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Culinary diplomacy


Culinary diplomacy, also known as gastrodiplomacy, is a type of cultural diplomacy, which itself is a subset of public diplomacy. Its basic premise is that "the easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach." Official government-sponsored culinary diplomacy programs have been established in Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Peru, and the United States.

The terms "culinary diplomacy" and "gastrodiplomacy" have been in use since the early 2000s, and have been popularized by the work of public diplomacy scholars Paul Rockower and Sam Chapple-Sokol. An early mention of the concept was in a 2002 Economist article about the Thai Kitchen of the World program. In a 2011 article published in the Taiwanese journal Issues & Studies, Rockower wrote that "Gastrodiplomacy is predicated on the notion that the easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach." Chapple-Sokol wrote in a 2013 article in the journal The Hague Journal of Diplomacy that culinary diplomacy is "the use of food and cuisine as an instrument to create cross-cultural understanding in the hopes of improving interactions and cooperation."

The two terms "culinary diplomacy" and "gastrodiplomacy" are used interchangeably by many, though some scholars have differentiated the terms. Rockower, for example, claims that gastrodiplomacy refers to a tool of public diplomacy, while culinary diplomacy serves as "a means to further diplomatic protocol through cuisine." Chapple-Sokol writes that both of these fall under the broad categorization of "culinary diplomacy," and differentiates between public and private culinary diplomacy. The former refers to culinary diplomacy being used as a tool of public diplomacy, and more specifically cultural diplomacy, while the latter "occurs behind closed doors," akin to Rockower's definition.

The Global Thai program, launched in 2002, was the first government-led culinary diplomacy initiative. Its intention was to build the number of Thai restaurants worldwide; according to the Thai government, the number went from 5,500 in 2002 to more than 10,000 in 2013, as well as to encourage more people worldwide to eat Thai cuisine.

That program was followed by Thailand: Kitchen of the World, an eBook published to promote the program states the following:


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