Mitchell Scholar Blogs

I love to eat. The sheer joy of sinking my teeth into steaming hot, homemade chicken enchiladas, or the mouth-watering sensation of biting into crispy corn tortilla chips dipped into fresh ceviche brings an indescribable happiness to my heart, rivaled only by my love for family and my morbidly obese cat, Marley.

And apparently I’m not alone. It turns out that people throughout the world also love to eat, especially the world’s biggest movers and shakers. Recognizing the power of food in shaping international trade and politics, governments across the globe have begun to invest in ‘culinary diplomacy,’ a tactic defined by my friend and resident expert, Sam Chapple-Sokol, as ‘the use of food and cuisine as instruments to create cross-cultural understanding in the hopes of improving interactions and cooperation.’ It reflects a recognition that food can literally bring people to the table.

Culinary diplomacy is nothing new. From the Silk Road to the French Revolution, the meals served to dignitaries, Heads of State and military leaders have often doubled as instruments for negotiations, precursors to peace, or harbingers of war. Even today, the amount of time, effort, preparation and money that goes into conceptualizing and serving a Head of State is astounding. For instance, a White House chef was once tasked with crafting a menu for visiting Japanese dignitaries. Rather than highlighting American cuisine or attempting to cook a traditional Japanese meal, the chef sought to coalesce elements from both cultures in one dish. By infusing Idaho russet potatoes with a wasabi filling, the chef subtly demonstrated respect for guests of honor and their homeland while also showcasing an American dinner staple. This is culinary diplomacy in action.

But not everyone is a Head of State boasting a sophisticated palate. For most people in the world today, food is a necessity of life, not a medium of diplomatic strategery. Yet breaking bread remains a powerful tool for cultural exchange and mutual understanding regardless of one’s income bracket or background. When we share a meal with others we inadvertently let our guards down and accept the vulnerability that accompanies the visceral act of eating. The use of food as a means of cultural exchange at the grassroots, people-to-people level is what I, and other scholars, refer to as gastrodiplomacy.

Winning the hearts and minds of people through their tummies is a popular sentiment in Ireland. Although unbeknownst to most, many Irish people engage in gastrodiplomacy each and every day. At Ulster University, where I study conflict and human rights law, I introduced the theory behind the concept of gastrodiplomacy to many of my friends in the international student department as well as local Irish students. It didn’t take much to sell the idea of a club that brings friends together over food. Together we founded the university’s first ‘Gastrodiplomacy Society’ last Fall and to date, we have hosted events that have exposed students to cuisine from countries like Romania, Poland, Germany, Brazil, the United States, India, and even Finland! For Mardi Gras, we asked students to bring the foods they typically eat on Fat Tuesday or for Carnival. Despite being a new society, we had over 50 people at our event!

In Northern Ireland, discussing the legacy of the Troubles is fraught with difficulties. This is still a country healing from the ravages of conflict, with the Commission for Victims and Survivors recently releasing a report that an estimated 500,000 people were directly affected by the thirty-years of brutal violence. In a country with 1.8 million people, that’s a significant segment of the population! However, during my short time here I have been able to forge friendships and engage in honest dialogue with individuals from all ends of the political and social spectrum, mostly because, well, I like to eat. Sharing a drink of whiskey with PSNI officers at a pub in Carrickfergus and striking up a conversation with the local baker at Central Station who feeds my sausage roll addiction has taught me more about Irish society than any lecture, conference or reading assignment. By taking the time to sit down for a meal with a friend’s family in Draperstown after feeding their newborn sheep and baby calves, I gained a new appreciation for the phrase ‘from farm to fork.’ Yet it has been precisely during such moments — while indulging in a savory roast beef from a cow raised right on their farm! — that I truly gained insight into the values and lived experiences of people in rural Northern Ireland. Over these meals, stories of the past seamlessly flow into the present, provoking greater understanding, opportunities for healing and mutual trust. This is the power (and beauty) of gastrodiplomacy!

Talk about getting a flavor for a country!

Conflict comes in every form at every level of society. Sometimes it is productive or violent, sometimes political or personal. The Good Friday Agreement forged in 1998 heralds respect from various nations as not only sustaining peace, but also its restorative, ongoing process. Just a few weeks ago, my eyes were opened to how Ireland is teaching the world to both broker peace and sustain it.

The Shades Negotiation Program gathers bright and budding Israeli and Palestinian leaders to provide negotiation and peace building skills. Through their journey of gaining a greater understanding of conflict resolution, they were able to visit Ireland and Northern Ireland. Here they gained an inside view of how the peace process took place and continues to unfold. When the group travelled to Ireland, I joined them in their meetings and discussions.

“The best way to get peace anywhere,” said one of the panelists “is to have the leaders on a deserted island sign an agreement that they must stay there until the peace agreement works,” I overheard. A chorus of laughter followed but an important takeaway came from this: a reoccurring theme of constant participation in negotiations and renewing commitments. This stood out to many of the program participants. Notably, the recent Stormont House Agreement reached at the end of 2014 demonstrates the commitment of all parties to stay involved and maintain peace.

The role of media in dealing with high-level conflict became a popular topic of conversation. A general consensus of limiting media’s knowledge and awareness of specific points within the process would evade unproductive outside forces and keep parties laser-focused on their goals. While some arguments are compelling: that they can bring parties to the table; reality-test ideas that could fail to win popular approval, and even push parties to reach a conclusion, the media’s role had too many potential issues.

This was just a taste of what panellists, participants and organizers discussed. Gleaning from the lessons learned of Ireland’s involvement in the Good Friday Agreement, many found the conversation as enlightening but inspiring. Ireland’s conflict is unique in many ways but in some ways the lessons are universal. All parties at the table had to be willing to work for peace. The peace agreement was not the end game, implementation and sustainability had to be the conclusion. Limited media interaction during the peace talks. These concepts are not, and should not, but be contained to this Island.

The Israeli-Palestine conflict is one of many ongoing conflicts across the globe that could find great value from ongoing training in problem-solving negotiations.  Ireland should continue to export these important ideas not just for regional prosperity, but for the world.

A few weekends ago I traveled with Molly to The Burren in County Clare, “out Wesht” as my Irish friends would say, for a weekend yoga retreat. The Burren is a stunning landscape made up of great sheets of limestone that lead to staggering cliffs and deep turquoise water of the Atlantic Ocean. The nearby Cliffs of Moher were featured famously as the “Cliffs of Insanity” in The Princess Bride and more recently in Harry Potter films. Growing up around Philadelphia, my only experiences with the ocean were at the Jersey shore, so I always thought the Atlantic Ocean was supposed to be a murky green-brown. Now, after seeing the Irish coast, I know that whatever New Jersey has done to the water is not normal, and I am doubly grateful for the time I get to spend by the water in Ireland.

The local farmers use the abundance of easily accessible rock to build stone walls around their fields and houses, and many of the walls have been standing for decades upon decades because the natural gaps between the rocks in the walls let the strong Irish winds pass through the walls of piled rock, instead of toppling them. During the Great Famine, the locals were hired to build roads out of the rock in exchange for food. Now known as “famine roads,” the roads and stone walls crisscross the hills of The Burren, building a visible history of the region into the landscape.

Molly and I had to take a bus, two trains and a taxi to reach the remote location of the yoga retreat, and one of our connections was in the small town of Gort. As I waited for Molly to arrive on the train after mine, I wandered into a lovely small café on the town square and had time to read a little bit about Gort, which provided an interesting snapshot of Irish history. Lady Gregory used to own a house a short distance outside of Gort, and WB Yeats would often travel to Gort to visit her. Gort and the rest of County Clare was hit especially hard by The Famine, losing almost 25% of its population to deaths and emigration. Now, Gort is home to a large Brazilian population that immigrated over for job opportunities in the area, and a Brazilian family owned the café I stopped in.

I started this new semester with a resolution to be more purposeful about how I spent my time in order to “make the most” out of my remaining months in Ireland. I enlisted for a slew of new commitments – tutoring an undergraduate public health class, volunteering with an immigrant and refugee mental health organization, auditing English classes, and planning more travels around Ireland and Europe. The past few months have flown by with my busier schedule, and I was shocked to realize that I only have five more weeks of classes before exams and full-time work on my dissertation begin. The retreat was a useful checkpoint to reflect on how I really wanted to “make the most” out of this year. It reminded me of the importance of slowing down and smelling the roses and how much I can still learn from living and studying in Ireland. Before the retreat, I was busying myself with filling my days with activities and travel plans, but now, I’m content to stay in Dublin, spend more time with friends in cozy cafes and pubs in the city, and put down roots more firmly in the country that’s now my home.