Patriots the world over gather round their flag, sing their anthem and cheer their football team to express national pride, but for Italians tucking into fresh mozzarella or a steaming plate of risotto is enough to stir the spirit.
Which is why Giorgia Meloni’s government was bursting with patriotic fervour as Unesco added Italian cooking to its list of “intangible” world heritage on Wednesday in recognition of the merits of pizza, salami, tiramisu and hundreds of other specialities that make up the country’s cuisine.
“For Italians our cooking is not just food or a collection of recipes, but much more — it is culture, tradition, work and wealth,” Meloni said in a video message to the nation after the listing was announced.
The prime minister, who has made Italian food a cornerstone of her brand of national identity politics, added: “Today we celebrate a victory for Italy: the victory of an extraordinary nation which has no rivals and can amaze the world when it believes in itself and understands what it is capable of.”
Italian cooking now joins Unesco’s list of global cultural traditions ranging from Albanian folk singing to Portuguese boat building, which is compiled alongside the UN agency’s traditional ranking of endangered castles and monuments.
Individual foods such as the French baguette and Naples pizza have previously been listed, as has the French tradition of gathering for good meals, but Italian campaigners said it was the first time a country’s entire cuisine had been honoured.
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Explaining its choice, Unesco said it was recognising “the use of raw materials and artisanal food preparation techniques” in Italian cooking. “It is a communal activity that emphasises intimacy with food, respect for ingredients, and shared moments around the table,” it added.
L’Isola della pizza, next to the Vatican, was frequented by the Pope before his elevation
LAURA LEZZA/GETTY IMAGES
Massimo Bottura, whose Osteria Francescana in Modena has previously been voted the world’s best restaurant, agreed.
“Italian food is unique — it is not only different dishes and recipes but a rite of love, a language made of gestures, smells and tastes which keeps an entire country united. Italy is Italy around a table where you share dreams, argue and make peace and pass on memories,” he told Italian TV after the Unesco listing was announced.
Italian cuisine stretches from polenta and sausage in German-speaking areas in the north of the country to French-influenced baba dessert in Naples and Sicilian ricotta stuffed cannoli, making it hard to define.
Giorgia Meloni at the 2023 Artigiano in Fiera artisan fair in Milan
PIER MARCO TACCA/GETTY IMAGES
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But Italy’s agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida claimed diversity was its strength. “Italian cuisine is like a puzzle: each of us holds a piece of it, a unique way of interpreting cooking, their own recipe, their own dish,” he wrote in Italy’s Unesco application.
“It is the combination of these pieces — none the same as the others — that forms the authentic image of our gastronomic identity,” he stated.
Food nationalism brings with it culinary enemies and Meloni said the Unesco listing would help Italy defend itself from purveyors of “Italian sounding” food around the world.
Traditional orecchiette pasta being prepared in the old town in Bari
PIERO CRUCIATTI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Italian producers have claimed products such as Minnesota mozzarella and Belgian carbonara sauce steal €120 billion in market share from them every year.
The listing was announced at a Unesco meeting in New Delhi where other winners included the Hindu festival of Diwali and swimming pool culture in Iceland, as well Koshary, a lentil dish and rice dish sold at Egyptian food stalls.
Unesco’s ruling reflects how Italian consumers still mainly stick to buying seasonal produce, meaning strawberries in spring, grapes in the autumn and oranges in winter, even as climate change means growers in Sicily are starting to plant mangoes and bananas.
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Habits are, however, changing. In Naples, the home of pizza, children are increasingly demanding chips on their margheritas, to the shock of purists.
The food historian Alberto Grandi claimed the listing promoted an image of Italian eating which no longer exists.
“This is not who we are but how others see us. Italians eat in the office and in the street rather than under pergolas on checked table cloths, and we are Europe’s biggest consumers of sushi,” he said.
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That would not stop the Unesco decision encouraging 18 million extra visitors to Italy in the next two years, said Italy’s Unesco campaign team, which added that 19 per cent of restaurants around the world serve Italian food.
Dining and Cooking