UNESCO clarifies chipa origin misunderstanding

By BKM | Berkemeyer

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially apologized with Paraguay after a misunderstanding regarding the origin of the chipa.

On May 22, 2019, UNESCO posted on Instagram and Twitter a photo and a recipe for a dish based on the chipa, a small, baked, cheese-flavored roll popular as a snack and breakfast food in Paraguay, Northeast Argentina, Southeast Bolivia and Southwest Brazil. The chipa was created in the 19th century by the indigenous Guarani people, and as a Paraguayan traditional food there is a National Chipa Day every August 11 and the country has been working for more than a year to incorporate it in 2020 to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. A resolution issued on April 24, 2018 by the Paraguayan Intellectual Property Office (DINAPI) declared of national interest a list of Culinary Gastronomic Heritage in which seven varieties of chipa were included: chipa guazú (made with corn), chipa almidón (high in starch), chipa so'ó (made with meat), chipa kavuré (roasted), chipa pirú, chipa avati and chipa mestizo.

However, UNESCO’s posts described chipa as a cheese bread made from cassava starch from the Yaboti Biosphere Reserve located in Argentina. The reference draw protests from Paraguayans throughout de world and the apology from Miguel Clüsener-Godt, UNESCO’s Director of the Division of Ecological and Earth Sciences.

Clüsener-God sent a letter to Paraguay’s Permanent Delegation to UNESCO, highlighting chipa as “an ideal accompaniment to coffee and other beverages or any breakfast food”, “a delicious but also gluten-free” and “a way of celebrating life and transmitting knowledge, demonstrating that humans can live harmoniously with nature”.