The title that I cite in this opinion is due to the book by the nineteenth-century French classic Honoré de Balzac: Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are. The culture from identities allows us to understand popular expressions from their nature and authenticity, from collective processes that create and recreate traditions.
The act of eating is a necessity, an instinct and even in some cases, it is an unconscious impulse, where it only becomes an ephemeral pleasure that dissolves after a few minutes. Cooking plays an essential place in culture, since through this the flavors, tastes, customs, traditions, values are represented, which are involved when preparing a food, in the kitchen utensils with their meanings and functions according to the environment, in the organization and reason for its elaboration, and in the different customs and traditions that accompany it. As the anthropologist Sonia Montecino points out, “cooking and culture may well be synonymous”. Understood as language, the plot of human food throws us into a dense matter in which the body, techniques and symbols are intertwined to produce a connection in different societies.
From the public administration, how is culture understood? How the act of eating or cooking?
The cultural action Focused on rescuing, conserving, preserving and safeguarding tangible and intangible cultural heritage, it is not a priority for government authorities and consequently for those who manage culture in local governments.
Really designing a cultural project from the public sphere implies a vision with adequate planning that integrates diagnoses, sociocultural intervention actions, the preparation of participatory budgets and integration of cultural and educational organizations, to implement a strategic plan for cultural development in the municipalities.
The need to protect the assets that make up the cultural heritage arise with the demand to preserve them from the indiscriminate destruction suffered by both the hand of man and the passage of time and natural disasters.
Cultural heritage is part of everyone’s wealth, but like many natural resources such as water, native vegetation, cultural heritage is a non-renewable resource in regards to its past and that is why it manifests itself tangibly. as an untouchable and irreplaceable resource of a people.
Cultural heritage is always linked to the human collective, since it is men and women who produce it, therefore, it is what gives identity, origin and continuity to our peoples.
We must think about how to maintain and revalue our heritage because, as we have seen, it is our identity. In recent years, the notion of cultural heritage has expanded considerably, and the much greater importance now attached to it is based on the growing awareness of its richness and vulnerability.
Going deeper into these concepts of heritage, you get to have a greater awareness about the importance it has in the life of each and every one of the individuals; Although we do not realize it, heritage represents our identity not only as a community, but as individuals.
If each one cares for and values their own, it is possible to make changes at a global level from the local level (we have the obligation to take care of at least what is ours, what is close to us, we cannot expect them to come from afar to tell us that we have to be interested for our heritage and defend it).
It is important to move from the impulsive act of the event, to a planning with cultural processes, which allows the design of articulated programs that attend to the diverse needs of the communities oriented to the rescue, conservation, preservation and safeguarding of the cultural heritage, In addition to the cultural infrastructure, public squares, their use, the contents that are presented in the spaces, as well as the artistic qualities, among other features that are fundamental in the banquet of the cultural offer to truly offer citizens a menu with symbolic, formative meanings that expand dialogical capacities, strengthen identities, and culture is a bridge of cohesion, human and spiritual well-being.
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