"WorldHeritage" news and stories

This summer, it became apparent that France wanted UNESCO to recognize its cuisine as a world heritage. In a post from July, Shayna Glick points out that the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO protects cultural heritages by deeming certain monuments and actual places as a world heritage, in other words, physical objects or sites. Nevertheless, criteria number three of the committee leaves the topic open to cuisine.

A more recent article, from the New York Times, discusses a strategy session that just took place with 6 French chefs, including Guy Savoy, and culinary experts, such as France's pre-eminent food historian Jean-Robert Pitte, with the goal to preserve French cuisine. Together they compiled a list of regional delicacies that should be saved. But, can France compete with the cuisine from other nations? Spain just revitalized its own ambition to win culinary recognition. The Times points out that Italy, Greece, and Morroco all joined the fight.

Ideally, it makes perfect sense for French cuisine to become a world heritage. However, what will prevent every other country from making its national cuisine a world heritage? It seems to me that the criteria needs to be readdressed. In 2003, the Committtee adopted the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. This needs to be more specific. Why not create a specific sub-organization to deal with protecting global culinary traditions.

As much as I love French cuisine, I cannot help but think that making it a world heritage would seem elitist and dismissive of foods from other countries. Isn't there a better way to preserve French cuisine?

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?

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