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French cuisine becomes UNESCO protected
French cuisine celebrates elevation to UNESCO‘s “World Intangible Heritages” List by creating a National Festival of Gastronomy with restaurants across the country battling it out to offer outstanding dishes at mouth watering prices.
France is the first country to be honoured by UNESCO for its national food and cuisine. It joins other cultural practices on UNESCO’s “World Intangible Heritages” list such as the Royal Ballet of Cambodia and Mexico’s Day of the Dead Festival. It’s not just the cooking that has been recognised, but the very culture of close friends coming together and whiling away the hours over dinner. How French!
To celebrate this achievement, the Secretary of State for Tourism, Mr Frédéric Lefebvre, has announced the creation of “La Fête de la Gastronomie Française” (Festival of French Gastronomy). The very first Festival will be organised for 23rd September 2011, and will see restaurants all over France offering menus at exceptional prices in order to tempt hungry Frenchmen and tourists inside to discover a wealth of French cuisine.
Paul Johnson
Paul Johnson is Editor of A Luxury Travel Blog and has worked in the travel industry for more than 30 years. He is Winner of the Innovations in Travel ‘Best Travel Influencer’ Award from WIRED magazine. In addition to other awards, the blog has also been voted “one of the world’s best travel blogs” and “best for luxury” by The Telegraph.
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Wow who would have thought it! Well done French tourism
So this means french cuisine is now protected? Who’s going to stop it changing?
wow didn’t realise they could do that wonder what will be next?
As much as I want to like traditional French Food, I can’t eat it. I also didn’t realise this was possible.
I don’t particularly like French food. I think it is a bit ridiculous for it tobecome UNESCO protected.
Italians definitely my favourite but I guess the thing is the food is a massive part of France and it’s identity and tourist appeal so they want to recognise and preserve that.
it kind of opens it up for other nations to protect their own cuisine, what about japanese, italian, chinese or mexican cuisines they all could have a case too!
Actually Mexican and Chinese were inducted at the same time as French cuisine on Nov 2010.
In fact, Mexican cuisine enjoyed an early announcement two months before the official declaration that year, in a way making it the first one.
Japanese and Peruvian are soon to be inducted being the strongest candidates these days. Italian cuisine, even if it’s one of the world’s most popular, doesn’t have such an ancient tradition since most of it’s characteristic ingredients come from for example China (pasta, spices both brought by Marco Polo) and Mexico (tomatoes and spices, after the discovery of the Americas)
I really enjoy all of them. It is not only about the taste of the food itself or it’s popularity but the cultural importance inside and outside their countries. Bon appétit!