aucegypt.edu
image from entry, with caption: Fresco of Shah Abbas I receiving Vali Muhammad Khan, Chehel Sotoun Palace, Isfahan, circa 1657.
Rachel Laudan
Extracts:
In April prior to the Expo Milano 2015, Secretary of State John Kerry gathered the chefs who would represent America at the world fair. “You can make connections around the dinner table you can’t around the conference table,” he told them. In 2012, the State Department had formed a Diplomatic Culinary Partnership with the James Beard Foundation, proclaiming that chefs would “elevate the role of culinary engagement in America’s formal and public diplomacy efforts.”
Such nods to the kitchen seem quaint in light of history’s deep association between cuisine and politics. From the earliest empires, a ruler had to eat and drink to maintain his personal prowess, gather his strength for battle, ensure his virility in bed, and outperform those who aspired to his throne, all the while making sure his enemies did not poison him. ...
Although American state dinners have most frequently been French, they have always been modest by historical standards. And the Barack Obama administration’s Diplomatic Culinary Partnership continues the move from historical precedent by choosing, for diplomacy, the culinary traditions of the United States.
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