Potato fries, a cultural heritage?

BELGIUM is seeking potato fries to be globally recognised as their cultural heritage. These fries are traditionally sold, in a paper cone, in a ‘fritkot’, generally a shack or trailer. There are some 5,000 of these in Belgium, making them 10 times more common, per capita, than McDonald’s restaurants in the US.

To become recognised by the United Nations’ cultural arm Unesco, they need to be endorsed by a minister of culture, and Belgium has three of them.

The government of the Dutch speaking region of Flanders recognised Belgian fries as an integral part of national culture this year, and the French- and German-speaking communities are expected to debate the issue next year.

Potatoes reached Belgium in the 16th century, but it was not until the 19th century that they were widely sold chipped and fried as a meal in themselves. UNAFRI, the national association of fritkot owners, says 95 per cent of Belgians visit a fritkot at least once a year.

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YOU’LL definitely love to see your mini version, don’t you? Thanks to a new pop-up shop in the hip Marais district of Paris, our family and friends can now have mini-me versions of us to cherish forever and ever.

The Le Moimee Store is one of the first boutique shops that offers customers the ability to use 3D printing to make little copies of themselves — for around $285.

The 3D figurines are one-twelfth the size of its subjects. Customers can pose however they like and wear whatever they want for the rendering, and the results seem to be pretty accurate. n

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A CHIMPANZEE named ‘Tommy’ is not entitled to the same rights as people and does not have be freed from captivity by its owner, a US court has ruled.

The appeals court in New York State said caged chimpanzee Tommy could not be recognised as a ‘legal person’ as it ‘cannot bear any legal duties’.

The Nonhuman Rights Project had argued that chimps, who had such similar characteristics to the humans, deserved basic rights, including freedom.

While in its ruling, the judges wrote: ‘So far as legal theory is concerned, a person is any being whom the law regards as capable of rights and duties. The court added that there was no precedent for treating animals as persons and no legal basis.

The Nonhuman Rights Project said it would appeal against the court verdict in New York’s highest court.