Of international culinary

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Last friday and saturday I attended ato the new fad of transnational politics, the III Alliance of Civilizations, hosted by the "Cidade Maravilhosa" of Rio de Janeiro, which is basically an event where important political and academic figures from around the world gather in order to debate the most diverse subjects, in vogue in the world virtually since the beggining of human civilization. I believe if 5000 years of society couldn't solve many of these questions, the odds of a few suits manage something in a two-day meeting are remote at best; and finally it was a good opportunity to see heads of state and international organization (respectively), such as Zapatero ( Spain), Sócrates (Portugal), Lula (Brazil), C. Kirchner (Argentina), Erdogan (Turkey), Morales (Bolivia), Ban ki-Moon (UN) and others in the same room. In fact, I was forced to seek my lost modesty on the lawns of the Museum of Modern Art - where the event took place - after the innauguration speeches.

 

The conference was very instructive, although sometimes I had to preserve my sanity by playing one of the best pastimes that I know of, the dots and boxes game:

 

The truth is that many of my doubts about the current course of international politics have been resolved: know everything that you read the international section of the newspaper? It is spot on. This is essential to any good International Relations student, so affectionately nickmamed as IR. Incidentally, I ended up noticing a most interesting and least perceived feature of an event of this type: the food.

 

Rice with shredded coconut, moqueca de peixe and roasted vegetables. This was the menu, absolutely divine by the way. On my table, beside a few friends, an Iraqi respresentative sat down (actually, he "stood around" the table, since there where no chairs). He asked in broken english if he could join us and went mute. Looking at him with the with thecorner of my eye I noticed that the Iraqi seemed somewhat intrigued with the meal; he served up for all that was available in generous quantities, but did not seem very inclined to eat much of it. Funnily, he'd use the fork to get a mouthful of rice and fish and would look at the loaded tool from all directions (I think the only reason as to why he didn't smell the food was for education reasons), and at some point he even accidentally dropped the utensil with a bang on his plate. He'd occasionally swallow food slowly and with evident ill-will. Eventually, he left the table quickly and disappeared from view. One of my friends complained that "[CONTENT SUPRESSED TRUST ME] splashed steamed carrot bits all over my dress."

 

This "diplomatic incident" notwithstanding, the whole thing went very well. As I said, the food was toothsome, but the little variety left me somewhat perplexed: after all this was being financed with taxpayer money and the prevailing logic in these cases is squander as much as you can. That's when I realized that when an event brings together Indian Hindus, Arab Muslims and Jewish Jews (lawl) imposes some restrictions on the chief. You disagree? Then try to prepare beef and pork ribs and observe the reactions.

[Darth333]

This "diplomatic incident" notwithstanding, the whole thing went very well. As I said, the food was toothsome, but the little variety left me somewhat perplexed: after all this was being financed with taxpayer money and the prevailing logic in these cases is squander as much as you can. That's when I realized that when an event brings together Indian Hindus, Arab Muslims and Jewish Jews (lawl) imposes some restrictions on the chief. You disagree? Then try to prepare beef and pork ribs and observe the reactions.

Well, one could also chose to prepare "royal clam"... in "French" only but there are some illustrations (starting at 1'37")

[Alexrd]

Sócrates (Portugal),

 

Our stupid Prime-Minister...

[Pho3nix]

So what exactly is this thread about?

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Well, one could also chose to prepare "royal clam"... in "French" only but there are some illustrations (starting at 1'37")

Good yuck.

 

Our stupid Prime-Minister...

You can't have unanimity... even in disapproval.

 

So what exactly is this thread about?

No idea. I thought of making it blog entry but no ones reads it.