Dining with Power
Beijing, 1972. In a hall of the Great Hall of the People, beneath towering chandeliers and solemn portraits, one of the most symbolically charged meals of the 20th century is being served: Richard Nixon dines with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. It is the first visit by an American president to Communist China. The dishes are carefully chosen, the service flawless, the smiles rehearsed. On the table there is more than just Peking duck and steamed dumplings: decades of hostility, global balances to be recalibrated, a future being negotiated in silence.
That dinner marks the beginning of a new era, the consequences of which still echo today: the rapprochement between the USA and China, the reshaping of the Cold War, and the opening to a multipolar world. But before it becomes geopolitics, it is an act of hospitality, a diplomatic mise en scène played out with chopsticks and toasts, smiles and glances. A banquet of power, where every detail is a message.
Because power is also wielded at the table. In fact, it often starts right there — between a toast and a silence full of meaning, between the act of serving and being served. From Renaissance courts to state dinners, from imperial banquets where destinies of men and nations are sealed, to small-town trattorias, food is never just sustenance: it is a language. And like all languages, it can include or exclude, seduce or intimidate, assert hierarchies or overturn them.
Throughout history, those who controlled food controlled society. Harvests determined the fate of empires. Spices moved fleets and wars, financing expeditions across the globe. Recipes were passed down like sacred codes. Today, the power of food is more subtle, yet no less pervasive: it creeps into media narratives, gourmet menus, and the rituals of hospitality. We see it in the spotlight on chefs, in guidebook ratings, in the increasingly strategic role of front-of-house service.
This article is a journey through these invisible yet tangible dynamics, where each dish tells a story far greater than itself. Because behind every bite, there’s always a story of power.
The Power of Those Who Nourish
Those who prepare food wield an ancient power. The court cook knew the sovereign’s tastes better than his ministers. The head chef aboard colonial ships decided who ate, who didn’t, and in what order. Even today, the figure of the chef embodies a strong symbolic power: they can create or deny, express vision, impose an invisible yet rigid hierarchy. Behind the stove, a theatre is directed where every movement carries meaning.
Those who serve also play a crucial role. The maître d’, the sommelier, the waitstaff are guardians of the ritual. They control time, space, the choreography of the experience. In certain contexts, a gesture from the dining room can amplify or diminish the power of the kitchen. The language of service is a subtle code, made of tone, distance, posture.
But this power is not exclusive to the professional kitchen. Even at home, the person who cooks holds a central role. Often a woman — mother, grandmother, wife — who, through food, educates, cares, shapes behaviors. Feeding can be an act of love, but also of emotional control, of reinforcing roles, of transmitting values. In many cultures, the cook decides what is eaten, how and when: a form of everyday authority, quiet but pervasive.
For centuries, this has been — and still is, in parts of the world — the only space where women could exert some form of control. A place where they held a role, however unrecognized or undervalued, in a male-driven society. In the kitchen, family identities were built, memories passed down, and life rhythms established. And there, among pots and repeated gestures, a silent yet profound power was expressed.
Today, that role has partly changed, but it hasn’t disappeared. Women have gained access to public spheres, even in professional kitchens — once a male domain — yet often still bear the burden of domestic care. The kitchen remains an ambivalent space: it can be liberation or prison, vocation or duty, self-expression or invisible labor. And this double meaning deserves to be acknowledged.
To nourish is also to choose what to offer. Behind every menu lies an intention, sometimes even an agenda. A cuisine can include an identity or erase another; it can educate, it can impose. Whoever has the power to decide what goes on the plate, has the power to tell the world their way.
Food as Control
Food has always been a means of control — not just through its availability, but through the way it is distributed, priced, and narrated. Rulers and empires have used food to reward or punish, to appease or subjugate. A famine can be natural, but it is often the result of political choices. A food embargo is a silent war — and often a deadly effective one.
Today, control is no longer exercised solely over raw materials, but over the entire value chain: from seed ownership to logistics, from marketing to cultural storytelling. Those who control the supply chain also hold the key to taste. Food multinationals don’t just sell products: they sell dependency, habits, and dietary models that are hard to break.
Even gastronomic storytelling is an act of power. Defining what is “healthy,” what is “authentic,” what is “cool” shifts cultural and economic balances. Some traditional cuisines are only legitimized when reinterpreted by Western chefs or served in luxury venues. Others are marginalized, linked to poverty, rendered invisible. To control food is to control the imagination. And imagination, often, is more powerful than hunger itself.
Power at the Table
The table is a stage for power — not just because of what is eaten, but because of who is invited, who serves, and who is left out. In the banquets of European courts, the seating arrangement was calculated to the centimeter: the closer to the sovereign, the higher the status, the greater the trust or alliance. Even today, in diplomatic dinners or fine-dining rooms, position and protocol are never random.
Etiquette was born precisely as a tool of social control. A code that separates those who “know how to behave at the table” from those who do not. A subtle way to exclude, to reaffirm belonging. Even the restaurant, in the end, is a coded system: the welcome, the tone of service, the mise en place, the pace of the courses — everything contributes to establishing who is in charge and who submits, even if just for one evening.
The power of sitting at the table also carries deep symbolic meaning. This is even reflected in religious language: “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you at your table” — as said in Christian liturgy — implicitly affirms that eating together is a privilege, reserved for the pure, the accepted, the worthy. The table, then, is not just a place of conviviality, but also of judgment and redemption, of inclusion and exclusion.
But there is also a more intimate, almost invisible form of power: that of the host. To invite someone to dinner is a gesture full of intentionality — an act of hospitality, of course, but also of choice, sometimes of seduction, sometimes of strategy. The table can bring people together — but it can also exclude, gracefully. In any case, sitting down to eat is never a neutral act. It is a form of performance, a declaration of values, often a game of roles.
Food, Identity, and Soft Power
Food is one of the most effective tools of soft power. No weapon, no international treaty has the same seductive strength as a shared dish. National cuisine becomes a cultural ambassador: think of sushi, pizza, or pad thai — they fill not only plates but also stories, TV series, and entire nations’ branding strategies.
Behind every dish, there is an identity being asserted — a way of saying, “this is who we are.” Yet cuisine is also a space of negotiation. Who decides what is authentic? Who has the right to claim a recipe, a style, an origin? Often, authenticity becomes a mask, a tool of cultural power capable of excluding, simplifying, and turning living cuisines into postcards for tourists.
Gastronomic soft power also operates on the commercial and media levels: guides, awards, platforms, food influencers. Those who hold the power to tell the story of food end up shaping tastes, investments, and tourist flows. Some dishes are canonized, others erased or ridiculed. The cuisines of the Global South, often labeled as “ethnic,” must struggle to gain the same respect granted to renowned European names.
But there’s also a fertile side to all this. Food can be a bridge, a translation, a form of cultural resistance. A language that, though manipulated, still retains the power to connect people.
Hospitality and Micro-Dynamics of Power
In a restaurant, power isn’t exercised only in the kitchen. On the contrary, it often plays out in the dining room, in details the guest may not see but that shape the entire experience. Who’s really in charge? The owner? The chef? The maître d’? The truth is, hospitality is a system of balance, where every gesture is a mix of authority and service.
Front-of-house staff hold a particular kind of power: they are the bridge between the kitchen’s vision and the guest’s experience. They can modulate a moment, save a bad evening, turn a meal into a memory. Yet too often they are undervalued, treated as a function rather than a conscious presence.
The language of service – made of tone, timing, and distance – can make or break an atmosphere. Those who master these codes wield a discreet, refined, and often invisible power. That’s why, in high-end venues, the dining room is as important as the kitchen: it’s the place where the relationship with the guest is built, where gestures add meaning and context.
Then there are hotel dining rooms, exclusive lounges, private clubs: spaces where hospitality becomes a theater of social power, a mirror of hierarchies, insecurities, and the comfort of those within them. In these places, to welcome with grace is a form of gentle yet firm authority.
The Plate as a Mirror of the World
At first glance, eating is a simple act — a basic need, a daily routine. Yet each time we sit at the table, we take part in a ritual that reflects power dynamics, cultural choices, and invisible stories. Behind every served dish, there is a supply chain, a decision, a narrative. And behind every act of service, there is a form of authority and guidance, often more meaningful than the overt ones.
Food unites and divides, elevates and humiliates, confirms and overturns. It is a universal language, but also a tool of distinction, control, and both individual and collective expression. Power hides in the details: in a recipe passed down or reinvented, in a seat assigned or denied, in a word spoken or withheld by the one who serves. Maybe that’s why we love talking about food so much — because through it, we also talk about ourselves, our desires, our relationships, our vulnerabilities. And every table, if you look closely, is nothing but a microcosm of the world.