In the August 7th edition of les Echos, Olivier Assouly, Head of research at the Institut Français de la Mode, takes a stand against the inscription of French gastronomy on the register of the “immaterial heritage of humanity”, something Unesco is currently examining as requested by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Immaterial heritage covers practices, knowledge or skills that are recognized by groups or communities as being part of their cultural heritage. Fashion, like gastronomy is part of France’s « immaterial heritage ». But, according to Olivier Assouly, there is no point in thinking of fashion or gastronomy in terms of « heritage » with the idea of « preserving the income from a long-past historical monopoly ». Olivier Assouly defends the rehabilitation of gastronomy as the « practice of taste ». Instead of “wistfully contemplating French cuisine through the archives like the architectural remains at Petra”, it is better to “implement a policy that will enable the preservation of the “taste sovereignty” of the gourmet-citizen by adopting methods that aim to “promote local quality products and skills on a large scale”. The priority is to ensure the future of gastronomy « thanks to the handing down of skills through the family, school, collective or private restaurants » (for example by introducing taste initiation at school level). A program that will, according to him, “spare this immaterial heritage from ending up in a hospice for French gastronomy”, given that “industrial food production has had a destructive effect on the traditions that up until now have carried French gastronomy”. >> Read the article (Les Echos, August 7th 2008)