “Swede-iopian” cooking. None of the recipes here really strike me as particularly Swede-iopian (I was thinking more along the lines of Surströmming Wat with Rye Injera), but the concept is there.
- Reminds me of a new idea in fusion restaurants, New York’s Shalom Japan, from owners Aaron Israel and Sawako Okochi. Dishes like lox/rice/avocado/roe sounds quite good, but okonomiyake with corned lamb’s tongue and sauerkraut may be pushing the concept too far.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned @culinarydiplo, and I’ll post here again when the floodgates just can’t contain the deluge of culinary diplomacy news that is certain to cascade through the world in coming weeks.