The Olive Oil and the Deal: How War Gets to the Table

El resultado es agridulce, oscuro, casi medicinal.

The result is bittersweet, dark, almost medicinal.

No se parece a nada de la cocina mediterránea o del Mediterráneo occidental.

It resembles nothing in Mediterranean or western cooking.

And the saffron question, because Iran produces something like ninety percent of the world's saffron.

That's not a minor agricultural footnote.

That's a monopoly on the most expensive spice on earth, and sanctions have effectively cut that market off for decades.

Exactamente.

Exactly.

Y eso tiene consecuencias muy concretas.

And that has very concrete consequences.

El azafrán iraní era el estándar de calidad global, el que usaban los cocineros en España, en Italia, en la India.

Iranian saffron was the global quality standard, the one used by cooks in Spain, Italy, India.

Con las sanciones, muchos compradores tuvieron que recurrir al azafrán español o al de Afganistán, que son buenos pero no son lo mismo.

With the sanctions, many buyers had to turn to Spanish or Afghan saffron, which are good but not the same.

El azafrán iraní tiene un aroma más intenso, un color más profundo.

Iranian saffron has a more intense aroma, a deeper color.

Es diferente.

It's different.

You just defended Iranian saffron over Spanish.

I want to note that for the record.

El azafrán de La Mancha es excelente, no te confundas.

La Mancha saffron is excellent, don't get me wrong.

Pero hay que ser honesto cuando uno habla de ingredientes.

But you have to be honest when you talk about ingredients.

La calidad no tiene bandera.

Quality has no flag.

That might be the most diplomatic thing you've ever said on this show.

So here's the historical piece that I keep circling back to.

The Persian Empire was, for centuries, one of the great nodes of the Silk Road.

The food culture wasn't just domestic, it was a function of being at the center of everything.

Sí, y eso explica por qué la cocina persa tiene tantas influencias y al mismo tiempo es tan reconocible.

Yes, and that explains why Persian cuisine has so many influences yet is so recognizable.

Pasaban por allí caravanas de la India, de China, del Mediterráneo.

Caravans from India, China, the Mediterranean passed through.

Los persas absorbían ingredientes y técnicas, pero los transformaban.

The Persians absorbed ingredients and techniques, but transformed them.

El arroz, que llegó de la India, se convirtió en algo completamente iraní cuando lo prepararon con azafrán y mantequilla y lo dejaron con esa costra dorada en el fondo que se llama tahdig.

Rice, which came from India, became something entirely Iranian when they prepared it with saffron and butter and left that golden crust at the bottom called tahdig.

The tahdig.

I had that in Tehran and I genuinely didn't understand what I was eating.

The bottom of the rice pot is the prize.

The crust.

Every culture has a version of the burned bit being the best bit, and Iran decided to engineer it deliberately.

Es que es un símbolo de algo más grande.

It's a symbol of something larger.

En la cultura iraní, la hospitalidad y la mesa tienen un valor casi sagrado.

In Iranian culture, hospitality and the table carry an almost sacred value.

Hay un concepto que se llama ta'arof, que es un sistema de cortesía muy elaborado, y una parte importante de él tiene que ver con la comida.

There's a concept called ta'arof, a very elaborate system of courtesy, and an important part of it involves food.

Cuando alguien te ofrece algo de comer, tienes que rechazarlo primero aunque lo quieras, y el anfitrión tiene que insistir.

When someone offers you something to eat, you have to refuse first even if you want it, and the host must insist.

El intercambio ritual forma parte del placer de comer juntos.

The ritual exchange is part of the pleasure of eating together.

I stumbled into that in 2007 and made a complete mess of it.

My fixer had to explain afterward why I'd accidentally insulted three people by accepting food too quickly.

Which apparently signals you think the host is desperate.

Eso me lo creo perfectamente.

I can absolutely picture that.

Pero mira, lo que describes es algo que también existe en España, aunque de manera menos formal.

But look, what you're describing also exists in Spain, though less formally.

La mesa como espacio de negociación social, de demostración de generosidad, de construcción de confianza.

The table as a space of social negotiation, demonstrating generosity, building trust.

En muchos países mediterráneos y de Oriente Medio, un acuerdo de negocios no vale nada hasta que se ha comido juntos.

In many Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries, a business deal means nothing until you've eaten together.

Which makes the food sanctions angle genuinely cruel in a way that goes beyond economics.

Because when you cut off a country's saffron exports, you're not just hitting their GDP.

You're severing one of the ways they present themselves to the world.

Eso es algo que muy poca gente en Occidente entiende sobre las sanciones.

That's something very few people in the West understand about sanctions.

Hay un análisis que considera el impacto económico, el impacto político, pero rara vez se analiza el impacto cultural.

There's analysis of economic impact, political impact, but rarely of cultural impact.

Irán no ha podido exportar libremente su gastronomía, su vino, su fruta.

Iran hasn't been able to freely export its gastronomy, its wine, its fruit.

Los pistachos iraníes, que son considerados los mejores del mundo por muchos expertos, han estado fuera del mercado internacional durante décadas.

Iranian pistachios, considered the world's best by many experts, have been locked out of international markets for decades.

Wait, Iran produces wine?

I thought, given the Islamic Republic, that was completely off the table.

Antes de 1979, sí.

Before 1979, yes.

Irán tenía una industria vinícola importante.

Iran had a significant wine industry.

La región de Shiraz, que en Europa se conoce por la uva syrah, en realidad debe su nombre a esa ciudad iraní.

The Shiraz region, known in Europe for the syrah grape, actually takes its name from that Iranian city.

Hay historiadores del vino que argumentan que Shiraz, en Irán, es uno de los lugares donde el vino fue producido por primera vez en la historia humana, hace más de siete mil años.

Some wine historians argue that Shiraz, in Iran, is one of the places where wine was first produced in human history, more than seven thousand years ago.

Seven thousand years.

And then the revolution arrives in 1979 and essentially that entire thread gets cut.

The vineyards don't all disappear overnight but the industry collapses.

That's a remarkable piece of cultural erasure tied directly to political rupture.

Y eso tiene una consecuencia directa sobre cómo Irán se relaciona con el mundo.

And that has a direct consequence on how Iran relates to the world.

Cuando un país no puede compartir su comida, su vino, sus especias, pierde una herramienta diplomática muy poderosa.

When a country can't share its food, its wine, its spices, it loses a very powerful diplomatic tool.

La cocina es una forma de decir: somos civilización, tenemos historia, tenemos algo que ofrecerte.

Cuisine is a way of saying: we are civilization, we have history, we have something to offer you.

Las sanciones cortaron eso también.

Sanctions cut that too.

There's a term for this, gastrodiplomacy, and it's taken more seriously in foreign policy circles than you might expect.

Thailand ran a deliberate campaign in the early 2000s to open Thai restaurants globally as a soft power strategy.

South Korea did the same.

The argument is that if someone has eaten your food and liked it, they are slightly more favorably disposed toward you.

Tiene mucho sentido, aunque suene casi ingenuo.

It makes a lot of sense, even if it sounds almost naive.

España lo ha hecho también, aunque de manera menos organizada.

Spain has done it too, though less organized.

La expansión de la cocina española a nivel global, el boom de Ferran Adrià, el reconocimiento internacional de la dieta mediterránea como Patrimonio de la Humanidad, todo eso ha mejorado la imagen de España en el exterior más que muchas campañas diplomáticas formales.

The global expansion of Spanish cuisine, the Ferran Adrià boom, the international recognition of the Mediterranean diet as a UNESCO heritage, all of that has improved Spain's image abroad more than many formal diplomatic campaigns.

And if this Iran-US memorandum actually holds, the food implications are not trivial.

Iranian saffron back in markets.

Pistachios back in European grocery stores.

Gulf food supply chains functioning again.

That's not geopolitics, that's people eating differently in places that had nothing to do with the war.

Pero hay que ser cautelosos.

But we have to be careful.

Un memorando de una página no es una paz.

A one-page memorandum isn't peace.

Es un primer paso hacia una negociación más larga y complicada sobre el programa nuclear.

It's a first step toward a longer and more complicated negotiation about the nuclear program.

Los mercados de alimentos pueden celebrarlo hoy, pero si las negociaciones se rompen en tres meses, la situación podría ser peor que antes, porque habría una nueva decepción.

Food markets might celebrate today, but if negotiations break down in three months, the situation could be worse than before, because there would be a new disappointment.

That's the pattern, isn't it.

The 2015 nuclear deal, the JCPOA, briefly opened the saffron markets.

European companies rushed in.

Then Trump pulled out in 2018, the sanctions snapped back, and any company that had started sourcing Iranian ingredients had to cut ties again.

That cycle of hope and rupture is devastating for food systems that need long-term supply relationships.

Y eso crea una desconfianza que va mucho más allá de la política.

And that creates a mistrust that goes far beyond politics.

Los agricultores iraníes que intentaron entrar en los mercados europeos en 2015 y 2016 invirtieron dinero, establecieron contactos, y luego vieron cómo todo se derrumbaba otra vez.

Iranian farmers who tried to enter European markets in 2015 and 2016 invested money, established contacts, and then watched everything collapse again.

Es muy difícil pedirles que vuelvan a intentarlo ahora con el mismo entusiasmo.

It's very hard to ask them to try again now with the same enthusiasm.

There's an agricultural economist at Johns Hopkins who described this as sanctions whiplash.

The infrastructure for international food trade, the certifications, the cold chain logistics, the buyer relationships, that stuff takes years to build and days to destroy.

And it doesn't rebuild symmetrically.

Lo que describes es algo que también ocurrió con el aceite de oliva español durante la Guerra Civil.

What you're describing also happened with Spanish olive oil during the Civil War.

Las exportaciones colapsaron, los mercados que España había construido durante generaciones los tomaron otros países, y cuando la guerra terminó, recuperar ese espacio tardó décadas.

Exports collapsed, the markets Spain had built over generations were taken by other countries, and when the war ended, recovering that space took decades.

La memoria del mercado es larga.

The memory of the market is long.

The memory of the market is long.

You should put that on a t-shirt.

So let's bring this back to today.

What does a functioning Strait of Hormuz actually mean for the countries most dependent on it for food?

Para los países del Golfo, como he dicho, es una cuestión de supervivencia real.

For Gulf countries, as I said, it's a matter of real survival.

Pero también importa mucho para países como Pakistán, Bangladesh o Sri Lanka, que exportan alimentos a través del Golfo o que importan productos básicos que pasan por esa ruta.

But it also matters greatly for countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, or Sri Lanka, which export food through the Gulf or import basic commodities that pass through that route.

Y para el sur de Asia en general, una reducción en los precios del combustible significa una reducción en el costo de producir y transportar alimentos.

And for South Asia in general, a reduction in fuel prices means a reduction in the cost of producing and transporting food.

Pakistan, interestingly, has been one of the most active mediators in pushing for this memorandum.

Ishaq Dar, the deputy prime minister, said yesterday they're focused on making the ceasefire permanent.

And Pakistan's position in all of this is partly about food security.

They import enormous quantities of edible oil through the Gulf region.

Y eso me parece un argumento muy convincente para explicar por qué países que no tienen ningún interés militar directo en este conflicto están tan activos diplomáticamente.

And that strikes me as a very convincing argument for why countries with no direct military interest in this conflict are so diplomatically active.

No es idealismo, es el precio del aceite de cocina.

It's not idealism, it's the price of cooking oil.

Cuando el precio sube un veinte por ciento en un país donde el cincuenta por ciento del presupuesto familiar se gasta en comida, la presión política es inmediata.

When the price rises twenty percent in a country where fifty percent of the family budget goes to food, the political pressure is immediate.

Which is also why gold jumped this morning on the peace news.

Gold and food are both stores of value, and both react to the same geopolitical triggers.

The markets are essentially saying: if this holds, the inflationary pressure that's been grinding through a dozen food systems starts to ease.

Aunque hay algo irónico en todo esto.

Though there's something ironic in all of this.

El azafrán iraní, los pistachos iraníes, el arroz basmati del Golfo, todos son productos que aparecerían en la mesa de una cena diplomática entre Irán y Estados Unidos si es que esa cena llegara a celebrarse.

Iranian saffron, Iranian pistachios, Gulf basmati rice, all products that would appear on the table at a diplomatic dinner between Iran and the United States if that dinner ever took place.

La comida puede ser el primer símbolo de reconciliación antes de que ningún político lo declare.

Food can be the first symbol of reconciliation before any politician announces it.

Nixon went to China and they made a point of photographing him eating Peking duck.

Reagan and Gorbachev, the summit dinners were always carefully curated.

There's a whole literature on what you serve at a peace dinner and what it signals.

I wrote a piece about this once after a summit in Geneva and the editor cut the food section, which I'm still annoyed about.

El editor tenía mal gusto.

The editor had bad taste.

Pero tiene razón en algo: cuando piensas en los grandes momentos diplomáticos del siglo veinte, siempre hay una comida en algún lugar de la historia.

But you're right about something: when you think of the great diplomatic moments of the twentieth century, there's always a meal somewhere in the story.

Porque comer juntos es un acto de vulnerabilidad.

Because eating together is an act of vulnerability.

Bajas la guardia.

You lower your guard.

Es difícil negociar un tratado con alguien y al mismo tiempo negarte a probar su comida.

It's hard to negotiate a treaty with someone and at the same time refuse to try their food.

One page.

That's all it is right now.

One page that might, if it holds, mean that the world's saffron supply starts moving again, that a farmer in the Kerman province can sell his harvest outside his own borders, that the markets settle and the cooking oil price drops in Karachi.

It's a small piece of paper with very large dinner table implications.

Oye, has usado una expresión antes que me llamó la atención.

Hey, you used an expression earlier that caught my attention.

Dijiste "set the table for negotiations", que en español equivale a "preparar el terreno" o "sentar las bases".

You said 'set the table for negotiations,' which in Spanish is 'preparar el terreno' or 'sentar las bases.' It's interesting that English uses the metaphor of setting the table and Spanish uses the one about laying foundations, as if you were constructing a building.

Es curioso que en inglés se use la metáfora de poner la mesa y en español se use la de sentar las bases, como si construyeras un edificio.

I hadn't thought about that.

"Sentar las bases." Literally to seat the foundations.

So in Spanish you're building architecture and in English you're arranging a meal.

That tells you something about both cultures, probably.

Sí, y el verbo "sentar" en español es interesante porque puede significar varias cosas.

Yes, and the verb 'sentar' in Spanish is interesting because it can mean several things.

"Sentar las bases" es establecer fundamentos.

'Sentar las bases' is to establish foundations.

"Sentar a alguien" es hacerle sentarse.

'Sentar a alguien' is to make someone sit.

Pero también decimos "me sienta bien" para hablar de ropa que te queda bien, o de comida que no te ha caído mal.

But we also say 'me sienta bien' for clothes that fit well, or food that agrees with you.

El mismo verbo para la ropa, la comida y la diplomacia.

The same verb for clothing, food, and diplomacy.

So if Iranian saffron disagrees with your stomach you could say it doesn't sit well with you, and in Spanish that's "no me sienta bien." Which is exactly what most diplomats are saying about the one-page memo right now, except in their case it's metaphorical.

Muy bien, Fletcher, no está mal.

Not bad at all, Fletcher.

"El acuerdo no me sienta bien" funciona perfectamente.

'El acuerdo no me sienta bien' works perfectly.

Lo que me alegra es que al menos no has dicho que estás muy embarazado con todo el asunto del azafrán.

What makes me happy is that at least you didn't say you're very pregnant about the whole saffron business.

That one's never going away, is it.