Minister of Cultural Affairs, Hayat Ktat Guermazi, received the certificate of the inscription of “Harissa: knowledge, know-how, and culinary and social practices” on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO, during an official ceremony that took place Saturday evening (April 15) at the Centre of Arts, Culture, and Letters Ksar Said in Bardo.
The ceremony was attended by Minister of Education, Mohamed Ali Boughdiri, Director of the Regional Office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) for the Maghreb countries, Eric Falt, Ambassadors of the European Union, Marcus Cornaro, Italy, Fabrizio Saggio, from Germany, Pieter Bruegel, from the Netherlands, Josephine Barbara Frantezn, representative of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Migration and Tunisians Abroad, Khaled Shili and Director General of the Arab Organisation for Education, Culture and Science Alecso, Mourad Mahmoudi.
The meeting was an opportunity to shed light on Harissa as an identity element of the national culinary heritage which illustrates a set of knowledge, traditional know-how, and culinary and food practices, in addition to its specificities and diversity perceived in the richness of its preparation methods and its uses according to local and regional traditions contributing to anchor its heritage and social role. Prepared and consumed throughout Tunisia, harissa is perceived as a unifying element for the whole country.
The Minister of Cultural Affairs, Hayat ktat Guermazi, underlined the role of intangible cultural heritage in making civilisations known and in consolidating values and practices that reflect the human capacity for innovation and creativity, mentioning the efforts of the ministry through its various specialised services in the valorisation of important heritage elements, and the contribution to making them known outside local geographical borders.
The ceremony was also an opportunity to present the 20-year experience since the adoption of the UNESCO Convention in 2003 for the safeguarding of intangible heritage in addition to making known the Tunisian experience in the field of preservation of intangible cultural heritage. The ceremony was crowned by the presentation of the certificate of inscription of the Harissa in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by the representatives of UNESCO.
Source: Agence Tunis Afrique Presse