‘A gesture of love’: Italy’s cuisine joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

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A UNESCO sheet backed Italy’s bid, recognising Italian cuisine arsenic a societal ritual that binds families, communities.

Published On 11 Dec 2025

Italian cuisine, agelong cherished for its heavy determination traditions, has been officially recognised by UNESCO arsenic an “intangible taste heritage” – a designation the state hopes volition elevate its planetary prestige and gully much visitors.

“We are the archetypal successful the satellite to person this recognition, which honours who we are and our identity,” Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said successful a connection connected Instagram connected Wednesday.

‘Cooking is simply a motion of love’

UNESCO did not azygous retired immoderate celebrated dishes oregon determination specialities. Instead, the citation focused connected however overmuch Italians worth the mundane rituals astir food: the large Sunday lunch, the contented of nonnas teaching kids however to fold tortellini conscionable right, and simply sitting down unneurotic to bask a meal.

“Cooking is simply a motion of love; it’s however we stock who we are and however we look aft each other,” said Pier Luigi Petrillo, portion of Italy’s UNESCO run and a prof astatine Rome’s La Sapienza University.

In its announcement, UNESCO described Italian cuisine arsenic a “cultural and societal blend of culinary traditions”.

“Beyond cooking, practitioners presumption the constituent arsenic a mode of caring for oneself and others, expressing emotion and rediscovering one’s taste roots. It gives communities an outlet to stock their past and picture the satellite astir them,” it added.

The UNESCO listing could present further economical benefits to a state already renowned for its cooking and wherever the agri-food proviso concatenation accounts for astir 15 percent of the nationalist gross home merchandise (GDP).

It could besides bring immoderate alleviation to accepted family-run restaurants, agelong the backbone of Italian dining, which are facing a harsh economical clime successful a marketplace progressively polarised betwixt premium and fund options.

The Colosseum is illuminated during a peculiar airy installation

Honouring taste expressions

Italy is not the archetypal state to spot its cuisine honoured arsenic a taste expression.

In 2010, UNESCO inscribed the “gastronomic repast of the French” connected its intangible practice list, calling retired France’s contented of marking life’s important moments astir the table.

Other nutrient traditions person been added successful caller years, too, including the cider civilization of Spain’s Asturian region, Senegal’s Ceebu Jen dish, and the accepted cheese-making of Minas Gerais successful Brazil.

UNESCO reviews caller candidates for its intangible-heritage lists each twelvemonth nether 3 categories: a typical list; a database for practices considered successful “urgent” request of safeguarding; and a registry of effectual safeguarding practices.

At this year’s gathering successful New Delhi, the committee evaluated 53 proposals for the typical list, which already includes 788 entries. Other nominees included Swiss yodelling, the handloom weaving method utilized to marque Bangladesh’s Tangail sarees, and Chile’s household circuses.