Prime Minister Modi woos Chinese President and southern states with spectacular food

Food, said former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, was the oldest diplomatic tool and experts agree. Whoever controls access to food, they say, controls the room where diplomatic parleys take place. And food seems to have been the key diplomatic tool used by PM Modi to soften his Chinese guest of honour, President Xi Jin Ping, at Mamallapuram.

Running a large country, said Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, was like frying a small fish. We are told that what he meant was that the essence of governing a large country was best left to take care of itself !

While it is not known if the Chinese President and the Indian Prime Minister discussed philosophy over their dinner and lunch at Mamallapuram, what is known is that the Indian hosts went out of their way to lay a spectacular array of dishes including non-vegetarian fare made of fish, lamb and chicken.

The Chinese are known for their devotion to the stomach and take their food seriously. Mao Ze Dong, credited to have said that a Revolution was not like inviting people to dinner, preferred a spartan fare but he was so fond of chillies that the first western journalist to interview him, Edgar Snow, had revealed that Mao got pepper cooked into his bread.

While neither the PMO nor PM Modi tweeted pictures of he and the Chinese President having lunch or dinner, a dinner menu card found its way to social media and has been widely shared and commented upon since Friday evening.

According to the menu card, the non-vegetarian menu served for Xi Jinping included signature dishes of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The Tamil Nadu signature dishes like Thanjavur Kozhi Curry — a chicken gravy which is a speciality from Thanjavur and Yerachi Ghetti Kozhambu — a gravy of mutton cubes cooked with dry coriander and spices Arachavitta Sambar, a lentil curry made with a paste of spices and coconut and Mamsam Biryani, a dish made with long-grained rice and tender lamb cooked in Andhra style also found a place in the menu along with Mutton Ularthiyadhu, a Kerala style dish made with mutton cubes and coconut.