Dinner at the Pakistani Embassy

Posted By Laura Rozen Wednesday, February 25, 2009 - 3:28 AM Share

Last night, Pakistani Amb. Husain Haqqani hosted 130 guests for a dinner in honor of a high-level delegation of senior Pakistani officials visiting Washington. Among those invited to dine with Haqqani, Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani:

U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, NSC war czar Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, NSC homeland security advisor John Brennan, plus members of Congress including Sens. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Ben Nelson (D-NE), Reps. Chris van Hollen (D-MD), Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), and Howard Berman (D-CA). Air Force Gen. Norton Schwartz, Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, and Richard Boucher, the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs, also attended.

The dinner was held in a "big room, 8-10 tables," one guest told The Cable. The embassy served "mushroom soup, rice, break, chicken, mutton curry, veggies, gulub jamun" a sweet, syrupy dessert, he said.

The dinner was "short on speeches," he added. "Just a welcome from Ambassador Haqqani." The head table, where Holbrooke, Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi, and members of Congress were seated, "talked on and on after others started to slip out the sides."

General Kayani dined at a table with Lt. General Lute and other senior U.S. military officials. Another source at the dinner noted that Boucher and Holbrooke, sitting at neighboring tables, never seemed to acknowledge each other. Holbrooke mentioned that he has hired a deputy -- along with advisor Vali Nasr and NYU South Asia expert Barnett Rubin, who is consulting for a period of 130 days -- but is running a small shop.

EXPLORE:SOUTH ASIA, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION, PAKISTAN

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NEMO9

4:47 AM ET

February 25, 2009

Delicious Cuisine

But Gulab Jamun as a "Pakistani Dessert" is like saying Gelato is Albanian. It's all Indian Cuisine but admitting that might start an international incident with the Pakistani's.

In their reality India was carved out the land of the pure and not the other way around.

I'm suprised Lanny Davis didn't find himself on the list.

BLACKTON

10:12 PM ET

February 25, 2009

Gulab Jamon - Whose Dessert? Pakistan's? India's?

The Indo-Pak quibble about the provenance of Gulab Jamons is parochial.

In the subcontinent the dish has proximate Moghul origins - ultimately Persian. "Gulab" is originally a Persian word that found its way into Hindustani/Urdu.

The actual dish may well trace its heritage to Arabia where the same dessert is called lu'mat al-adi.

Sub-Continantal cultural elements (culinary, musical, poetic, architectural, etc) that have Muslim roots really cannot be parsed as Indian or Pakistani.

There are, of course, cultural artifacts that have more-or-less exclusive Hindu roots... and these can sometimes be fairly termed "Indian".

But a great deal of the region's culture was forged in the wonderful crucible of intellectually tolerant Mughal multiculturalism...... and belongs securely to both India and Pakistan.

Mais où sont les neiges d’antan?

John Blackton