Taiwan is on a culinary mission. They launched a more than $32 million dollar “gastro-diplomacy” campaign this summer internationally. For food tourists, it’s one more reason to head to the island and taste for yourself.

Syrian sweets are becoming so popular that they rival Turkish baklava and bring in $60 million in revenue from sales abroad.

One of the more delicious forms of public diplomacy has recently emerged in the global consciousness: gastrodiplomacy. Public diplomacy is a field predicated on the communication of culture and values to foreign publics; gastrodiplomacy, most plainly put, is the act of winning hearts and minds through stomachs. It is a public and cultural diplomacy endeavor that the governments of Korea and Taiwan have recently embarked on.

Gastrodiplomacy is more than the promotion of a new taste or dish abroad. It stands for a concerted effort to use cuisine as part of cultural diplomacy. For example, the Thai government in 2002 launched an ambitious programme to put Thailand among the top five exporters of food.

The Italian Food and Cultural Festival, which is the Hotel’s first in a planned series of cultural and food traditions of selected countries, will expose the Ghanaian public and other nationals in Accra to Italian culinary arts; promote cultural exchange, networking, ethnic sensitivity and diversity.

The Chie of Staff, Henry Martey Newman has urged Ghanaians to support initiatives aimed at finding a brand identity for Ghana. Mr. Newman was of the opinion that to build a better brand identity for Ghana, cocoa, which is the major foreign exchange earner of the country, should be rebranded and redesigned to look more attractive.

A steaming specialty is chicken soup for the sweltering soul. Both science and culture agree that it works

The lack of a central body in France to oversee the authenticity of halal meat has made some experts doubt that animals have been slaughtered following the correct Islamic procedures...France has Western Europe's biggest Muslim population and producers are battling for a piece of the 5.5 billion euro ($7.05 billion) halal meat market.