A UNESCO panel backed Italy’s bid, recognising Italian cuisine as a social ritual that binds families, communities.
The vote by a cultural panel of UNESCO – the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – meeting in New Delhi capped a process Italy launched in 2023, with the government portraying the country’s culinary tradition as a social ritual that binds families and communities.
Italy is not the first country to see its cuisine honoured as a cultural expression.
In 2010, UNESCO inscribed the “gastronomic meal of the French” on its intangible heritage list, calling out France’s tradition of marking life’s important moments around the table.
Other food traditions have been added in recent years, too, including the cider culture of Spain’s Asturian region, Senegal’s Ceebu Jen dish, and the traditional cheese-making of Minas Gerais in Brazil.
UNESCO reviews new candidates for its intangible-heritage lists every year under three categories: a representative list; a list for practices considered in “urgent” need of safeguarding; and a register of effective safeguarding practices.
At this year’s meeting in New Delhi, the committee evaluated 53 proposals for the representative list, which already includes 788 entries. Other nominees included Swiss yodelling, The Art of breeding the Turkmen alabay, the handloom weaving technique used to make Bangladesh’s Tangail sarees, and Chile’s family circuses.
