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Should France's cuisine be added as a UNESCO world heritage?

Up close view of choux paste puffs
The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization does a lot of things, including set international standards, disseminate new ideas, and "help build human and industrial capacities in diverse fields." One of the organization's most important functions, in my opinion, is to set and protect cultural heritages, which are determined by the World Heritage Committee.

The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO has a wide range of criteria they use to determine world heritages, and France wants to add its cuisine to that list. According to AFP, though, not many people think this bid is going to go through, especially after the committee rejected a similar bid from Mexico a few years ago.

Sure, most of the World Heritages are physical places or arts and traditions associated with them. Most of the criteria that World Heritage Committee uses have to do with monuments or geological locations, but criteria number three leaves cuisine open, at least in my mind: to bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared

If national cuisine doesn't bear unique testimony to cultural tradition, I don't know what does. What do you think?

Source

Filed Under: Lists
Tags: AFP, critera, cuisine, France, UNESCO, world heritage, World Heritage Committee, WorldHeritage, WorldHeritageCommittee

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

Big John

7-06-2008 @1:09PM Big John said... Why not add every other major cuisine that has influenced cooking throughout the world as time has gone by? Italian? Why not Mexican? The list could keep on going. I don't see this one surviving.
Reply

pete martin

7-06-2008 @2:28PM pete martin said... I point out the UNESCO work on Intangible Heritage

http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/index.php?lg=EN&pg=home

Which is a sort of logical opposite to World Heritage Sites, for they wish to preserve the cultural heritage along the lines of:
* Oral traditions and expressions including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
* Performing arts (such as traditional music, dance and theatre);
* Social practices, rituals and festive events;
* Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
* Traditional craftsmanship.

Of which cuisine could be put in (following craftsmanshp and oral tradition).

Reply

Da Vid

7-06-2008 @6:53PM Da Vid said... Are you kidding me?! I agree with Big John.
Reply

GL

7-06-2008 @7:02PM GL said... I agree with Big John.
Reply

Skip

7-07-2008 @6:16AM Skip said... I vote Yes ONLY IF South Carolina gets on the list with:::

Poke Salit
Hoppin jons
Kornbred
n' Sweet tee
Reply

Gobo

7-07-2008 @8:56AM Gobo said... The only way they could justify special 'world heritage' status is to demonstrate that French cuisine has been uniquely influential on other world cuisines through its development of things like mother sauces, cooking techniques, and French breads like baguettes. They might be able to make a case for it.

Skip, you could at least spell "tea" right.
Reply

Skip

7-08-2008 @6:01AM Skip said... *****************************
7-07-2008 @ 8:56AM
Gobo said...
Skip, you could at least spell "tea" right.
*************************
Yx'xaxlxlx xaxixnx'xtx xnxox xfxuxnx xtxax xpxlxax xwxixdx.x.x.x.x.x.x.x xTxoxox xsxtxuxfxfxyx xaxnxdx xsxexrxixoxuxsx xaxbxoxuxtxx xBxuxlxlxsxhxixxtx.x.x.x xIx xdxexpxaxixrx xaxtx xyxoxuxrx xrxexsxpxoxsxexsx xtxo serious concerns, that really mattered...

SKIP
Reply

7 Comments / 1 Pages

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