FOOD CULTURAL HERITAGE BETWEEN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

Abstract

The essay aims to investigate the processes that led to the UNESCO recognition of intangible cultural heritages linked to cuisine, food habits, and social and productive practices related to food. The theoretical approach is founded in the reflections included in the three Speeches pronounced by Claude Lévi-Strauss at the United Nations agency in the postwar period on the relationship between the concepts of race, history, and culture, and in the more recent reflections by Luigi M. Lombardi Satriani on the identitarian value of food. The paper analyzes documents such as UNESCO Declarations, the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, the 2005 Faro Convention, as well as the nominations and inscriptions of elements tied to food cultures and practices in the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The analysis demonstrates how food heritages are a source of pride for communities and have instead been the object of prejudice by institutions for years, both national and international. Starting from the pioneering recognitions of the "Mediterranean Diet," "Gastronomic meal of the French," and "Traditional Mexican cuisine," dating back to 2010, collective and institutional sensibilities have changed, and led to a relevant increasing activity of promotion of these intangible heritages. Therefore, the aim of this essay is to propose to the anthropological debate a historical-critical reflection and an interpretative genealogy of this phenomenon.