Add Passion And Stir

How does food both create conflict and provide a foundation for cultural integration and inclusion? American University professor and Stimson Center Distinguished Fellow Johanna Mendelson Forman and Foodhini founder Noobtsaa Philip Vang join hosts Debbie and Billy Shore to discuss gastrodiplomacy in the US and abroad. “Refugee food… is very popular and growing because this is the way you learn that the people who are villainized and made into statistics are not that – they are human beings,” says Forman, who teaches the wildly popular course in ‘Conflict Cuisine.’ Vang founded Foodhini to provide opportunities for refugees and immigrants to make a living through sharing their culture’s food. “All the different communities of diaspora, it’s all the same: they go to a new place, they don’t have anything, but one of the things they do still have is their food,” he says. This ‘perfect pairing’ of guests has worked together for years: Forman acts as a business mentor for Vang and Vang serves as advisor on sev