Safeguarding Savoir Faire: Culinary Heritage Initiatives, Globalization, and Nationalism in Contemporary France

It calls for inclusive approaches to culinary heritage which recognize the flows and exchanges behind traditions, and will interest scholars and students in food studies, heritage and cultural studies, French studies, comparative literature, socio-cultural anthropology, environmental humanities, and human geography. This book examines the heritagization of food in France, revealing how these processes reflect broader societal tensions around national identity and social inclusion. Addressing a gap in scholarship on French culinary heritage, it investigates top-down policies and local initiatives that promote ‘authenticity’. Combining critical heritage and cultural studies, the book highlights the risks of commodifying culinary traditions while exploring sustainable, hybrid approaches to valuing foodways. It unpacks key concepts like terroir and savoir-faire to illustrate how food contributes to constructing social belonging, and considers the impacts of France’s gastronomic UNESCO recognitions, highlighting unintended effects such as cultural essentialization and the freezing of tradition. By analysing terroir-based marketing and the “buy local” movement, this book demonstrates how such initiatives can reinforce exclusionary narratives and geopolitical borders. It calls for inclusive approaches to culinary heritage which recognize the flows and exchanges behind traditions, and will interest scholars and students in food studies, heritage and cultural studies, French studies, comparative literature, socio-cultural anthropology, environmental humanities, and human geography.