India-Africa summit: Food diplomacy at Addis Ababa

India threw a lunch comprising mouth-watering vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies to 15 heads of state and other delegates whose food habits are as exotic as it could get.

By PR Ramesh, ET Bureau | Updated: May 25, 2011, 04.24 AM IST

ADDIS ABABA: It is often been said that no diplomacy is complete without a good measure of food diplomacy. At the ongoing India-Africa summit here, India threw a lunch comprising mouth-watering vegetarian and non-vegetarian delicacies to 15 heads of state and other delegates whose food habits are as exotic as it could get.

For the chefs at the Sheraton hotel here, it was a tough balancing act to "accommodate" all their tastes, one of them said, requesting anonymity. All of them, however, are familiar with recipes that tickle the African palate, having handled cuisine at many similar conferences. In fact, to make sure that their husbands don't complain, wives of two kings joined the chefs in preparing the meal.

With the idea of offering all of them a real taste of exquisite Indian food, menu that was finalised included ajwaini fish tikka, tandoori paneer, grilled supreme of chicken, spciy potato, peas pulao, grilled pineapple delicately spiced with chaat masala and ginger and so on.

The food was served by Indian women dressed in sari who added colour and grandeur to the occasion. In fact, the lunch came in as relief for several punctual delegates who were piqued at the delays in the plenay session of the summit, which began an hour late at 11 am, several other delegates turned up late for the function. A brief power cut also threw things out of gear for a while.

At the summit, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met all the 15 leaders separately. Interestingly, Indian protocol officers were not able to identify each of those leaders, but Singh could.

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