Visiting a restaurant of national cuisine gives the people of a country the opportunity to experience, at least in taste, other cultures without visiting them in person, and in this sense food constitutes a tool for projecting a country abroad. In interstate relations, food becomes a tool of influence and is connected with soft power through a nation’s brand, tourism, agriculture, cultural tradition, entertainment, and commerce. This policy is summarized in the practice of cultural diplomacy, also known as gastrodiplomacy, which, although an old practice, has not been sufficiently studied in the framework of interstate relations.
Although in the Gorgias, Plato classifies cooking among the pseudo-arts, judging that it promotes the desire for indulgence,[1] nevertheless, quite a few times, the offering of a dinner has been the occasion to smooth political or personal differences between political or military rivals and to calm spirits through the building of relations of emotional closeness.
Achilles’ meal with Priam
For example, in the Iliad, Achilles, addressing Priam, King of Troy, responds to his request to take back the dead body of his son Hector:
“Old man, as you longed for, your son is now loosed and lies on the bed; and in the morning you will see him, to take him away with you. And now let us dine, old man, let us reflect.”[2]
In this invitation to Priam, one can discern Achilles’ exhortation to the King of Troy to share the dinner with him, as well as his intention that they reflect upon the losses of their relatives and heal their wounds from the painful events of the war. For this reason, Achilles recounts the story of Niobe, paralleling the life of the grieving mother with that of Priam, with the primary aim of consoling him for the death of Hector.
A little further down, Homer presents Priam confessing to Achilles:
“A bite of bread, a sip of wine I had not put to this mouth, until you made me dine with you.”[3]
Thus, the dinner symbolically constitutes the beginning of a moratorium[4] through which both sides attempt to soothe the pain of mourning, reconcile themselves with their common fate, and accept the death of their relatives, appeasing on both sides the negative feelings of war.
Culinary Diplomacy: Food as a means of exercising power
Within the framework of interstate relations, gastronomy may take the form either of hard power (embargoes and halting the provision of food through trade), or of soft power (humanitarian aid, the organization of receptions and banquets and international conferences).[5]
“The power of food can also be found in its absence.”
A particularly characteristic example of the use of food as a means of coercion and compulsion (hard power) in international relations is the blockade of Berlin’s food supply by the Soviets in June 1948. Conversely, America’s response to the Soviet blockade, with the creation of a Berlin supply network (“Operation Vittles” or “The Big Lift”), constitutes an example of the use of food as a tool of soft power.
Hunger strikes
Yet the power of food does not lie exclusively in its content; at times it can also be found in its absence. When the voluntary abstention from food, whether related to fasting or to hunger strikes, is connected to religious, social, or political demands, then food—and its lack—acquires symbolic power through which people spread ideas and defend values.
Such examples are the hunger strikes of members of the Suffragette movement at the beginning of the 20th century for women’s right to vote, the hunger strike of Bobby Sands during the 1980s, the members of the Red Army Faction (RAF) during the 1970s, or even more recently, the hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, as well as that of the Kurds over the detention conditions of former PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.[6]
Governments aim to spread messages internationally through the promotion of national cuisine,[7] since food is connected with the political and economic power as well as the national identity of a people.[8]
The rules of behavior during a meal, the very ritual of a meal, dietary prohibitions and taboos, the type of food consumed, as well as the serving or presentation of it at the table, are acts of culture and stem from the tradition and heritage of a people, revealing the way in which members of a community are connected to one another.
In this sense, behind people’s dietary choices lies an entire system of principles, values, and feelings that compose the collective identity of a society.
Petros D. Kapsaskis is Doctor of Cultural Diplomacy and President of the Hellenic Institute of Cultural Diplomacy.
[1] Beardsley Monroe C. (1989). History of Aesthetic Theories, trans. D. Kourtovik, P. Christodoulidis. Athens, Nefeli Editions, (pp. 31–32).
[2] Homer, Iliad, Rhapsody Ω, Hector’s ransom, (pp. 598–601).
[3] Ibid. (pp. 641–642).
[4] Achilles promises an eleven-day truce for the burial of Hector’s body.
[5] Reynolds, C. J. (2010). “Tipping the Scales: A New Understanding of Food’s Power in the Political Sphere.” International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 5(7): (pp. 295–304).
[6] Deutsche Welle. (2019, May 27). End of Kurds’ hunger strike over Öcalan. Available here: https://www.dw.com/el/τέλος-της-απεργίας-πείνας-κούρδων-λόγω-οτσαλάν/a-48896200
[7] Chapple-Sokol, S. (2013). “Culinary diplomacy: Breaking bread to win hearts and minds.” The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, 8(2), (pp. 161–183).
[8] Guerrón-Montero, C. (2004). “Afro-Antillean cuisine and global tourism.” Food, Culture & Society, 7(2), (pp. 29–47).
