Abstract:
This paper reviews the state of literature on Zimbabwe’s gastronomy (culinary) elements as
intangible cultural heritage (ICH). It does an analysis of previous researches which have been
carried out with a view of ascertaining if anything has been done in safeguarding some
gastronomic elements as intangible heritage. Since this is a review paper, data was collected by
searching local libraries and online for publications, reports and articles that are on Zimbabwean
culinary elements. This search was informed by the fact that the UNESCO Regional Office for
Southern Africa (UNESCO-ROSA) is currently resident in Zimbabwe overseeing the
implementation of various UNESCO conventions, including the 2003 Convention for the
Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. The office has facilitated the establishment of the
Southern African Intangible Cultural Heritage (SAICH) Platform, which is currently hosted by
Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT). In this platform, seven countries, namely, Malawi,
Eswatini, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia and Zimbabwe upload various ICH elements from
their territories. It is therefore likely that any work on ICH elements, be they gastronomic, may be
done across borders involving any of the seven countries. It is for this reason that this paper used
a methodology that incorporates literature that may be from any of these countries. The research
is qualitative in nature and it also relied on content analysis of the concerned literature. The paper
established that while there has been some significant work on food science, and limited research
on Zimbabwean traditional foods, there is almost no literature at all which looks at Zimbabwean
gastronomic elements as living heritage. Sporadic references are made by some scholars on food
as being a part of a historical legacy of a community but there is still a dearth of literature which
analyses food products as ICH.
