Popular cuisines at tourist tables: Moroccan bissara and its rising path between heritage and commodification

In the current context of debate about food heritage and its implications for territories and communities, this text seeks to trace the history and path of a Moroccan food preparation - the bissara (a fava bean soup) - enlightening the narrative reconfigurations to which this dish has been subjected over time, focusing on its resignification and valorization in the framework of a new global heritage order. Starting from an analysis of historical sources and cookbooks focused on the Moroccan territory, this text also builds on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Chefchaouen (Morocco) in which participant observation was carried out in markets and restaurants, as well as interviews were conducted with tourists and local inhabitants. The text will discuss how, in a territory marked by the heritage reasoning triggered by the classification of the “Mediterranean Diet” in 2010 by UNESCO - of which Chefchaouen is the representative city of Morocco - the way bissara was re-signified and valued, in its conversion from humble dish to a strong identity dish, is part of a recurrent and contemporary process of obliteration of the past for the creation of commodities with heritage value.