Can social anthropologists write in human prose or, is a good meal possible without "thinking" about it?

Most F(l)avored Nation Status: The Gastrodiplomacy of Japan’s Global Promotion of Cuisine - Theodore C. Bestor, publicdiplomacymagazine.com: "Japan’s UNESCO washoku campaign incorporates both external and internal goals, and illustrates some of the cultural and political dimensions that shape considerations of 'cultural heritage.' The protection and promotion of cultural heritage, as a bureaucratic process, transforms loosely coordinated cultural features—such as aesthetics, historical referents, daily life and practice, social ritual, and social hierarchy—into matters of government policy and official definition. 

Diverse cultural and social practices are moved from the realm of relatively unselfconscious daily life into bureaucratically defined categories of distinction and differentiation, projected on a global screen of cultural identities (nationally defined) and cultural politics for national recognition, as well as to promote domestic goals of cultural identity formation. ... Theodore C. Bestor is Professor of Social Anthropology and Director, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University. He has been conducting research on the Japanese seafood industry and global aspects of Japanese food culture since the late 1980s. Bestor is the author of Tsukiji: The Fish Market at the Center of the World (2004) and co-editor (with Victoria Lyon Bestor) of the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Culture and Society (2011). During 2012-13 he was President of the Association for Asian Studies."

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Thanks to the writings of a distinguished USC Center on Public Diplomacy graduate, Paul Rockower, whose blog is a must-read, cuisine -- elementary alimentation at its best -- has been elevated to a worthwhile aspect of diplomacy in the U.S. (Of course, in older, perhaps wiser countries, this is taken for granted and does not need a "Professor of Social Anthropology and Director, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University" to pontificate about it in incomprehensible academic jargon.)

Some may argue that gastrodiplomacy/culinary diplomacy is an "elitist" way of looking at international relations. I don't agree, as a person who had the privilege of serving our country for over twenty years (mostly in Eastern Europe) as a diplomat during the Cold War.

My most "effective" diplomacy at that time, I would say, was sharing ideas -- while enjoying a tastefully-prepared, not especially fancy, meal, with interlocutor(s), by no means gluttons, who questioned totalitarianism. And with some who didn't.

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Of course, the simpler and less extravagant diplomatic culinary encounters (while keeping their taste and elegance), the better.

That is the challenge of dedicated chefs handling "culinary diplomacy."

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And, last but not least, let's not forget the "give me money, that's what I want" mentality of  "hard soft public diplomacy" guru Professor Philip Seib (he was the Director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy but never actually served as a diplomat, public or otherwise):

"Money is a wonderful thing. Qatar has plenty of it and is putting it to use in its expanded public diplomacy. With wealth ... Qatar is becoming a new kind of superpower."

Bon Appetit, Professor Philip Seib. Hope you enjoy your Qatar dollar (better than mommy's overcooked spinach, right?).

Oh, before I forget (or have indigestion), here's the good Dr. Phil about having a good meal: :

cutesy projects such as "gastrodiplomacy," which may produce a few newspaper articles about the virtues of kimchi or mushy peas ... are unlikely to have any lasting effect on their audience.

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