Putting your shoe on the couch is bad, putting it on dining table is worse and serving dessert on a shoe is beyond imagination. For Japanese especially, there is a clear etiquette of not allowing outdoor shoes inside. This is exactly the reason why the japanese general public is upset with the recent visit of Japan PM Shinzo Abe and his wife to Israel, where both of them were served dessert in a shoe!
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There were two days of high level meeting and at the end of it all, the Japanese PM was offered a festive meal at the official residence of Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara Netanyahu. The meal was prepared by the celebrity Israeli chef Segev Moshe.
The meal went fine but the dessert – a selection of chocolate pralines arranged aesthetically in a leather shoe raised a few eyebrows. We are not sure what went through the mind of the Abe couple but clearly the Israeli and Japanese diplomats were appalled by the novelty of the idea.
One of the Israeli official said that there is nothing lowlier than a shoe in Japanese culture. He pointed out that the Japanese don’t wear shoes at home or their offices and it is disrespect of first order. A Japanese diplomat said there is no culture in the world that puts a shoe on the table and wondered what the chef was thinking. He felt the whole Japanese were offended on behalf of the prime minister.
Israeli foreign ministry said they had no hand in deciding the dishes. Whether the shoe is going to affect the diplomatic relations between the two countries is something we have to wait and watch.
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