Doing Diplomacy

Abstract

This article uses gastronomy—food, cuisine, manners, setting, and material culture—in an analysis of how US–Japan relations have evolved with the changing role of Japan and Japanese cuisine in the world. Since Japan’s contact with Commodore Perry’s black ships in 1854, the importance of diplomatic dining, which involved learning what and how to eat, was clear. Diplomatic meals are a setting where ritual and protocol are used to homogenize the participants while affirming hierarchies among them. Any deviation from protocol is consequential, but wholly unpredictable. Deviations can be understood only within the history of previous interactions, contemporary connections, and hopes for future relations. The analysis will focus on three memorable meals between economic powerhouses, security partners, former foes, and long-time allies—Japan and the United States—in 1992, 2002, and 2014. Changes in Japan’s role in global politics, the popularity of Japanese cuisine, the Japanese pop-culture boom worldwide, as well as the dispositions of their US counterparts, provided opportunities to deviate from the protocol of formal diplomatic meals. These deviations reflect and reconstitute the ever-evolving US–Japan relations.