preserve its memory, ensure that the rituals are kept alive and thus contribute to their oral and/or written transmission, particularly to younger generations. The gastronomic meal brings family and friends closer together and, more generally, strengthens social ties4. The gastronomic meal is a true institution and an ode to the art of living. It also serves to preserve the environment, and French cuisine has long favoured local and seasonal agricultural and food products. From all this, we can deduce that gastronomy has intellectual value, as recipes are the product of intellectual creation, as well as economic value, as it is a source of wealth and rarity. In other words, in addition to pleasing the palate and the taste buds, gastronomy is a rich part of our national and European heritage and a boon to GDP. For these reasons, gastronomy must be protected by law. The legal protection of gastronomy, conceived as an art, involves in particular the content of the plate, which is at its heart. Thus, culinary creation can be protected by intellectual property law, by rules relating to the protection of know-how, and by the inclusion of non-competition clauses and confidentiality clauses in the employment contracts of employees of gourmet restaurants and, in the absence of a contract, by unfair competition law and the protection against parasitism. However, the protection of culinary creations is uncertain, indirect, rare or relative, in particular because taste and smell are not easily integrated into the legal criteria of protection systems, or because chefs do not primarily aim to solve technical problems or protect the name of their creations, whereas recipes are know-how that cannot be protected by intellectual property rights5. For this reason, chefs are increasingly publishing their best recipes in book form, so that they are protected by copyright law. Behind the scenes of gastronomy’s decline are the kitchen staff and the chef. The secret world of kitchens is the domain of labour law, which is designed to protect employees from the mood swings of chefs who are dissatisfied with the 4 https://ich.unesco.org/fr/RL/le-repas-gastronomique-des-francais-00437 5 See the famous pastry chef P. Hermé: Infiniment Macaron, published by De la Martinière, 2020; Comme un chef, published by Larousse 2024; O. Rollinger, Une cuisine contemporaine, published by Flammarion 2005. 367 LAW AND GASTRONOMY IN LIGHT OF REGULATION (EU) 2024/1143
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