Tourism uses of food heritage

elements for thinking about local development in the city of Goiás

Abstract

The research analyzes the appropriation of food heritage for the purposes of cultural tourism in the City of Goiás, the first capital of the State of Goiás, Brazil, whose Historic Centre was recognized as a World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2001. The study focuses on those involved in the production and marketing of typical food, such as food establishment owners, cooks and confectioners, seeking to understand how food heritage becomes emblematic of a local culture and is commodified in cultural tourism relations. Using an ethnographic approach, with participant observation, in-depth interviews and photographic records, the research presented reveals the diversity of cultural flows that cross Goiás cuisine, highlighting the role of power in the subalternization of certain heritages and in the construction of a hybrid and harmonious image, favourable to tourist merchandising. These individuals, many of whom are heirs to subalternized heritage, strategically reproduce emblematic elements according to the demands of the tourist market, while at the same time strengthening their cultural matrices, subalternized in the historical formation of the city. Local ingredients, such as pequi and gueroba, and culinary objects, such as wood-burning stoves, are used to create goods that become emblematic signs of traditional culture. It is concluded that food heritage is a crucial symbolic resource, reinforcing cultural identity and activating the local economy through tourism, and that preservation should be seen as a dynamic process, involving the day-to-day management of subjects and promoting local development. However, it warns against the risks of extreme commercialization, which could lead to heritage being converted into simulacra.