Do Iranian Culinary Enterprises in Foreign Countries Contribute to Iranian Gastro- Diplomacy?

Abstract

This article is within the same stream as previous research conducted on Iranian gastro-diplomacy. The main aim of the research was to attempt to ascertain if Iranian culinary enterprises in foreign countries do contribute to Iranian gastro-diplomacy. An initial ‘baseline’ of gastro-diplomacy practices was ascertained from literature. This was then compared to the gastro-diplomacy practices of Iranian culinary enterprises in foreign countries ascertained via sources of secondary data and information, and primary data and information found within (case studies) and from empirical research, online interviews, conducted with Iranian culinary enterprises in 10 countries. The findings provided that to a fair degree Iranian culinary enterprises in foreign countries did provide for Iranian gastro-diplomacy, in a citizen and people to people diplomacy basis, thus contributing to Iranian nation state marketing and branding as well as repositioning the Iranian nation state brand. However, such findings need to be considered within the boundaries of the research, and thus its limitations, and possible inferences to a wider universe. This thus calling for more research to be conducted on Iranian culinary enterprises in foreign countries and their possible contributions to Iranian gastro-diplomacy. Other findings that derived from the research were that gastro-diplomacy as a practice in foreign countries seems to depend on peoples’ openness and attitude to find out about Iranian food, culture, traditions and history, for example. It seems that if these matters are present than gastro-diplomacy has a starting point in terms of dialogue. Further it seems from the findings of this research, that Iranian cuisine is not enough to
promote and market Iran, there is seemingly a need for a combination of other factors that accompany Iranian cuisine, these being, for example, art, music, poetry, festivities, photos and history. Also, Iranian culinary enterprises seemingly only took a reactive dialogue about Iran, when they were asked, and were not proactively dialoguing not only in terms of the food, but, for example, also on the history of Iran. Also, what emerged from the research findings is that Iranian culinary enterprises do have a ‘pull effect’ on Iranian agri-food exports via such culinary enterprises sourcing ingredients for food preparation, either directly or indirectly from Iran. Moreover, another interesting finding was that Iranian ethnic culinary enterprises were not mainly family run enterprises.