- Hello, I'm Erinn Tucker coming to you
from the LG Digital Studio at Georgetown University,
School of Continuing Studies.
In focus today, culinary diplomacy.
I'm joined by Lauren Bernstein,
founder and CEO of the Culinary Diplomacy Project.
Welcome Lauren.
- Thank you, thank you so much for having me today.
- Great.
When we think about an approach culinary diplomacy,
how do you pretty much define that?
- Culinary diplomacy is essentially using food
as a tool to connect cultures.
It's a way to better understand each other
through our food and our traditions in our cuisine.
There are some definitions that include sort of
this overarching theme of culinary diplomacy.
There's a gentleman named Sam Chapple-Sokol
who has done a lot of research and writing on this topic
and he basically says there are three pillars,
which I agree with.
You have the government to government diplomacy
and that's your formal exchange through food.
Maybe high level dinners like a state dinner or state lunch
where you showcase food of your culture
to host and connect with the visiting culture.
There's the government to foreign public pillar
which is essentially what we did
with the culinary diplomacy program at the state department
which is one government reaching out to the citizens
of another country to help understand each other
a little bit better through food.
And then there's that citizen to citizen culinary diplomacy
which is really a very new area which is what I'm
focusing on as I move forward with my project.
- Great.
There was an article a couple years ago
that actually mentioned a culinary diplomat.
So this was one of the first times that I even saw this term
and the culinary diplomat was described
as one of the best jobs of the week.
When this came out, you were actually in the position.
Could you tell me a little bit
about your professional background and what was one
of the more memorable experiences that you had
while you were in that position?
- Well, the position was I was the director
of the culinary diplomacy program,
it was called the Diplomatic Culinary Partnership Program.
It was an amazing position, that was absolutely correct.
And what I did was I worked with our U.S. Embassies overseas
to help send chefs to speak
at their embassies abroad
and engage through food.
And it was a soft power program, soft power diplomacy,
where we were able to reach out to other cultures,
learn about them through their food,
and also teach them about American traditions
and culture through our food.
And so depending on what the Embassies' goals were,
sometimes they wanted to engage women,
sometimes they wanted to engage the youth.
So depending on what their goals were, we would program
a chef as a speaker through the U.S. speaker program
and the chef would go and engage these communities
and do that by cooking with them
and learning about their food.
One of the most wonderful programs we did
was sending an American chef to Pakistan.
And the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan certainly has
its challenges in terms of programming and outreach
due to security concerns and travel restrictions and
we sent a female chef.
The culture in Pakistan is very food focused.
They have their own food network called Masala TV
and our chef was hosted by a female celebrity chef
in Pakistan, Chef Shai.
And they together went around to different markets,
they learned about our chef, Mary Sue Milliken,
learned about the cuisine, the regional cuisine,
the ingredients, everything about the food culture
in Pakistan from different people as they traveled around.
They engaged women, this was a program that was targeting
female empowerment and engaging youth with healthy nutrition
and food entrepreneurship.
And so being a food entrepreneur, Mary Sue Milliken was
very capable to talk about food business to women
in Pakistan, along with Chef Shai.
And they were followed by a film crew from Dawn News and
the whole exchange was filmed and the trip was broken down
into a four part mini series that was aired in Pakistan
that showcased this learning experience for our chef
but also really gave an opportunity for the people
of Pakistan to learn a little bit about American culture
through our food and our traditions.
And so when this program finally aired,
it aired to millions of people during Ramadan,
which is a very popular TV viewing time in Pakistan, and
this was the first time the Embassy was able to reach
that enormous number of people with the positive
American message and Americans learning
about the Pakistani culture.
And so it was a very successful program and
because of the press and the interest, the media interest
in chefs globally, it allowed us to reach and connect
with so many more people than we otherwise
would have been able to.
- Wow, that sounds really exciting.
In 2017, you ended up starting your own company called
the Culinary Diplomacy Project.
Tell us about how you created this, your company, and
what have you been doing so far, and then
how do you see your company moving into the future?
- My project is a non-profit venture and
the idea behind it is using food and culture,
because it is such a powerful tool for us to connect
with each other as human beings on a human level,
to expand and move into the U.S. with this concept.
What we would like to do ideally,
we are in the startup process right now, and so
what we envision is being able to send chefs overseas
to have that cultural exchange and to learn
from the other cultures, but then bring that experience
back to the United States and
share it with American audiences
because we've never really been able to do that.
The experience was very limited to the chef
and the overseas audience as a state department mission.
It's strictly an overseas mission.
And so I think that right now, it is good time
to remind Americans that we are much more alike
than we are different, we all have our traditions and
we all have our customs and I think that if we can engage
these chefs and send them into communities around the U.S.
to share the experience that they had
while they were overseas by cooking the dishes,
telling the stories that they learned
through the food and through these interactions.
It gives people an opportunity to learn about other cultures
when they may not have access to that
in their everyday lives.
They may not live in a community that is multicultural
or for one reason or another they've just never
been able to have that experience.
And so we think that sharing the food and the stories and
the traditions will allow people to better understand
each other and connect in a very personal way.
- Great.
What type of advice would you give
global hospitality leadership students
as well as the program, if they're interested
in wanting to go into this particular sort of sector,
either career wise or further discussion?
- If you want a career in global hospitality,
you are going to interact with so many different cultures
and it's just so critical to understand those cultures.
And to be able to respect the differences and
the nuances of other peoples' traditions and cultures, and
food is just a wonderful way to learn about a people
because everyone's traditions and culture is in their food
and so I think that if you want a career
in global hospitality, it's critical to really understand
all of the different cultures that are all around the globe.
And I think that you can do that by experiencing the food
and interacting with the people and I think that
if you are going to
spend your life
in this global community, it's critical
to understand each other.
- Absolutely.
Well Lauren, just wanna thank you,
we wanna thank you so much for sharing your insights.
It's been a pleasure talking with you.
And thanks to everyone out there for watching.
Stay tuned for more from the LG Digital Studio
at Georgetown SCS.
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