Can the French get any more bigheaded about their cooking? Of course they can, and they are about to do so. The Cité Internationale de la Gastronomie et du Vin (International City of Gastronomy and Wine) opened in Dijon last week. With an investment of about $260 million, this is France proclaiming world dominance with a glass, a gratin, garlic and a grin. It ranges from giant macarons to grand cru wines, via everything in between. The galling thing is that it looks as though it might work.
For its genesis we need to scroll back to 2010, when Unesco agreed that the “French gastronomic meal” constituted an element of the world’s intangible heritage. The rest of the planet rolled their eyes, but the French were thrilled. They started devising projects to exploit the new status. First up, an exhibition-cum-museum in Lyons, which closed within a year because it was deemed inadequate. The new center has a quite different scale, range and inventiveness.
