Lovers of France’s iconic, long bread loaf: Rejoice! The baguette has now earned special recognition by the UN as an integral part of humanity’s cultural heritage.
The culture and craftsmanship of baguette-making and consumption was added by Unesco, the Paris-headquartered UN agency for culture, to a list that offers international recognition and the option of applying for funding to preserve this “intangible” heritage for future generations.
The baking news sent France into a frenzy of memes ‒ and members of the French Unesco delegation celebrated by hoisting baguettes into the air as the decision was announced in Rabat, Morocco.
The baguette ‒ which French President Emmanuel Macron once described as “250 grams of magic and perfection” ‒ is an integral part of French culture and culinary habits, with many French people stopping by bakeries daily to pick up a warm loaf before heading home for dinner.
France’s baking industry has led a years-long campaign to secure this status on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
French bakeries produce about six billion baguettes a year, according to French newspaper Le Monde. But bakeries have ,for the past few decades, been disappearing at a rate of about 400 a year, leading to warnings from the industry that more needs to be done to protect the know-how of baguette-making.
“The baguette is very few ingredients ‒ flour, water, salt, yeast ‒ and yet each baguette is unique, and the essential ingredient every time is the baker’s skill,” Dominique Anract, the president of the National Confederation of French Bakery and Patisserie, said after the decision.
Unesco recognises traditions, crafts and items as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage because of “the wealth of knowledge and skills that is transmitted from one generation to the next”. - The Washington Post
The Independent on Saturday