The Conflict Kitchen is the brain child of art professors Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski. It's a restaurant that serves only traditional foods from nations which the US is at war with. The restaurant serves food from one nation at a time for a 6 month stretch. The change in cusine is celebrated with a small festival and music from the new nation.
Since its opening in 2010, the cuisine of Iran, Afghanistan, Venezuela and Cuba have been featured. On a good day, the restaurant would serves between 100 to 300 meals daily.
The first iteration, Iranian cuisine, was called "Kubideh Kitchen" and featured kubideh; during the Afghan phase, the restaurant was called "Bolani Pazi" and served bolani; theVenezuelan cuisine version was titled "La Cocina Arepas" and served arepas; the Cuban cuisine phase was called "Cocina Cuban" and served lechon asado and yuca con mojo. During a trip to Cuba for research, Rubin visited the North Korean embassy inVedado.He rang the doorbell, unannounced, and was given helpful advice on North Korean cuisine from a diplomat who answered the door.
According to Rubin, "Conflict Kitchen reformats the pre-existing social relations of food and economic exchange to engage the general public in discussions about countries, cultures and people that they might know little about outside of the polarizing rhetoric of U.S. politics and the narrow lens of media headlines."
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