“Breaking Borders” is a travelogue, cooking show and dining-table summit all in one. And somehow it works, with each component of its cultural, culinary and political mission enhancing the others, at least to judge from the first of its 13 episodes.

Paul Nirens believes food can serve a larger purpose than only satisfying appetites. His Galileat venture aims to bring together the parts of Israeli society that normally don't mix.

Neither the people behind A Taste of China nor those at Light Chaser are intentionally pushing political agendas.  That is what makes this a genuinely new era in Chinese propaganda. These projects have their own voice, yet they do propagate a preferred narrative, one of a problem-free Chinese culture. 

Although Mexico and India were on opposite sides of the globe, the brown, spicy, aromatic curries that he was offered in India sparked memories of Mexico’s national dish, mole (pronounced MO-lay). Is mole, he wondered, “an ingenious Mexican version of curry, or is curry a Hindu adaptation of a Mexican sauce?”

Now ramen noodles are the latest target of government efforts to take advantage of this spreading interest in Japan’s pop culture and food around the world, and its growth potential.