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This editorially independent podcast has been supported by VISITFLANDERS as part of the “Food Group Place” series of stories. Read more.
The Flemish town of Geraardsbergen is famous for its association with a small cake called the mattentaart. The cake has a long history, is a source of unifying pride, and dominates signs, shops, and conversation in the town. However, it turns out that the Geraardsbergse Mattentaart is in a precarious situation.
Today’s podcast features interviews with: Chantal Bisschop, researcher on issues of intangible heritage; Johan De Froy, the owner baker of Bakkerij De Vesten; Lynne De Bruyne, matten farmer; and Arne De Winde, a lecturer and researcher at the LUCA School of Arts in Ghent, and a professor in Architecture and Art at the University of Hasselt.
The mattentaart is worth fighting for not only for its wonderful food qualities, but because Geraardsbergenaars have put themselves into this little cake. They’ve constructed a history of the mattentaart which is attached to their town, purporting to see the cake in old paintings, and proposing arguments about the uniqueness of the region’s milk.
They’ve claimed the mattentaart as their own through EU recognition, with rules about how it can be made and who can make it, rules which serve to differentiate their tribe from those of other towns. They’ve accumulated their own language around the cake—“nis” and “roosje”—as well as cultural depictions in artefacts, songs, erotic poerty, and cartoons.
With fewer and fewer of their farmers producing matten each year, claims to ownership of the cake from other regions, and threats to the artisanal nature of its production, Geraardsbergenaars find themselves in a battle for their identity.
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