You can find my favourite tapas bar hidden away under the shadow of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Spain. However, unless you know exactly where to look, you will probably miss it. The reason being is that it is situated in a beautifully tiled windowless room hidden away behind a tiny butcher’s shop. You have to be prepared to walk through an assortment of hanging meats in order to get to the tables. It always seemed like a most peculiar design. Why, after all, would anyone situate a tapas bar behind a wall of hams? And yet perhaps this is the trace of a message sent through food from centuries ago. Indeed, anyone who has spent time in Spain cannot help but have noticed all the hanging pork legs in the windows of shops and restaurants across the land. But what, exactly, are they doing there? Well, the suggestion is that once upon a time, they served as an effective reminder that the inhabitants were neither Muslim nor Jewish. The tradition of prominently displaying a ham to signal one’s religious beliefs started at a time of great political upheaval in the country.Footnote 1 One can, I suppose, think of this as an early example of gastrodiplomacyFootnote 2: that is, the use of food to convey a specific message to others.
Humans have been sharing food for a very long time
What is clear from the historical record is that humans are inherently social beings and have been engaged in feasting (that is, in the ritualized sharing of food) for an awfully long time. In fact, some of the earliest evidence has come from a burial cave in Israel, from around 12,000 years ago.Footnote 3 Archaeologists and anthropologists believe that communal eating has played such a crucial role in our continued development precisely because of its ability to facilitate bonding and maintain social cohesion within groups of individuals.Footnote 4 According to my Oxford colleague, the evolutionary psychologist Prof. Robin Dunbar: “The act of eating together triggers the endorphin system in the brain and endorphins play an important role in social bonding in humans. Taking the time to sit down together over a meal helps create social networks that in turn have profound effects on our physical and mental health, our happiness and wellbeing and even our sense of purpose in life.”Footnote 5 Here, it is also interesting to consider the origin of the word “companion” from the Latin “cum pane” meaning the person you share bread with.Footnote 6 Eating and drinking hold a special role in terms of fostering social relationships precisely because they involve bringing outside substances into the body.Footnote 7
Over the centuries, various commentators have highlighted the relationship between gastronomy and diplomacy. Just take Jean-Anthelm Brillat-Savarin, writing in the early decades of the nineteenth century: “Read the historians, from Herodotus down to our own day, and you will see that there has never been a great event, not even excepting conspiracies, which was not conceived, worked out, and organized over a meal.”Footnote 8 Or take the following from the Italian Futurist F. T. Marinetti writing in the 1930s: “…great things have been achieved in the past by men who were poorly fed”. Yet, “what we think or dream or do is determined by what we eat and what we drink.”Footnote 9
Until recently, though, it was never clear quite how food could influence our decision-making. However, the latest research now unequivocally shows that sharing a meal results in more positive (affiliative) social interactions between those who dine together, not to mention fewer hierarchical displays of dominance and submissiveness (e.g., between employees and their bosses and between parents and their offspring). In other words, agreeable behaviours were found to increase during meals, as compared to at other times. These, at least, were the major findings to have emerged from a recent study in which nearly 100 working individuals provided information on their everyday social interactions.Footnote 10 There was also a measurable increase in self-reported positive mood in those meetings that occurred while people were eating together.Footnote 11
Does food influence our decision-making?
We like to think of ourselves as rational beings. As such, one might well imagine that the decisions we make should not be influenced by the foods we eat. However, it has been known for decades now that such a simplistic view of the human condition cannot be corrected. In fact, we all show systematic deviations from rationality across a wide range of everyday situations. Some of the classic early research demonstrating the impact of food on our thinking comes from the psychologist Gregory Razran. Back in 1940, he described what has since become known as “the luncheon technique”: Basically, he presented sociopolitical statements such as “Down with war and Fascism! Workers of the World Unite! America for Americans!” to 24 people (a mixture of students and unemployed workers), who had to rate them for personal approval, social effectiveness, and their literary value. The slogans were then divided up into two groups, with one set being presented while the participants ate a free lunch and the others while they were subjected to a number of putrid smells instead. After five to eight sessions of such conditioning, the participants rated the statements once again. No prizes for guessing that those statements that had been associated with the free lunches obtained significantly higher ratings while those that had been associated with the putrid odours were given much lower ratings the second time around.Footnote 12
Given such evidence, one might want to consider the ethics of the business lunch.Footnote 13 Is not this a situation, after all, in which one party wines and dines another in order to achieve some advantage or other? If the provision of such hospitality really does bias people’s decisions and beliefs in the way that Razran’s early research implied, then is it really ethical, i.e., persuading people through their stomachs rather than through their minds? Well, these were just the kinds of issues that Halvorson and Rudeleis were grappling with when they interviewed a number of business folks Stateside back in the mid-1970s. Intriguingly, their research suggested that people did not expect that going to lunch with a client would necessarily lead directly to increased sales. On the other hand, though, it was also true to say that they were worried that if they did not do it, sales might well decline!Footnote 14 So, returning to the question, is it ethical to offer someone a free lunch? Well, I guess that is for you to decide.
That said, should you find yourself taking a client out for a meal, then one important tip here is to make sure to order the same food as those whom you are trying to impress. Why so? Well, it turns out that “People who are served the same foods are more likely to trust one another, smooth out problems and make deals”. Specifically, in a study soon to be published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology, Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach, both from the Booth School of Business in Chicago examined whether eating the same food (in this case, candies such as Butterfingers, Sour Patch, Peppermint Patties, and Airheads) would help strangers come to some kind of agreement when engaged in negotiations. Pairs of individuals who did not know each other to begin with were either given similar or dissimilar sweets to evaluate before taking part in a trust game or a labour negotiation scenario. Those who ate the same food ended up cooperating more and would therefore have earned more money than those who evaluated different candies to begin with. It will, of course, be interesting in future research to follow-up on these findings in order to determine whether or not those who already know each other would be similarly affected.Footnote 15 And to scale this research up from kids’ candy to a proper meal, say.
The free lunch—the essence of smart management
In recent years, a number of companies have taken an innovative stance with regard to the provision of “free” food for their employees. Google is famous for this. Yet, they are by no means the only ones. According to a recent report, Pixar, Apple, Dropbox, and Yahoo all do the same.Footnote 16 Why so? Well, according to one commentator writing in Forbes Magazine, the strategic reason behind all that free food: “isn’t just to trick employees into staying on campus. Its purpose is actually to inspire innovative thinking. As Laszlo Bock, the Senior Vice President of People Operations explains … the purpose of the cafes and microkitchens (smaller areas stocked with food and drink closer to work stations) is to create a place for employees to leave their desk and interact with other people whose desks are not near theirs. Bock reveals that most of these food sources are strategically placed between two separate work teams, and the goal of that placement is to draw these different folks together and nudge them to interact and collaborate. “At minimum, they might have a great conversation. And maybe they’ll hit on an idea for our users that hasn’t been thought of yet.””Footnote 17
But what difference does this make? Are these companies really offering their staff a proverbial “free lunch”? Well, it is hard to find any well-controlled studies from the tech sector that directly demonstrate the benefits of providing free food. Intuitively though, and based on everything that we will see here, it would certainly seem like the right thing to do. Perhaps the closest one gets to evidence that is relevant here comes from research conducted recently in a very different sector: namely, at a number of fire stations in a major city in the USA. There, those firefighters who showed increased levels of commensality—i.e., eating together—exhibited better performance while on the job.Footnote 18 One also hears much the same argument being put forward at the Oxbridge colleges where a “free” lunch is typically part of the deal for the teaching staff. It is just such casual conversations between those of different subjects who are normally holed up in their own disciplinary bunkers that can lead to interdisciplinary collaborations that might not otherwise occur. That said, before getting too carried away with the idea of collective dining, I would also say that there is a role for solitude too, at least for all those introverts out there.Footnote 19 Meanwhile, the latest research from Dan Ariely that appears in his new book Payoff: the hidden logic that shapes our motivations has demonstrated that free pizza was almost as effective as a staff motivator. Such results leading to the suggestion that: “Workers are more motivated by the offer of free pizza than a cash bonus, according to research from Duke University”.Footnote 20
Intriguing findings reported in the Harvard Business Review attempted to quantify just how much of a potential benefit might accrue as a result of eating while negotiating a complex trade deal. To this end, groups of MBA students (N = 132 in total) had to finalize the details of a complex joint venture agreement between two companies that had already been agreed in principle. In order to maximize the potential benefits for both sides, the negotiation required a degree of empathy and understanding for the other side’s position/needs. The two sides also had to share information. The results were pretty impressive: Those deals that were negotiated by groups of students who had been fed would potentially have generated 6.7 million dollars more for the two parties concerned (see Fig. 1).Footnote 21
Of course, students negotiating hypothetical mega-deals over lunch is one thing, but does the provision of food really have any impact over the decisions that are made out there in the real world? The answer to the latter question is a very definite “Yes”. And, some of the most striking evidence in this regard comes from an analysis of court records documenting the decisions made over 50 days covering a 10-month period by highly experienced parole board court judges in Israel. The results provided some pretty stark evidence highlighting the influence of food (or better said, a meal break) on those judges’ parole decisions. Just take a look at Fig. 2. The graph clearly shows that the probability of a parole request being granted declines steadily, not to say dramatically, during the course of a session (from c. 65 % at the start of a session down to 0 % at the end), only to recover after a so-called meal break.Footnote 22 As one might have expected, such striking results have not gone unchallenged.Footnote 23 Nevertheless, under the assumption that the judges would mostly have consumed something during their so-called meal breaks, then one would have to say that these results are, at the very least, consistent with the view that food influences our decision-making.Footnote 24
But does it matter what the food is?
At this point, it is probably worth noting that the nature of the food served is more important to the kind of decisions that are reached than one might have imagined. F. T. Marinetti was certainly cognizant of this possibility: After all, back in the 1930s, the Italian Futurist famously proclaimed that pasta should be banned. Why so? Well, he was worried about it sitting heavy on the nation’s stomach and thus interfering with their capacity to reason productively and think critically.Footnote 25 There was a real concern here about how to optimize the decision-making capabilities of this then colonial power.Footnote 26
Over the last couple of years, researchers have taken a much closer look at taste and its influence on human reasoning and behaviour. In particular, they have investigated the gustatory properties of foods, such as sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. For instance, researchers working out of the University of Innsbruck in Austria have demonstrated that people who taste something bitter (think grapefruit juice, beer, dark chocolate, unsweetened black coffee, or, worse still, cruciferous vegetables) tend to show increased hostility toward others.Footnote 27 They also tend to judge morally objectionable acts more harshly (one presumes therefore that those Israeli judges must have had something of a sweet tooth). By contrast, tasting something sweet tends to make people feel just that little bit more romantic. It apparently also increases the likelihood of someone agreeing to go on a date.Footnote 28 Here, one might be reminded of the appositeness of those everyday aphorisms such as “A sweet deal”, or its inverse, “The deal soured”.Footnote 29
In relation to the role of specific tastes on behaviour/decision-making, it is interesting to examine four of the menus that ex-British prime minister, David Cameron, was served while on his whirlwind tour of European heads of state (see Fig. 3). Notice how three out of the four meals involve strawberries. Perhaps this is nothing more than a seasonal thing, given that the tour took place early in the summer of 2015. Nevertheless, I still think it interesting, since strawberries are one of those foods that have a distinctively sweet smell. I could well imagine how sweet smells, much like sweet tastes, might promote positive feelings amongst those who dine together.Footnote 30 And while we are on the topic, ice-cream is another sweet comfort food that one finds being put forward as ideal when it comes to promoting diplomacy.Footnote 31
When thinking about optimizing the aromatic element of a dish, one could certainly do worse than to imitate one of Grant Achatz’s classic creations. The famous chef from Alinea, and now a number of other Chicago venues, is known for serving certain dishes atop lavender-scented pillows.Footnote 32 The idea here is that once a bowl of food is placed on the pillow, its weight will slowly release the lavender-scented contents in front of the expectant diner. There is, after all, a large body of research showing that this essential oil (popular in aromatherapy) can have a beneficial effect on people’s relaxation and blood pressure.Footnote 33
Another idea here for those wanting to ensure that a meeting has the best chances of success would be to encourage the attendees to hold a warm mug or bowl in their hand(s): Think only of a nice hot cup of tea. Social psychologists have shown that those around us tend to look warmer/more approachable whenever we happen to be holding something warm (like a cup or mug).Footnote 34 And, finally here, should you be having a business meeting with a quarrelsome party, then why not serve some tryptophan-rich foods such as eggs, cheese, pineapple, tofu, shrimps, salmon, turkey, nuts, and seeds. Tryptophan is a dietary precursor of serotonin and increasing the level of the latter in the brain increases agreeableness. No surprises, then, that those who have been fed tryptophan-rich foods tend to be less quarrelsome.Footnote 35
What does the food we serve/eat say about us?
Over-and-above its role in bonding, mood enhancement, and decision-making, the food we serve/eat, or, in some cases, refuse to serve/eat, can also convey a message about us. Just remember the hams at the start of this article. For those old enough, this notion was one that was played on by the long-running iconic TV adverts for Ferrero Rocher chocolates here in the UK. As the voice-over had it: “The ambassador’s receptions are noted in society for their host’s exquisite taste that captivates his guests…Monsieur, with Ferrero Rocher you’re really spoiling us.”Footnote 36 Intriguingly, several governments, including those of France, Thailand, Peru, and Taiwan have slowly come around to the realization that they may be able to increase their influence abroad by providing their national dishes in foreign countries. This is what some call the exercise of “soft power”.Footnote 37 Gastrodiplomacy—one stomach at a time! Just think about the influence that “Little Italy’s” or Chinatowns’ in cities around the world may be having.
Relevant here, shortly before the UK Brexit vote, a croissant-wielding French activist group was prevented from distributing croissants to the Brits in the capital in the hope of nudging any swing voters toward the Remain camp. If one was looking for a political slogan to capture this sort of approach, I would guess that it is more a case of “hearts and stomachs” than “hearts and minds”! In fact, according to one commentator: “Gastrodiplomacy is predicated on the notion that the easiest way to win hearts and minds is through the stomach.”Footnote 38 In this instance, though, the British police had other ideas. They rapidly intervened: “telling volunteers from the French capital it would be illegal to offer food in the run-up to an election because it could corrupt the result”. And, according to Britain’s Electoral Commission: “the efforts of the group, #operationcroissant, violate guidelines banning the use of food to influence votes”.Footnote 39 So, once again, we are back to the ethics of the free lunch!
Unsurprisingly, there is much interest and discussion concerning the foods chosen for EU and G7/G20 meetings. This is an important decision given the many countries involved, and the impression that the food served may give to those who are in attendance.Footnote 40 The ultimate challenge here, though, in terms of gastronomic organization and satisfying national food preferences may well have been at the infamous festivities held by the Shah of Iran in Persepolis back in 1971 to celebrate 2500 years of the Iranian monarchy. Innumerable Heads of State from around the globe flew in for a celebration that reputedly cost close to £140 million. The gastronomic solution in this case involved bringing more than 160 chefs from Paris over especially for the event. The latter came armed with the best French wines and a ton of golden imperial caviar! Not everyone, it should be said, appreciated the invitation. The Queen apparently found the whole thing a little too tacky.Footnote 41
Political drinking and dining
Politicians need to be extremely careful about what they eat, or at least what they are seen to consume in public. If they are not, the gastronomic choices they make can all too easily end up alienating those whom they are trying to connect with, or convince. Without even realizing it, it can highlight a yawning gulf in terms of taste. There is, after all, no surer way of showing that a politician is different than by eating the wrong kind of food, or else by ordering something inappropriate. Politicians are often seen eating/drinking something much more sophisticated (and/or expensive) than those whom they represent, or seek to stand for, would ever dream of consuming. One of the classic examples of “what not to do” came from the early days of Sargent Shriver’s campaign in the US primaries back in 1972. With the media following closely in tow, the budding politician went to a small town bar (a working class tavern) to talk to the locals/voters. There he came out with the classic line: “Beer for the boys, and I’ll have a Courvoisier”.Footnote 42 It should come as little surprise that his campaign hopes soon tanked. This, presumably, just the sort of situation that spin-doctors are paid handsomely these days to help politicians avoid. That said, it is worth noting here that there may be something fundamentally less intimate about sharing a drink than sharing a meal. For, as the anthropologist Mary Douglas once noted in a famous paper entitled: “Deciphering the meal”Footnote 43: “drinks require only mouth-touching utensils which are easily shared, while a hot meal, requiring at least one mouth-entering utensil, suggests a higher level of intimacy”.Footnote 44
Here, it is interesting to contrast Shriver’s alcoholic faux pas with the very clear and consistent messaging of Ukip’s Nigel Farage in the recent Brexit campaign in the UK (and, for that matter, in the years that preceded it). The politician was rarely to be seen without a pint of beer in hand (see Fig. 4 for one representative example). The following newspaper quote, I think, captures the situation here perfectly: “The prominence of alcohol in the Farage myth confirms him as king of the populists. On the one hand, it helps elevate him above your run-of-the-mill bores who dominate politics – people so precious about their image that they probably wouldn’t be photographed next to a sherry trifle. By contrast, Nigel is normal and ordinary and – just like you and me – likes to spend an hour or four imbibing something strong.”Footnote 45 Following the changing face of the British government after the Brexit campaign, it was interesting to see how the departing remain campaign were portrayed by the British press (see Fig. 5).Footnote 46
Another classic example of what-not-to-do came from one of the on-off cabinet ministers in Margaret Thatcher’s government, back in 1990, during the middle of the “mad cow” disease (BSE) crisis. Before the cameras, John Gummer, then Agriculture minister fed his 4-year old daughter, Cordelia, a beef-burger. While she tucked into her pattie with gusto, he seemed rather to nibble around the bun’s edges (see Fig. 6). No wonder that he was promptly ridiculed by the British press, not to mention a horrified public.Footnote 47
Bob Dole’s list of favourite foods—“hamburgers, fried chicken, chocolate milk shakes, and cherry pie”—would seem entirely appropriate as far as political dining is concerned. How American is that? Middle American, granted, but still sending exactly the right message to the majority of the voters. For as The New York Times Magazine noted just before the 2004 US presidential election: “Good political food, …must be democratic. The barbecue, the clambake, the chili contest, the fish fry, the hamburger cook-out, the pancake social, the fried-chicken potluck, the spaghetti dinner—these are the great entrees of American politics…”Footnote 48 Though, with the aforementioned choices, you would have imagined that Dole would have reached the ultimate political office, no? At least, you would if you took Bunny Crumpacker’s great line here, playing on one of Jean Anthelm Brillat-Savarin’s famous aphorisms: “Tell me what you eat, and I’ll tell you whether or not you’ll win.”Footnote 49 In much the same vein, during the present presidential campaign, Donald Trump has often taken the opportunity to have himself eating fast food (albeit on his private jet).Footnote 50
That the food we are seen with can serve to send such a powerful political message may help to explain one of the earliest examples of “photo-shopping” (see Fig. 7). This is an incendiary image apparently showing F. T. Marinetti tucking into a bowl of pasta. This is the very food that the Italian Futurist had argued ought to be banned in his home country. No wonder that he soon came out with a strident denial—arguing that the image had been faked in order to discredit his position.
What is so special about broccoli?
The examples that we have just come across can all be framed, rightly or wrongly, as reflecting the likes and preferences of the politicians concerned. Or, more likely, as a matter of choosing, through food and drink, to send the right signals to whoever may be watching. However, certain of our food likes/dislikes are genetically determined. For example, roughly 20 % of the population think that coriander/cilantro tastes soapy, and hence avoid it like the plague.Footnote 51 No matter what the spin doctor says, it is unlikely that a politician who finds this herb so unpleasant would ever be convinced to eat any “just for the cameras”. But what, I wonder, would the majority of the public who like the taste of this fragrant herb make of such a cilantro-hating politician anyway? Well, for whatever reason, the topic just has never come up. Presumably, that is because no one would think that it is at all relevant. Who cares whether our politicians like cilantro or not? However, the story with regard to bitter dislike is quite different. It is the latter genetic difference in taste perception that has captured the interest of the political commentators.
Roughly a quarter of the population are born with more taste buds on their tongue. These individuals, known as supertasters, are more likely to find certain foods such as coffee, beer, tonic water, and many cruciferous vegetables (such as Brussels sprouts and broccoli) unpleasantly bitter. Others, known as non-tasters, likely have far fewer taste buds on their tongue, and hence will simply not taste the bitterness in the very same foods. Roughly ¼ of the population are supertasters, ¼ non-tasters, and the remaining 50 % are medium tasters, lying somewhere in the middle. Medium tasters can perceive the bitterness but do not find it too unpleasant.Footnote 52
In a quote that was widely reported by the press in the USA, George Bush senior came out with the line that: “I do not like broccoli, and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m president of the United States, and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli.”Footnote 53 In fact, banning broccoli from the presidential jet, Air Force One, was apparently one of his first decisions on being voted into office. Bush senior is likely to be a supertaster, as they often find broccoli unpleasantly bitter. Given that taster status runs in families, it should come as little surprise to find that George W. Bush was not a fan of “the persecuted crucifer” either. The latter fabulous phrase how The New York Times columnist Frank Bruni so memorably christened the much maligned green vegetable.Footnote 54 Interestingly, and in stark contrast, when asked by a group of school children what his favourite food was, Barack Obama’s instantaneous reply was “broccoli”.Footnote 55 Intriguingly, if one goes back to the early 1930s, one finds the proposal that a person’s taster status might actually correlate with their political leanings (see Fig. 8).
Cilantro and cruciferous vegetables, though, are just the tip of the iceberg as far as genetically determined differences in taste are concerned. So, my question is, given the wide range of food likes/dislikes that people have (many of which are genetically-determined), why it is broccoli, or more generally, bitter-tasting foods, that have acted as such a beacon for presidential food preferences? Could it perhaps be that a sensitivity to bitterness actually signals something far more interesting about the personality of the individuals concerned than merely the particular taste world that they live in? Surprising though it may sound, supertasters (those who may well avoid cruciferous vegetables because of their exceedingly bitter taste) tend to be more likely to exhibit certain anti-social personality traits. Or, as one commentator summarizing a recently published study so succinctly put it: “bitter taste preferences were a reliable predictor of Machiavellianism, psychopathy, narcissism, and everyday sadism.”.Footnote 56
Gastro-warfare
I am not quite sure if this is the best title for what is coming next. Nevertheless, there are also those out there who are interested in using the provision or, more often, the denial of food as a political tool to interfere with the other side’s negotiating ability. Just take the advice given on one website: “Control what is eaten and what people drink in order to subvert and weaken their minds and bodies, reducing their ability to make good decisions.”Footnote 57 This particular website goes on to suggest everything from making food a reward by, for example, linking breaks to agreements through to preventing those you are negotiating with from taking a food break until you get what you want. Alternatively, why not demand a food or refreshment break in order to disrupt the other side’s deliberations, or else ply them with caffeine to make them agitated? Delaying lunch is apparently another useful technique here as it means that the other side will likely get hungry and will thus probably find it harder to concentrate effectively.Footnote 58 (Though, if you are planning to follow the website’s advice, probably best make sure you yourself have had a hearty breakfast.) And then, as Marinetti knew only too well, when the food does eventually come, why not offer the other side some heavy stodgy food if you want to make them sleepy?
Remember “the freedom fry”? Sometimes, people have chosen not to eat a particular dish, or else to rename a food, in order to vent their anger with another nation. One of the most famous examples here was when the North American House of Representatives renamed the “French Fry” the “Freedom Fry” to express their unhappiness around the French government’s lack of support for the Iraq war back in 2003. French toast, it should be noted, did not escape unscathed either, being rebranded Freedom toast.Footnote 59
And finally here, it is perhaps worth considering that over the course of history, some politicians and leaders have been convinced that their opponents might well want to take the idea of gastro-warfare to the next level and try to poison them with the food that they have been offered. Currently, there are those leaders like Vladimir Putin who reputedly never travel anywhere without taking their own personal taster along. Their role, to make sure that the food he has been served has not been poisoned. Of course, Putin is by no means the first to employ such precautions. Go back two millennia and one finds that: “Roman emperors employed trusted slaves to be their praegustator, not always effectively (when Claudius died after being given poisoned mushrooms in 54BC, his taster Halotus was fingered as a suspect).”Footnote 60 And more recently, one finds the wife of Nick Clegg, former deputy prime minister here in England, suggesting that she would serve her “favourite” political guests an especially fiery dish just so she could watch them splutter.Footnote 61 Of course, given the evidence reported here, one should not be surprised if international discussions do not go so well, when those involved demand food that is different from those whom they are negotiating with. Just remember the tip about eating the same food in order to facilitate negotiation.Footnote 62
