Sunday, December 3, 2017

Of Obama’s dal and foodporn


Renuka Bisht, blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com; see also.

On his latest visit to India a big local favorite Barack Obama won himself even more fans by declaring himself totally au courant with local food. He had the audience in splits by bragging that not only was he the only American president to have had his own recipe for dal, he also did a good keema and ok chicken. He seems to have become really familiar with this cuisine thanks to his Indian and Pakistani roommates in college, or more correctly thanks to their mums who seem to have taught young Obama well although; kudos to him too for having been a super attentive student, evidently.
Of course this delicious  story also has a bigger lesson, that these kinds of bonds, the little people to people intimacies, are no less important in building tomorrow’s world than the more formal relations between their governments.
Gradually academia is also paying more attention to gastrodiplomacy: how food is a part of international relations, helping foster cultural understanding between otherwise disjoined peoples. A 2014 issue of the Public Diplomacy magazine is devoted to the matter. Taking off from how countries such as South Korea, Thailand, and Malaysia are leveraging their heritage of food to enhance trade, investments, tourism and soft power, it argues that this form of edible nation branding is a growing trend in public diplomacy. Social media of course lends ever more momentum to this trend. Hashtagging foodporn seems to be making folks more adventurous and open-minded. Dinners by Instagram are nourishing cross-country relationships every second of everyday.

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