{"id":8233,"date":"2022-12-04T12:22:39","date_gmt":"2022-12-04T12:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=8233"},"modified":"2022-12-04T12:22:39","modified_gmt":"2022-12-04T12:22:39","slug":"sticking-up-for-the-french","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2022\/12\/04\/sticking-up-for-the-french\/","title":{"rendered":"Sticking up for the French"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was very puzzled the other day to hear that UNESCO had elevated the humble French Stick \u2013 aka le baguette \u2013 to exalted cultural heritage status. \u00a0Why I wondered when, for example, most sticks you routinely come across, particularly from supermarkets, are tasteless and tough and as insipid as other 'white bread'.<\/p>\n<p>Just poor reporting! \u00a0It turns out that what has been given the cultural accolade was the artisanal baking process rather than the product. \u00a0This has been welcomed as another French example of intangible cultural heritage. \u00a0As this is a concept largely unknown in the UK, perhaps because we have not signed up to the safeguarding <a href=\"https:\/\/ich.unesco.org\/en\/convention\">convention<\/a>, the lack of curiosity evident in the TV interview I saw, was perhaps inevitable, even though it was with a pair of French artisanal bakers from London.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thetimes.co.uk\/article\/2ae11f8a-70d1-11ed-8a5b-f385de7508fe?shareToken=cf27c0ad3235a79211cff47ce9c9cebb\">The Times<\/a> quotes Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Comyn, a baker who won this year\u2019s contest for the best baguette in Paris, saying that the Unesco status \u201cgives us immense pride and puts the spotlight on artisanal craft and not industrial baking [and] a big step towards the good and the very good\u201d. \u00a0Exactement! \u00a0Sustainability needs artisanal bread-making.<\/p>\n<p>This is what <a href=\"https:\/\/ich.unesco.org\/en\/RL\/artisanal-know-how-and-culture-of-baguette-bread-01883\">UNESCO<\/a> has to say. \u00a0Allors, bon appetite, mais\u00a0passer le fromage anglais s'il vous pla\u00eet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was very puzzled the other day to hear that UNESCO had elevated the humble French Stick \u2013 aka le baguette \u2013 to exalted cultural heritage status. \u00a0Why I wondered when, for example, most sticks you routinely come across, particularly...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}