A delegation soon is meeting in Azerbaijan to decide once and for all whether the Mediterranean diet should be on its list of intangible cultural items.
Representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture, and Tavira council form the Portuguese delegation that will argue the case and claim the lifestyle diet for the Algarve.
The UNESCO meeting in December in Baku, Azerbaijan will stretch from the 2nd to the 7th of December. One of the items pertinent to Portugal is its shortlisting for inclusion on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
This all results from the choice of Tavira in Portugal as a 'representative community' and its subsequent application presenting the Mediterranean Diet to UNESCO in March 2012.
The submission of the Mediterranean Diet to the judges is a strong one, "Everything indicates that the Algarve and Tavira may celebrate Christmas and into the New Year with the inclusion (of the diet) in the World Cultural Heritage list," says Jorge Queiroz from Tavira, one of those responsible for the Portuguese application.
In February this year Tavira council ran an exhibition titled ‘What is the Mediterranean Diet?’
The exhibition aimed to answer this question by, and I quote, “showing its multiple dimensions: the concept of cultural space and ancient Mediterranean lifestyle, an intangible cultural heritage passed on from generation to generation and their social and religious aspects, the sacred foods and their symbologies, products from the sea and from the land that support a diet of excellence recognized by the WHO - World Health Organization.”
Fingers crossed then.
