A nice, warm meal is one of the great unifiers. Food communicates everything from love and tradition like a home cooked dinner with all of the trimmings and even political stances. At a state dinner, food has the power to cultivate understanding across cultures–or potentially create tensions.
How exactly a menu wields this political power is detailed in a new study. A team in Portugal combed through hundreds of menus from diplomatic dinners, state banquets, and receptions hosted over the 20th and 21st centuries.
“Those meals play a significant role as diplomatic institutions in the execution and continuity of Portuguese foreign policy,” study co-author Óscar Cabral, a gastronomic sciences researcher at the Basque Culinary Center, said in a statement. “They demonstrate how culinary and gastronomic practices have facilitated diplomatic negotiations and provided opportunities for cultural exchange, political messaging, and the conveyance of Portuguese culture.”
Food as cultural pride–and time capsule
For this study published today in the journal Frontiers in Political Science, Cabral and his colleagues analyzed the menus from 457 diplomatic meals dating between 1910 and 2023. While the team did not pinpoint a clearly structured culinary diplomatic strategy or public policy, certain historical periods showed distinct characteristics and themes through food.
“Menus can be intentionally designed to convey political messages and communicate non-gastronomic aspects,” Cabral explained. “For example, the COP25 meal in Madrid used dish names like ‘Warm seas. Eating imbalance’ and ‘Urgent. Minimize animal protein’ to draw attention to climate issues.”
In the first half of the 20th century, lavish nine or 10-course meals featuring French cuisine were the norm. However, by the latter half of the century, Portuguese products were gradually introduced. A major turning point occurred during the dictatorial Estado Novo period, from 1950 to the early 1960s.
“We see a fundamental shift towards the inclusion and promotion of Portuguese products, territory, and culinary regionalism,” said Cabral.
Meals during this time were designed to reflect an emerging gastronationalism–when food promotes national identity. During a 1957 “regional lunch” for Queen Elizabeth II, the menu was designed to convey a sense of “Portugality,” with dishes that included lobster and fruit tarts from the Portuguese cities of Peniche and Alcobaça.
In the 1960s and 70s, diplomatic meals increasingly featured rare ingredients. For example, trout from the Azores was served to the American and French presidents in 1971, while Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh dined on turtle soup in 1973. Around this same time, more typically Portuguese products may have been included. As economic and energy crises eased, sourcing those more exclusive alternatives may have gotten easier.
The team also saw another major shift on menus when Portugal’s former colonies gained their independence during the mid-1970s. As more colonies began to self-govern, the understanding of Portuguese cuisine was shifted. For example, coffee was simply referred to as coffee, instead of indicating its country of origin and colonial language referencing Brazil or other colonies were removed.
[ Related: Neanderthals caught and cooked crabs 90,000 years ago. ]
The five functions of diplomatic meals
From their research, the team identified and outlined five functions of diplomatic meals–tactical, geopolitical, economic diplomacy, scientific/cultural/developmental, and cultural proximity.
- Tactical meals are often related to territory or land transfers.
- Geopolitical meals aim at renewing and confirming alliances.
- Economic diplomacy meals are meant to foster commercial and financial relations between countries .
- During scientific, cultural, and developmental cooperation meals, showing common interests are often one of the main highlights.
- Cultural proximity meals can be a tool for strengthening cultural ties to specific countries, including with Portuguese-speaking countries across the world like Brazil.
“When strengthening these ties, menus intentionally feature products closely tied to a shared national gastronomy, like Cozido à Portuguesa (Portuguese stew) or codfish recipes,” Cabral said.
A gastronomic identity challenge
According to the team, integrating gastronomy along Portugal’s language, values, and traditions is necessary to shape the world’s understanding of the nation’s culture.
“Our study illustrates how national cuisines can be strategically used to strengthen a country’s global standing,” said Cabral.
However, studies like these are limited in how much archival material is available from specific historical periods. To balance that, the team suggests that additional research should incorporate seemingly contradictory menu choices, such as roast beef being served to the Indian president in 1990.
“Another dish that stands out is the Consommé de presunto de Barrancos, a thin soup made of cured ham from Barrancos, served to King Felipe VI of Spain in 2016. It presents a cultural and gastronomic identity challenge,” Cabral said.
The soup is considered a hybrid dish–a French-style soup using a classic French cut of meat, but featuring a key Portuguese product (Barrancos ham). That it was served to the monarch of a nation famously known as the country of cured ham also raises some eyebrows.
“One can read it as a gastronomic funny challenge,” concluded Cabral.
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