Content area
Full Text
INTRODUCTION
Public diplomacy is a field predicated on the communication of policy, culture and values to foreign publics; gastrodiplomacy is the act of winning hearts and minds through stomachs. Existing at the intersection of food and foreign policy, gastrodiplomacy uses a country's culinary delights as a means to conduct public diplomacy and to raise nation brand awareness. In creating a more robust nation brand through increased culinary and cultural awareness, gastrodiplomacy helps to increase soft power - the power of attraction. Gastrodiplomacy is a form of public diplomacy that combines cultural diplomacy, culinary diplomacy and nation branding to make foreign culture tangible to the taste and touch.
Good public diplomacy pays attention to local culture to find ways to share something foreign; gastrodiplomacy introduces culture through more familiar access points such as the sense of taste. It offers foreign publics a manner in which to interact with different cultures from the friendly confines of a restaurant, or even in the home with a bit of cultural diplomacy to go. Gastrodiplomacy helps familiarize the foreign - especially for certain publics who are more reluctant to travel - and, thus, through culinary experiences such audiences discover other parts of the world.
In this article, the author offers a theoretical working definition of 'gastrodiplomacy', as a public diplomacy pursuit, in comparison to 'culinary diplomacy' as a means to further diplomatic protocol through cuisine. The article examines what ingredients go into successful gastrodiplomacy campaigns. Furthermore, the article examines gastrodiplomacy campaigns conducted by a variety of nations who are enticing foreign publics to experience new cultures through food. Ultimately, this article seeks to link gastrodiplomacy with broader foreign policy objectives - in essence, how gastrodiplomacy increases the awareness of foreign publics toward a country's culture and cuisine, and thus converts soft power resources into enhanced nation brand awareness.
INGREDIENTS FOR GASTRODIPLOMACY
If, as the famous food critic James Beard stated, 'food is our common ground, a universal experience', then gastrodiplomacy seeks to build on the universality of that experience by deepening understanding of foreign cultures through enticing audiences to experience cultural diplomacy at the taste buds. Gastrodiplomacy appreciates the manner in which, Wilson (2011) notes, 'food can function as a non-threatening way to gain favor among and make a...