Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach To International Relations
336
Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States: A Dinner Party Approach To International Relations
336Hardcover(First Edition)
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781599212869 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 08/03/2008 |
| Edition description: | First Edition |
| Pages: | 336 |
| Product dimensions: | 9.00(w) x 7.86(h) x 1.15(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Excerpt from the Introduction:
Leaving aside the obvious intimacy of the dinner setting to lay out any number of social and political positions, food has always been connected to larger political issues. At the most obvious level, autocratic regimes are notorious for their paucity of food security while the bellies of global hegemons bloat with their successes. Culinary habits of countries with imperial or colonial legacies almost always bare the imprint of those pasts. The only decent food worth eating while visiting the United Kingdom can be had from the ubiquitous curry shacks that form edible archipelagos across that island country. In the Netherlands, folks nosh on Indonesian food in vast quantities. The French munch their North African tagines in ample amounts as well as Levantine delicacies, while in Japan the fast ethnic food of choice is Korean. And in the United States, the analogue to all of these is Mexican food. What the preceding examples have in common is the fact that these fast ethnic foods are cheap and undervalued, embodying the past or present political relationship of these countries to that of the diner.
Cuisines also yield some insights into the social structure of countries in question. Indian food is time-intensive and requires either a flotilla of servants or daughters-in-law. Women can spend hours of their day slicing and dicing up tiny vegetables, slaving over an open gas burner with little or no ventilation, and, in some cases, cooking up their family victuals over a fire made of desiccated cow dung! And as housewives everywhere hang up their apron for a computer or real estate license, food slopped to their families changes accordingly. Yet despite the obvious centrality of women in food production and preparation, in many parts of the world, men and women are socially barred from eating together. More disturbing, while women do all the heavy lifting and cooking of those meals, in some places those same women are resigned to eat whatever scraps their men folk have left for them.
In other words, eating structures power and social relations in ways that most of us have internalized without much thought. Because food is important to me and because my pre-marriage dating list resembled the roll call of the U.N. General Assembly, I've had to abandon relationships with men who were Jewish, Muslim, or Hindu simply because of their eating rules. I eat pork, drink booze, and think vegetarian cuisine is best left for ruminates. I found their eating issues to be bigger hindrances than their various religious commitments, because food—in its preparation and in its consumption—is one of the most fundamental things that we as humans share, and these rules critically create groups who can be included or alternatively excluded in this most primal act.
Food also encapsulates differences in social mores between and within cultures. For example, Americans flinch at those Chinese, Vietnamese, and Koreans who eat dog and cat—man's best and passable friends respectively. Some Hindus in India are disgusted that we love our cow, with whom they share their own spiritual affections. While Americans think of their beloved horses as being akin to big dogs, folks in Central Asia love their horses too—formed into spicy sausages and gracing a fatty pullov. My Chinese colleagues and friends have pointed out how wasteful Americans are when they only eat part of the animal and discard the rest, but they are correct to ask, why is a beef steak delicious but a brazed ox penis is repugnant?
Similarly, many Muslim countries are obsessed with various animal parts with alleged properties conferring sexual prowess upon its consumers. For instance, in several places in the Muslim world, it is a delicacy to eat the “egg of lamb,” which, as you may have guessed, is the poor animal's family jewels. As you stroll through the meat bazaars of the Muslim world, you are greeted by elegant piles of elaborately arranged organ meat, kept glistening by the efforts of the shopkeepers who sprinkle them with water dotingly. Often they are decorated with garlands of chili peppers, sliced tomatoes, and red onions.
Pakistanis love their brain curry and their spicy stew of goat head and feet. The latter, sir paya, is particularly disconcerting, with at least one whole goat head staring up at you blankly from the pot. I flee from this dish when I see it, but I have to ask myself why I find these offerings to be vile while I am perfectly happy eating other parts of the goat in curries or as kebobs. Similarly, why do most Americans find the Asian culinary custom of eating cockroaches disgusting when most of them eat shrimp and lobster, which are little more than the cockroaches of the sea? Clearly these value judgments of what is or is not edible reflect cultural values that we rarely think about—until we are confronted with one of these affronting delicacies.
Only the foolish would underestimate the social and political importance of food when, in fact, every aspect of what we put into our mouths is burdened with social, political, religious, and even militarized baggage even though most of us remain woefully unaware of the same. It seems to me that cuisine is a perfectly defensible lens through which to look at the countries examined herein and U.S. policies toward the same, and I hope you will agree.
Table of Contents
AcknowledgmentsIntroduction
Part I: The Charter Members of the Axis of Evil
North Korea
Iran
Iraq
Part II: The NPT+3 States
Israel
India
Pakistan
Part III: The Dashers of Democracy
Cuba
Burma
China
Part IV: The Great Satan Barbeque
The United States of America
Appendix: Additional Resources
Index
About the Author
Recipe
Who doesn’t like a dinner party?
Bring the world to your table.
Chris Fair has dined with soldiers in the Khyber Pass and with prostitutes in Delhi, rummaged for fish in Jaffna city, the epicenter of Tamil Tiger violence in Sri Lanka; and sipped Taliban tea in Peshawar. Both gastronomically and geographically speaking, she has been there, done that—and, above all, eaten that.
Cuisines of the Axis of Evil is a lively, provocative, and highly entertaining cookbook with a twist: a whole host of delectable, easy-to-follow recipes straight out of the kitchens of America’s biggest foreign policy headaches, whether friends or foes—from Iraq, Israel, and Pakistan to Iran, North Korea, and Cuba. Fair takes us country by country across the globe and then back to the heart of the Good Ol’ U.S. of A. Recipes include Iranian chicken in a walnut pomegranate stew, Iraqi kibbe, and North Korean spicy cucumber, as well as special teas, mango salads, beverage suggestions, and more.
Sardonic, satiric, grouchy, and just plain funny, with a heaping scoop of hyperbole, this mouthwatering masterpiece shows us that the only way to defeat (or befriend) your enemies is to know precisely what they eat. What could be a more unique gift for an intrepid host or hostess, or a better resource for unforgettable dinner parties? Cuisines of the Axis of Evil is food for thought—and for the taste buds. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, sharpen your knives and start your blenders!