Culinary Diplomacy within the Historiography of Irish Diplomatic Relations

Culinary diplomacy is generally defined as using food and cuisine to create cross-cultural understanding in an attempt to improve relationships and cooperation between states. Its scope can range from including a dish from a guest’s national cuisine on a state banquet menu to tailoring the food and beverages to be served to an official guest throughout their entire public or private visit based solely on that person’s personal favourites. The former can be discovered without too much difficulty, the latter can often only be achieved after a certain degree of sleuthing by, and exchanges between, diplomatic services on both sides.

This paper examines how the Irish diplomatic service used food as a form of diplomacy and how its practice evolved over the decades to unite, engage and nourish both friends and potential enemies.