Mexico asks UNESCO to add country’s rich cuisine to world heritage list

Mexico asks UNESCO to protect country’s cuisine

MEXICO CITY — Mexico already has many of its monuments on UNESCO’s list of protected sites. Now the government is asking for international recognition for the country’s cuisine.

U.N. officials will decide in April or May whether to add Mexico’s food to the organization’s list of intangible cultural patrimony, Mexican cuisine expert Gloria Lopez said Friday.

She said the methods of preparing traditional tamales and salsas should be protected as much as Mexico’s recognized physical heritage, such as the pre-Hispanic city around the pyramids of Teotihuacan or Mexico City’s historic center of colonial buildings and remnants of ancient structures.

“They are pure culture, pure wisdom about life,” Lopez, who directs the Conservatory of Mexican Gastronomic Culture, said in a presentation discussing the country’s proposal to UNESCO.

The triad of corn, beans and chiles form the foundation of Mexico’s food, with each region of the country adding its own ingredients and seasonings to the mix, Lopez said.

Food writer Jose Iturriaga said Mexican cuisine is a fundamental part of national identity. “We encounter it from our cradles to our graves,” he said.

Traditional Mexican cuisine dates back 3,000 years to the Mayans, who based their diet on corn, beans and vegetables.

Mexico’s pride in its cuisine is long-standing, Lopez said, and increasingly important as globalization and pollution jeopardize traditions in many of the country’s small towns.

Mexican officials previously lobbied UNESCO to recognize Mexican cuisine with a more general proposal focusing on corn. This year’s application features the traditional cuisine of the Mexican state of Michoacan.

Genovevo Figueroa, Michoacan’s tourism secretary, said women in the state’s small towns cook savory meals using healthy, organic ingredients — a sharp contrast with the processed cheese and sour cream-covered nachos and tacos that many people outside the country typically confuse with Mexican food.

Figueroa said he hopes this year’s UNESCO application will help others learn about authentic Mexican cooking.

“The world identifies Mexican food with lots of grease and spices,” he said.