Recognising, Safeguarding, and Promoting Food Heritage: Challenges and Prospects for the Future of Sustainable Food Systems

Abstract

The safeguarding and promotion of food heritage are often considered as a possible way for achieving social and cultural sustainability objectives. This literature review investigates some of the dynamics underlying the heritagisation of food and explores the risks of this process. It focuses mainly on anthropological, geographical, and sociological publications. Overall, it aims to shed light on the strengths and limitations of food heritagisation regarding the improvement of the socio-cultural sustainability of the food system. The analysis highlights cross-cutting risks, namely the omission of tangible and intangible elements of the local food system, and the exclusion of key stakeholders from the recognition and institutionalisation of food heritage. The review highlights the strict interdependence between intangible and tangible elements during food heritagisation, and assesses how local and global interactions can activate and shape this process. It sheds light on the need to pay more attention to the factors, actors, and relationships underpinning the emergence and recognition of food and food-related elements as part of the local heritage.

Crumbotti and rose petals in a ghost mountain valley: foraging, landscape, and their transformations in the upper Borbera Valley, NW Italy

“…In an attempt to compete more strongly within the tourist market, traditional knowledge as well as local heritage is objectified and essentialised [ 77 ] in order to adapt to market demand. This in turn brings the risk of commodifying heritage [ 27 ] and making tourism a strategy that has few benefits in terms of improving the cultural, environmental, and social sustainability of the local foodscape and associated actors. The centrality given to tourism in Carrega Ligure, therefore, could also enable these scenarios.…”

“…While recent decades have witnessed a deep transformation of LEK in rural communities, in order to understand how LEK can be sustainably promoted as a potential resource for the reactivation of marginalised localities and communities [ 27 ], it is crucial to critically explore how specific dynamics have driven their evolution and conservation, as well as how specific phenomena have shaped the perception of community members.…”

Integrated pond aquaculture and regional identity: ethnobiology of the golden humped tench of Poirino highlands, Northwest Italy

“…These foods are being in many contexts valorized for their quality, through niche food markets and fairs, and as part of a specific gastronomic heritage [ 53 , 84 ]. Local and traditional foods are object of attention in the quest toward sustainable food systems, and different trajectories of recovery and valorization are detectable [ 85 ]. We identified two trajectories of valorization taking place in the Poirino highlands, one more geared toward the social role of tench and tench farming and the other emerging as market-oriented for niche and typical products.…”

Food Security beyond Cereals: A Cross-Geographical Comparative Study on Acorn Bread Heritage in the Mediterranean and the Middle East

“…Thirdly, in the context of intensifying food tourism and growing demand for local speciality foods and cuisines [ 113 ], acorn bread shows potential in terms of local characterisation, adding a new dimension to its use by communities that maintain this food tradition and heritage. In this respect, in the case of Ogliastra, this process seems to be more advanced, and the product appears to be an integral part of the narrative of the area (Bondioli, personal observation).…”