TOWARD TEMPE AS A UNESCO WORLD CULTURAL LEGACY

Soy-based soybean foods known as Tempe will be listed as a world cultural heritage to UNESCO in 2021 to come.

Chairman of Tempe Indonesia Forum, Made Astawan mention to be able to make it happen then Tempe must be recognized and accepted first as a national cultural heritage.

"We should be grateful that the tempe has just been accepted and adopted by Indonesia as a national cultural heritage in October last year so it is ready to advance to UNESCO in 2021 for recognition," he said on the sidelines of Soy Insight to Tempo - the 13th Southeast Asia Food Symposium , Tuesday, March 20, 2018).

According to Astawan, by making Tempe as World Cultural Heritage of UNESCO, Indonesian citizens, especially creative youth will create many new innovations made of tempe so it can become popular.

"For example, since batik was recognized by UNESCO in 2009, young generation in Indonesia has shown high enthusiasm to wear batik," he added.

He expressed his hope for Indonesian youth to participate and showed great enthusiasm for consuming tempe, available on restaurant menus, hotels, including air food menu, and accepted in other countries such as Japan, UK and America.

"We believe that Indonesia is accepted, because we have strong evidence, it is in the chentini fiber book that shows that tempe has been known since the 16th century," he said.

In the future, Indonesia should be able to produce tempe with good quality so that it can compete with international standard.

"Making tempe is not difficult and expensive, but it is quite difficult to meet the standards, so it is important to improve the quality of production, such as wearing gloves or using stainless steel basin," he added.

Agustinus Ngadiman, a lecturer at the Faculty of Teacher Training and Education (FKIP) Widya Mandala Catholic University Surabaya said Tempe should be recognized as a world cultural heritage considering its existence in Indonesia has evidence and a long history.

"Tempe is always used as a symbol of tradition.In Yogyakarta and Sleman, tempe becomes part of the cone at special occasions.

Currently, only 30% of the total soybean used comes from local farmers, while 70 percent is imported. Ngadiman hopes the government will be concerned with this cultural heritage, one of which will increase local soy production in order not to rely on imports.

Source: Tempo