Breaking Borders follows seasoned journalist Mariana Van Zeller and acclaimed chef Michael Voltaggio as they travel into conflict zones to get the story behind the story. The goal is to gather people from all sides of the conflict to break bread and explore the issues that divide them.
"Take a shopworn, simplistic concept, apply it in an unexpected way, and what do you get? An entertaining and informative travel program.
It’s called “Breaking Borders,” and it has its premiere Sunday on the Travel Channel.
The journalist Mariana van Zeller and the chef Michael Voltaggio team up to travel to parts of the world where intractable tensions dominate life. They bring together representatives of various sides of a festering conflict, and Mr. Voltaggio serves them a grand dinner featuring local dishes. The hope is that good food shared in a hospitable setting might help enemies find common ground.
This is a variation on an old idea that turns up a lot in feel-good documentaries and on the agendas of well-meaning foundations. If only Israeli and Palestinian children could play together in the same orchestra, all the differences would melt away. To apply the formula, substitute other feuding peoples for Israelis and Palestinians, and soccer team or spaceflight or whatever for orchestra.
It’s a lovely idea, and it often even makes a difference on a small scale, yet the world’s enmities keep right on boiling. So whether the breaking-bread version in this series actually accomplishes much is open to question. But it makes for a travel/cooking show that’s considerably livelier than most.
Ms. van Zeller is engaging and succinct as she summarizes the conflicts in the trouble spot of the week, and Mr. Voltaggio is amusing as he takes a crash course in the local cuisine and visits street markets to buy his ingredients. Their first stop is a gimme: The premiere finds them inviting a Palestinian book store owner, a two-state-solution advocate and several Israeli settlers to dinner in the West Bank."