Building bridges, real or virtual, is a first step toward bringing communities together. In Israel, as in other parts of the world that have been affected by conflicts, food has become the essential ingredient that can be used as a tool for dialogue. Sure, there are foods that have been associated with conflict in the Middle East – from who owns hummus to who invented the dolma – but coming around a table is the preferred way to resolve differences in a part of the world that has seen too much violence over the last decades.
In this podcast that I recorded with Mitchell Davis, host of What’s Burning?I discussed the power of gastrodiplomacy to give people a chance to use food as tool of social identity and culture. After all, we are what we eat. There is no better way for people to teach others about their culture than by whetting the palate with new flavors and bringing the diner to another country just by consuming different foods.
In a world where we continue to experience conflicts that impact global food security it is important to recognize the role that food can play in supporting people affected by war. The ongoing war in Ukraine, one of six breadbaskets on this planet, we see the impact of the weaponization of food through the Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports. These aggressive actions have created spikes in food prices around the world. Withholding grain from the international markets has also resulted in enormous suffering in certain countries like Egypt, Ethiopia, and Lebanon, who rely on Ukraine’s wheat for their daily bread. But we have also seen the way a community of chefs and citizens have come to the aid of those in the war zone by building community kitchens. World Central Kitchen and its affiliates from the outset of conflict in February 2022 have worked to provide food for refugees fleeing Ukraine, and while also supplying cities across Ukraine with daily meals where people urgently needed to eat.
My work focuses on the nexus of food and conflict. I hope that after listening to this podcast you will gain a better understanding of why using the lens of food, you can see why it is both a driver of conflict and means to build bridges across the issues that divide us in 2023.
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