Morelos declares its traditional cuisine part of the state's intangible cultural heritage

The state of Morelos has formally recognized its traditional cooking as part of its cultural heritage. Governor Margarita González Saravia signed a decree on November 6 declaring the cuisine of Morelos part of the state's Intangible Cultural Heritage, at the opening of La Gran Mesa de México, a three-day food summit in the Plaza General Emiliano Zapata Salazar in Cuernavaca. The state's culture secretary, Montserrat Orellana Colmenares, and its tourism secretary, Daniel Altafi Valladares, also signed, with the federal tourism secretary, Josefina Rodríguez Zamora, as honorary witness. According to the state government, the decree will be published in its official gazette, the Periódico Oficial "Tierra y Libertad".

What the declaration recognizes

The state's account of the signing puts the emphasis on ingredients from the fields, family recipes and knowledge passed from one generation to the next. The governor credited research carried out in Morelos communities and, above all, the cooks who kept the tradition alive, and said she hoped the declaration would help position Morelos as a state with history, culture and identity. She also presented Mujeres de fuego y memoria, a book about the state's traditional cooks that, according to SECTUR, gathers their stories and recipes.

What the releases leave out matters to anyone planning a meal around the news. Neither the Morelos government's releases nor SECTUR's statement names a Morelos dish, and none of them says whether the decree creates a label, a register or any rule for restaurants, markets or menus. None of the releases links to the text of the decree.

What happens next

When the summit closed on November 8, the state presented a ten-point manifesto for the cuisine of Mexico's regions. It covers decent food, care for the land and biodiversity, research, training and fair trade, and treats food tourism as a way to create jobs and well-being. The state says it will keep a working agenda during 2027 with the national restaurant chamber, CANIRAC, and representatives of the academic and productive sectors, to follow up on the commitments.

On November 9, the state's deputy tourism secretary, María Fernanda Gaxiola Camacho, said the follow-up includes setting up a multidisciplinary technical committee to prepare a safeguarding program with measurable objectives and indicators. Cooks, local chroniclers, historians and specialists are to take part, and the program is meant to recover recipes and practices at risk of disappearing and pass them on to new generations. No timetable for the committee or the program was given.

The summit in numbers

The state's figures before and after the event show how far turnout outran expectations: attendance came in at nearly three times the 10,000 people forecast the day before it opened.

At Banco de México's FIX rate of 18.5983 pesos per dollar on November 9, the 1.1 million pesos in direct sales come to about $59,000, and the estimated 21 million pesos in wider spending to about $1.13 million, by our calculation. The state says it charged nothing for the stalls, so participants kept all of their takings.

Why the state is betting on food

At the opening, Rodríguez Zamora said 40% of what a tourist spends goes on food, and called traditional cooks one of the country's most important assets. During the same visit, according to the state's release of November 7, she said Morelos had received more than 10.7 million visitors, up 7.5% on the same period of 2025. That release does not say which months the figure covers.

The new status is a state designation. It is distinct from UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, which inscribed traditional Mexican cuisine, built around the Michoacán example, in 2010. Our guide to that listing explains what it covers.