Daniel Hillel

The World Food Prize sounds absolutely delicious, like something confirmed by Andrew Zimmern or Anthony Bourdain, but, alas, it's not. It recognizes "individuals who have advanced human development by improving the quality, quantity, or availability of food in the world". So, not alas?

Among winners are John Niederhauser for "research in potato production and improving its resistance to disease", Walter Plowright for "developing a vaccine against the cattle plague rinderpest", and Bob Dole for "encouraging global commitment to school feeding". Yeah, we'll get back to that one.

First we need to bring up Daniel Hillel, the one confirmed Jew amongst the winners. Hillel, an Israeli-American agronomist, was honored for "conceiving and implementing micro-irrigation in arid and dry land regions". Seriously, that sounds incredibly important. Now back to Bob Dole!

Dole, who somehow shared the prize in 2008 with another failed presidential candidate, George McGovern, is such an outlier in the list of acclaimed scientists. Sure, school lunches are important, but come on! Did the World Food Prize want a "name", and Dole was the best they came up with?

Should have just had Zimmern or Bourdain host the ceremony...