Eating Towards Empathy — And Conflict Resolution

Eating Towards Empathy — And Conflict Resolution
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Co-authored by Marc Kielburger

For many, food means more than sustenance. Social media feeds are flooded with culinary trends and Unicorn Frappuccinos while cookbooks draw on history.

Food is art. Food is community. Food is joy and cultural identity.

Increasingly, food is also state craft.

Alongside embassies, trade missions and aid, some countries are turning to food through culinary diplomacy.

Stories of history, conflict, colonization and migration are written in food. “Our daily realities are contained in it,” explains Arlene Stein, director of Terroir, an annual symposium for policymakers, business leaders and food producers. “So it only makes sense to use food to bring people together to break down barriers.”

When it comes to eating and politics, we immediately think of state dinners. Fewer recognize the grassroots efforts in kitchens of street vendors and local producers.

During a spike in violence between Israelis and Palestinians in 2015, Kobi Tzafrir, owner of Hummus Bar in Tel Aviv, offered a 50 per cent discount to Jews and Arabs who dined together.

Customers get a side of politics with their North Korean doenjang jjigae, a traditional stew, at Conflict Kitchen, the Pittsburgh food stall that serves dishes from countries the United States is in conflict with in order to build understanding.

With the end of the half-century long embargo on Cuba, New Yorkers got a head start on the cultural exchange as Cuban chefs took part in the Harlem/Havana food festival.

The governments of Taiwan and Thailand launched massive efforts to increase cultural awareness through food. Taiwan’s $30 million dim sum diplomacy saw chefs traveling the world to help differentiate Taiwanese culture from China’s, while the Global Thai program sponsored Thai restaurant openings worldwide, with each operating as an unofficial cultural embassy.

This is not to say that food is a cure-all for conflict. Greeks and Turks have fought over coffee, Irish Protestants and Catholics over whiskey, and everyone in the Middle East claims ownership over hummus. Still, some experts see great potential in culinary diplomacy as a bridge between divided nations.

Countries tend not to go to war with trading partners, and Stein sees the potential of shared tourism based on rich culinary traditions as a similar step towards conflict resolution.

There’s something all people can do: learn your local food history, explore food security and meet producers. Every dish has a story that can introduce new worlds.

Take Native American cuisine. Currently experiencing something of a renaissance in kitchens and restaurants across the country, for decades the words conjured images of “Indian Tacos”, heaps of ground beef and beans piled high a sweet, soft bread called bannock.

But this staple contains both tragedy and resilience. Dislocated from their land and their traditional hunting and fishing ways of life, Native Americans were forced to subsist on government staples like flour and lard.

So, they made bannock, and it’s morphed into a symbol of Native culture across communities, sustaining generations while telling the story of colonialism.

Whatever is on the menu, cultures and recipes come together to tell stories on our plates while they bring us together around the dinner table.

Food is politics.

Craig and Marc Kielburger are the co-founders of the WE movement, which includes WE Charity, ME to WE Social Enterprise and WE Day. For more dispatches from WE, check out WE Stories.

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