Word: frenchness
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...wording of the French proposal may sidestep this issue altogether. A more nuanced request to protect the small businesses—tiny charcuteries, family restaurants, cheese makers, rare turnip producers—that make the well-fed-village atmosphere of France possible may underlie the media’s sensationalized version of the proposal...
Perhaps what makes the French’s claim so ridiculous, then, is not the notion that gastronomy could be preserved as a cultural heritage, but the arrogance of their grand call to preserve all of French cuisine. The category “French cuisine” is ambiguous to the point of being meaningless. If people within France can hardly agree on what constitutes traditional French cuisine, a committee can hardly be expected to decide...
According to the UNSESCO convention, an Intangible Cultural Heritage, by definition, exists only in relation to the members of its community. If we assume the best of the French for a moment, then protecting French cuisine may be much more about protecting and promoting the people involved than it is about putting French cuisine itself on a pedestal...
...preserving French cuisine can be interpreted to mean embalming Coq au Vin, cryofreezing Beef Bourgogne, and xenophobically protecting French gastronomy from any outside influence. But it can also, equally, mean protecting a craft, ensuring the transmission of the knowledge of French culinary techniques—Escoffier’s tricks for making stocks, the proper way to deglaze a pan—and saving endangered produce and small businesses from extinction. Since none of this year’s proposals has been revealed to the public yet, it is difficult to know the French’s exact intentions amidst...
Regardless of the wording of the proposal, though, it seems very unlikely that UNESCO will name French cuisine the first world gastronomic treasure. Given its history of turning down culinary proposals (Mexico’s similar request three years ago was shot down before it even reached committee) and Khaznadar’s reluctance, UNESCO is unlikely to reverse course...