Gastrodiplomacy, eating the food of our enemies, is coming to Detroit

Editor's note: Beyond the Plate is a monthly column that examines the broader impacts of what and how we eat.

Since ancient Rome, sharing a meal has been equated with camaraderie — the act of breaking bread functions as an informal peace treaty.

Dining transcends race, religion and political affiliation. After all, everybody eats -- even our own sworn enemies.

And in the last decade or so, governments around the world have begun to harness the universal power of food, turning dinner tables into delicious diplomatic missions, spreading cultural awareness through what's now officially dubbed gastrodiplomacy.

For example: Have you noticed how many more Thai restaurants are scattered about town now compared to 15 years ago? That's no coincidence, and it's not necessarily tied to a huge influx of Thai immigrants. Rather, it's the result of a concerted culinary diplomacy effort — the first of its kind — begun in 2002 by the government of Thailand to increase the number of restaurants serving Thai food worldwide, thus expanding the reach of Thai culture and nurturing goodwill for its people.

(The United States, too, has had a formal culinary diplomatic mission under the purview of the U.S. Department of State since 2012.)

'A language everyone speaks' 

Private efforts at gastrodiplomacy have also sprouted, including metro Detroit's own Peace Meal Kitchen, a newly launched pop-up dining and education series that highlights cultures from countries with which the U.S. is in conflict.

"Food is a language that everyone speaks," says Peace Meal Kitchen founder Mana Heshmati. "And I've found that it's the easiest way to communicate with people. It's usually a good starting point to finding common ground with someone."

Heshmati, 26, is a Swedish-born Ford engineer of Iranian descent who decided to launch the self-described "low-profit passion project" during an eight-week business course at the Build Institute, an entrepreneurship incubator in Detroit.

"When I heard Mana explain her idea on the first day of class I was so excited," says Delphia Simmons, Heshmati's Build instructor, via e-mail. "Having intentional gatherings that encourage understanding and community among diverse ethnic groups and cultures in a time where there is so much misunderstanding is encouraging and needed."

Banking on her own ethnic background and cultural upbringing, Heshmati chose Iran as the first focus country for Peace Meal Kitchen.

At her first event, held in April at Our/Detroit bar in Southwest Detroit, guests were treated to A Taste of Iran, which included Persian-style beef sandwiches, saffron basmati rice and khoresht gheimeh bademjan, an eggplant stew with yellow split peas.

Held on a Sunday, the first-come first-served event was far more successful than Heshmati had anticipated.

"It was crazy," Heshmati recalls. "It just exploded on social media. The statistics of Facebook — it reached up to 300,000 people. There were people all the way out from past Ypsilanti — Lansing even — who drove all the way down."

Heshmati is hosting another event tonight —  a buffet-style Iranian dinner and a screening of the hit Iranian thriller, "A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night."  The event sold out before publication time.

A taste of Iran

Every Peace Meal Kitchen event features an educational component as well as food. For the April installment, menus were formatted with facts about Iran and Iranian culture up front, and the food wasn't listed until the third page.

"Part of the inspiration is my background," Heshmati says. "A lot of people don't really know the difference between various cultures, particularly in the Middle East. Even my friends will be like: 'Well, isn't there lots of Iranian food in Dearborn?' "

Kristen Hauser, who works with Heshmati at Ford and attended the April event, says she lumped all Middle Eastern cuisine into one category before attending the April event.

"With the way the Middle East comes up in the media, it's important to recognize that there are so many different subcultures," Hauser, 24, says. "I don't think Mana's intention was to showcase what Persian people are having at their best dinners. The food is how they eat [at home], and these are the customs associated with eating. It's just very humanizing."

Another muse for her gastrodiplomacy pop-up, Heshmati says, was Pittsburgh-based Conflict Kitchen, a brick-and-mortar restaurant that serves food specifically from a rotating list of countries at odds with the U.S. The takeout joint launched while she was studying mechanical engineering at nearby Carnegie Mellon University. She says she wanted to build off the successful Conflict Kitchen model but flip the messaging to focus on promoting peace instead.

At its heart, Peace Meal Kitchen is about cultivating important dialogues. In our culture, we often conflate foreign policy with personal attacks. Many Americans might be surprised to learn that Iranians' chants of "Death to America!" are leveled at our country's government, not at its citizens. By and large, American tourists report being welcome visitors to the country.

What Peace Meal Kitchen offers is a view into a rich and storied culture that's often disregarded as we focus on a nation's current political stance. That's an important step toward building empathy for a country's people — most with hopes, dreams, loves and losses that reflect our own. Many want peace just as much as we do.

A helping hand

There are other benefits, too. About half of the proceeds from Peace Meal Kitchen events go to support organizations that do good in their respective countries.

For now, that's been the Omid Foundation, a nonprofit that helps disadvantaged and abused young women in Iran get back on their feet.

Somewhat unexpectedly, that's proven to be Heshmati's greatest challenge so far.

"I got this very serious e-mail from PayPal being like, 'We have concerns that you're violating U.S. sanctions with countries like Iran,'" she says.

Heshmati provided PayPal — the payment processor for upcoming ticketed events — a requested list of documents, including ones that showed Omid's exception to operate in Iran for its humanitarian work. PayPal froze her account anyway.

"My parents were joking that I'm probably on some sort of list now," she says. "But I still haven't heard back from PayPal."

And while she hasn't faced any major criticisms or accusations of working for the enemy yet, some of her  plans for future events could — at the very least — give rise to tension. She's planning a Palestinian/Israeli dinner for the Urban Consulate in Midtown this fall.

Still, Heshmati has faith in the antidotal power of food.

"Even the most politically close-minded — like the Donald Trumps of the world — even they eat Mexican food," she says. "They're saying we want to deport them, but we're going to eat their food. So it can really transcend boundaries, whether or not you want it to."

Contact Mark Kurlyandchik: 313-222-5026 or mkurlyandchik@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mkurlyandchik.

What is Iranian food?

"Most of our dishes are stews with rice," says Peace Meal Kitchen founder Mana Heshmati. "Very meat heavy. A lot of fresh herbs and spices like turmeric and saffron are commonly used."

Popular dishes include:

• Khoresht gheymeh bademjan, an eggplant and yellow split pea stew that's usually served with beef or chicken.
• Sabzi khordan, a platter of fresh herbs, radishes, goat cheese and bread.
• Kotlet, a fried patty of ground beef, potato, onion, egg and turmeric.
• Kookoo sabzi, a fresh herb and egg frittata with dried barberries.
• Mast-o-khiar, a side dish of plain yogurt, chopped cucumber and dried mint.