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Mala to global mojo: Regional cuisines are China’s tastiest forms of soft power
Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan and other provincial fare are taking over the world, spreading gastro-diplomacy one delicious morsel at a time.
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Chinese regional cuisine is having a moment, and it is arguably boosting China’s soft power in ways that the Chinese propaganda machinery can only dream of.
ST ILLUSTRATION: SOH HWEE YI, ADOBE STOCK
In 1972, the world watched as then US President Richard Nixon deftly wielded a pair of ivory chopsticks while sitting next to his smiling host, then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, working his way through an extravagant eight-course banquet with exotic dishes that included shark’s fin soup, spongy bamboo shoots in egg-white consomme and fish fillets in pickle wine sauce.
The televised dinner for 600 guests at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, and Mr Nixon’s historic eight-day visit, marked the end of decades of the disconnect between the two countries and a momentous beginning of engagement in what has been described as “the week that changed the world”.
