Resumen de You Are What You Ate: Food Heritage and the EU’s Internal Market

Floris de Witte

• EU (European Union) legislation and case law regularly revolve around food products that are seen—on the national and local level—as heritage products: as reflecting what life “feels” like for local inhabitants. Whereas EU law has usually confronted this interaction from the perspective of the efficient functioning of the internal market or the regulation of the intellectual property rights associated with certain food products, this article suggests reconceptualising the interaction between such food products and the internal market from the perspective of their heritage. This starting point highlights, on the one hand, how EU law structures or forecloses meaningful engagement of local communities with their food heritage, and, on the other hand, that EU law struggles to find a vocabulary and conceptual register that understands heritage beyond its potential commodification.