Authentic recipes: local gastronomy and heritage recognition

Abstract

Based on the universe of Portuguese gastronomic confraternities, we propose to discuss some of the processes of constitution and affirmation of local gastronomies. We will focus on the discourses that the three confraternities we have chosen to analyse produce about themselves in the context of debates about heritage. The rhetoric of heritage, which served to consolidate nineteenth-century nationalisms and which today serves the mechanisms for integrating diversity into global narratives, has in gastronomy an exponentiated expression of these processes. Gastronomy is constituted by affirming singularities, which some agents, such as those belonging to confraternities, seek to protect. On the other hand, gastronomy, by revitalizing itself through the permanent incorporation of new products, Knowledge, and flavors, while still responding to what makes it heritage, seeks the widest possible recognition. This text will focus on these different layers of narratives, generated by balancing the defense of local and national gastronomies with the incorporation of the heritage value enshrined at global level.