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Italian Cuisine Becomes an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) has officially included Italian cuisine in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Meeting in New Delhi, the Intergovernmental Committee approved the inscription of the nomination entitled “Italian cuisine between sustainability and bio-cultural diversity”, thereby ratifying the positive evaluation issued in November.
This recognition is due to the impetus provided by public institutions — the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Food Sovereignty and Forestry and the Italian Ministry of Culture — as well as by scholars of Italy’s culinary heritage, such as the “Collegio Culinario”, a cultural association for Italian food and wine, and “Casa Artusi”, which submitted the nomination in 2023. They deemed Italian cuisine worthy of recognition for the principles and values it promotes, including the fight against food waste and the reduction of resource consumption.
Italian cuisine thus becomes the first cuisine in the world to be recognized in its entirety. In the past, only individual culinary practices or techniques — some of them Italian — had been honored, rather than a culinary tradition as a whole.
Among these are the Mediterranean Diet (2013), the alberello vine practice of Pantelleria (2014), the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo (2017), and truffle hunting and extraction (2021).
Recognized by UNESCO as a paradigm of inclusivity and sustainability, Italian cuisine stands out as a daily practice that brings together diverse communities, preserves biodiversity, minimizes waste, and celebrates the cultural plurality of local territories.
The highest offices of the Italian State have expressed their appreciation for this recognition, emphasizing that Italian cuisine “is not merely something done at the stove, but represents our identity, our history, and our culture”.
Italian cuisine is also undeniably a powerful driver of development and well-being. Suffice it to note that in 2024 Italian agri-food exports reached new records, amounting to €70 billion, with strong growth driven by iconic products such as wine, pasta, cheese, olive oil, fruit, and meat. This confirms “Made in Italy” as a global leader thanks to quality, tradition, and innovation, with non-EU markets showing particularly strong momentum.
The inclusion of Italian cuisine on the Intangible Cultural Heritage List also represents a commitment to safeguarding this heritage over time through research, food education, school projects, and culinary memory archives.
Moreover, the recognition serves as an additional tool in the fight against Italian Sounding.
Italian Sounding refers to a deceptive commercial practice aimed at imitating products — especially food products — that appear Italian but are not, by exploiting names, colors, images, and symbols that evoke Italy in order to mislead consumers.
UNESCO’s recognition of Italian cuisine represents an extremely effective weapon against the phenomenon of Italian Sounding. It enhances the cultural value and authenticity of gastronomic Made in Italy, promoting the storytelling of its history, its territories of origin, traditional recipes, and anti-waste practices. In this way, it shifts competition from a purely commercial level to a cultural one, promoting authentic supply chains and raising awareness among foreign buyers and consumers of the quality and uniqueness of true Italian cuisine.
It should be emphasized, however, that UNESCO’s recognition is not granted to individual dishes or recipes, but to a way of sharing meals, of cooking, of identifying oneself, and of conceiving food.
For Italians, conviviality, the pleasure of sitting around the table, and the ritual of cooking with family or friends have always been central elements of gastronomic and social culture.
And we are proud of it.