Hue cuisine, from cultural brand to tourism brand

Hue cuisine is facing the opportunity to transform from a "cultural brand" to a "tourism brand" when the locality chooses cuisine to build a profile to join the UNESCO creative cities network.

The "eight precious royal dishes" tray was only for the ancient kings in Hue Royal Cuisine. Photo: Tuong Minh

Lack of a system of "Hue delicacies" Hue City is building a profile of "Hue - Creative City" to nominate to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network in the culinary field. To build the profile of "Hue - Creative City", Hue City has a mountain of work to do. From establishing a working group to build the profile; seminars, thematic workshops, international workshops and completing the profile; implementing activities to publish publications, books, and documentaries introducing Hue's potential in the culinary field; organizing culinary spaces, performance activities, and processing folk and royal dishes to contribute to promoting Hue's potential in the culinary culture field... It can be said that Hue's choice of cuisine to join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network is a reasonable decision. Because when talking about Vietnamese cuisine, it is impossible not to mention Hue cuisine. And this mention is not just empty pride, but is expressed through numbers and events. For example, Hue has been building tasks to aim at becoming the "kitchen" of Vietnam on the basis that: The whole country currently has about 3,000 dishes of all kinds, of which more than 1,700 are cooked in Hue style! Furthermore, in the past, Hue was the capital of unified Vietnam since 1802, after King Gia Long founded the Nguyen Dynasty. Under the Nguyen Dynasty, Hue was also the capital of culture, art, and fine arts, including culinary arts to serve the daily needs of the royal court. And only in Hue, cuisine was elevated to an art, a cultural brand with meaningful and profound philosophies. Cooking in Hue was elevated to a standard of value, a necessary virtue of women... Unfortunately, up to this point, Hue cuisine is a "cultural brand", but not yet a "tourism brand" and it will be a long time before it reaches the title of "kitchen" of Vietnam for many reasons. First of all, in Hue, it is difficult to find many restaurants that are qualified to show off their strengths. A tourism expert commented that most of the Hue food businesses only serve Hue's typical dishes, without a system of "Hue delicacies" planned to promote and develop the Hue culinary brand systematically and specifically according to the nature of the main and secondary cuisines, regional dishes, spices, etc. In particular, there has not been much attention paid to bringing vegetarian dishes - which is the strength of Hue cuisine - into tourism.

The famous dish "nem cong cha phuong" of Hue Royal Cuisine. Photo: Hanh Nhon

Cuisine must be a tourism brand. The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was established in 2004 to promote international cooperation between internationally recognized cities, with cultural resources and cultural creativity as the foundation for sustainable urban development. Currently, more than 350 cities in more than 90 countries and territories around the world have joined this network. In Vietnam, the proposal and promotion to bring cities into the network such as Hanoi in 2019 (Creative Design City); Da Lat in 2023 (Creative Music City) and Hoi An in 2023 (Craft and Folk Arts City), as said by Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Van Hung, is part of the strategy for developing Vietnam's cultural industries until 2020, with a vision to 2030, approved by the Government. These are solid foundations for Vietnam to be able to determine its goal in the next phase of becoming a cultural industrial center that attracts and converges creativity in the Southeast Asian region... In the future, if it successfully joins, Hue will face many opportunities, including exchanges, exchanges, and integration with 350 other cities from more than 100 countries around the world, not only in the culinary field but also in the remaining 6 creative fields of the network, contributing to realizing the goal of making Hue the "kitchen" of Vietnam as well as other goals. Hue cuisine is superior to many other localities when it has been considered a "cultural brand". However, to be present in the UNESCO network of creative cities, Hue cuisine must be upgraded to a "tourism brand" and further, a product of the cultural industry. Cuisine, at this time, is no longer a brand to show off and be proud of with friends, but must be a product - an ecosystem that can bring in a lot of money for the people and the locality.

Laodong.vn

Source: https://dulich.laodong.vn/tin-tuc/am-thuc-hue-tu-thuong-hieu-van-hoa-den-thuong-hieu-du-lich-1380318.html