“Local products” or “products of the land” is an expression that has become very trendy in Tunisia. From agri-food giants to small local artisans, this “label” has now become the number one selling point in the land of Carthage.
However, in our region, the term “terroir” is so overused that it has almost lost its meaning and stripped of its soul.
The term “terroir” originates from France, and there are hardly any equivalents in other regions, including Southern European countries or North African nations, despite their cultural and linguistic proximity.
In Spain, they refer to “productos de la tierra,” or products “of the land,” and in Italy, they talk about “prodottinostrale” or “prodottitipici,” meaning “from our region” or “typical,” as noted by Laurence Bérard and Philippe Marchenay, authors of the book “Les produits de terroir: entre cultures et règlements” (CNRS ÉDITIONS).
In Tunisia, such products are treated as “beldi” (local) or “zemni” (meaning the result of a traditional and ancestral process).
The term “terroir” was first documented in the 13th century, specifically from 1229, and it has its roots in the popular Latin term “territorium,” according to A. Rey’s “Dictionnairehistorique de la Langue française” (1994): “It initially meant a synonym for space, land, or territory, from which it is derived.”
From a geographical perspective, the terroir is a space suited to a human community. It represents the specificity of products, the local development project, and the search for local identity. This defined space is based on a distinctive set of cultural features, practices, and knowledge born from the interaction between human factors and the natural environment. This enables the recognition of products or services originating from this area and, therefore, the people who live there. This livable space has a unique cultural, social, and economic specificity. Spatial approaches to terroirs classify lands into homogeneous zones characterized by common agro-ecological features such as climate, topography, geology, and soil.
However, the term evolved and started to refer to land’s agricultural qualities, particularly its suitability for vine cultivation, as early as the 13th century. By the mid-16th century, it was used in the context of “goût de terroir,” meaning the taste of the land, in reference to a specific wine, and then metaphorically applied to a person with the qualities and flaws attributed to the people of their region. The concept started to take on scientific precision in the late 19th century with the emergence of soil science and the idea of soil suitability for specific crops. This science, created in Russia in 1879, was introduced to France by Albert Demolon in 1934. The terroir was then regarded as immanent, preexisting to humans who merely revealed its potential.
The UNESCO publication of the Terroir Charters in 2005 defines “terroir” as a defined geographical space determined by a human community that, over time, builds a set of distinctive cultural traits, knowledge, and practices based on interactions between the natural environment and human factors. The skills involved reveal originality and provide distinctiveness. Terroirs are dynamic and innovative spaces that cannot be reduced to tradition alone.
In simple terms, a “product of the terroir” is essentially a raw material that is typically local, sometimes endemic, transformed using ancestral methods and ethnic rituals into a specific product that has meaning in its geographical environment and cultural space. It is, in a way, the quintessence of an ecosystem that lands on our tables to delight our taste buds with communal craftsmanship and an identity.
However, in recent times, the “terroir mania” has given rise to a plethora of events and initiatives (contests, awards, trophies, festivals, exhibitions, books, etc.) across Tunisia, including numerous public and private initiatives funded by NGOs and international donors or cooperation and development agencies of foreign embassies, amounting to hundreds of millions of Tunisian dinars.
Long live the diplomatic “soft power” of our friends and allies from the Old Continent!
It is true that in lean times, no one can refuse foreign aid to support small artisans and producers in rural areas by developing an ambitious “access to agri-food and terroir product markets” project (phases 1 & 2) and recently establishing an ambitious “culinary route” promoting gastronomic offerings in our regions.
Nonetheless, this bouquet of initiatives tends to blur the lines between:
- Local products,
- Regional products,
- Traditional products.
What’s worse, some wise individuals have had the “genius” to classify natural products (e.g., octopus caught on the shores of the Kerkennah archipelago) or products inspired by French or Italian terroirs (e.g., cheeses from the Northwest), or even natural products (e.g., dates from the Southwest and olives from the Center and Daher) as products of the terroir. This is what one might call a Tunisian “chakchouka” of concepts!
