Culinary Heritage: UNESCO and the Mediterranean Diet
Here’s a must read article on the UNESCO designation of the Mediterranean Diet as intangible patrimony of humanity from the excellent Food in Italy blog run by Zachary Nowak with Dr. S. Young. Here’s just a sample of his take down of this initiative.
What is truly striking, though, is the lack of a definition of what exactly the Mediterranean Diet is. In part C of the completed application form, “Characteristics of the Element,” we find references to the Diet as “traditions and symbolisms based on food practice,” “a major component of identity,” “the close relation from the landscape to the cuisine,” but no actual definition of the Diet. I can’t say I expected percentages and Recommended Daily Allowances because I downloaded the document precisely because I doubted it would have any sort of definition, but the Diet enthusiast would be disappointed.
Apart from the lack of definition of the Mediterranean Diet, Nowak worries about how the initiative from four political units in four different countries was generated, the lack of unity of diets across the Mediterranean, the relatively recent arrival of many aspects of the diet, the purported health benefits of the diet, and the tourism boom that it has brought to the region (though in fact that is exactly what UNESCO hopes to encourage).
Also important is the link to Australian nutritionist Pat Crotty’s classic article on the Mediterranean Diet in Nutrition Today. Although the article is unfortunately gated, if you don’t know it try to get to a library and read it. Or google Patricia Crotty Mediterranean Diet for a sample of the grief she got for doing one of the things a nutritionist should do: analyzing and criticizing popular stories about nutrition.
And check my category on culinary heritage for other posts, largely on the problems of the designation of Michoacán in Mexico as a location of culinary intangible heritage.
EDIT. Thanks to one of my readers, here is a link to a pdf of Crotty. The Mediterranean Diet as a Food Guide_ The Problem of Culture and History.
I think this points to how meaningless the UNESCO designation is for most things. It’s a political process that has little to do with history or culture. The whole process of obtaining the designation reminds of an incident that I witnessed in the medical community in the early 1990s. A doctor in the field I was working in talked a number of his overseas fellow travelers to nominate him for the Nobel Prize. He had no chance of making it through the first stage of the process, but from then on he always had himself introduced as a Nobel Prize Nominee. Every UNESCO designated monument I’ve been to reminded of that incident, and seemed to just just as self-aggrandized. Dig deep in the application for the Mediterranean Diet, and there’s probably some corporate interest pushing the process.
Peter, like you I am unimpressed with these designations. I am not sure they are pointless though. I think they set in train a number of consequences, some good, many bad. An incentive to preserve monuments or traditions; frequently the inability to add necessary improvements (in Guanajuato downtown housing could not be improved in important ways); a series of junkets for the mayors or other local officials; the turning of things or events into tourist destinations; the making national of things that were created long before the nation; and so on.
1 on peut penser que la Méditerranée, mer ouverte aux échanges des aliments depuis la nuit des temps, berceau d’une des premières agricultures a accumulé un savoir manger à travers ses civilisations multiples
2 c’est un peu vrai et aussi un peu faux, il y a de nombreux régimes alimentaires correspondant à ce climat, énormément de variantes locales
3 il existe ici (sud Portugal) un régime alimentaire typique et paradoxal : beaucoup de sel, d’huile d’olive, d’aromatiques (menthe, grande quatité d’ail) beaucoup de vin rouge, de pain et d’agrumes. Et les gens vivent vieux et heureux.
Hi jp, Delighted to have a comment in French although I will have to reply in English.
1. I have no problem with the idea that the cuisines of the Mediterranean are interrelated. And I also have no problem with the idea that they are good eating. But that does not mean that there is a single Mediterranean diet. (I actually like the idea of cuisines better than diet, in any case).
3. Interesting about Portugal. It actually sounds rather like the diet of Catalonia where I now am.
Love your blog, looking forward to getting to know you better.
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