Even hardcore nationalists would have no appetite for taking foreign food off the menu

ACROSS the world, there seems to have been an upsurge in nationalism: from Donald Trump’s enduring “Make America Great Again” slogan, to Brexit, to India’s renaming of cities to remove colonial or Muslim names, to China considering a ban on foreign ways that “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people”.

What if we take this idea – exalting what is considered authentically indigenous and purging that of foreign origin – to its logical extreme?

Imagine if every country and every people could return to an authentic national diet, with all ingredients of foreign origin determinedly ousted from shops and kitchens.