When UNESCO inscribes “Italian cooking, between sustainability and biocultural diversity” on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, it is not rewarding a national recipe book, nor crowning a podium of iconic dishes. It is recognising an ecosystem of practices: gestures, timings, shared vocabularies, artisanal know-how; the creative use of raw materials; and the ability to gather at the table as a social act. It is cooking as a community infrastructure, not as a showcase. The decision—adopted during the 20.COM session of the 2003 Convention in New Delhi on 10 December 2025—also carries a strong signal: Italian cuisine is acknowledged as a living cultural system, not a marketing label.
For Italy’s food-and-wine sector, this is a meaningful shift because it moves the centre of gravity. For years, we have defended “authenticity” through certifications and storytelling. UNESCO, instead, speaks the language of safeguarding a living heritage: intergenerational transmission, anti-waste principles, respect for ingredients, and conviviality practised at home as well as in schools, festivals and ceremonies. The value is not only in the finished plate; it lies in the process—and in the people who keep it replicable without emptying it of meaning.
If the inscription is treated as a celebratory sticker, it will generate symbolic inflation and a further rush toward “postcard menus”: useful to sell, not to endure. If it is treated as an operational framework, it can accelerate broad-based quality: more legible supply chains, professional training anchored to techniques and contexts, less stereotyped territorial narratives, and a pact with the restaurant industry to convert reputation into everyday practice.
Non-obvious choices are required. A dynamic inventory of practices (not recipes) that documents gestures, lexicons, tools, seasonality and rituals—co-designed with local communities and culinary schools. Apprenticeship programmes that connect cooking, farming and food craftsmanship, because “biocultural diversity” is a supply chain, not a claim. And an “UNESCO Conviviality Charter” for the HoReCa sector: a small set of measurable indicators on waste, seasonality, origin transparency and labour value, made public and verifiable along the chain.
UNESCO does not freeze traditions; it assigns responsibility. If we want this recognition to be more than a medal, we must turn it into a shared grammar. In that way, Italian cooking will be safeguarded not because it is “the best”, but because it continues to generate bonds, skills, and the future.
Riccardo Gabriele
