Speaking at an event celebrating the bid, organised by ICE Agenzia foreign trade agency at Gotham Hall, Lollobrigida said “there is a commitment and a will to certify our heritage made up of production, and transformation, which make Italian cuisine a treasure”.
He said he hoped Italian food would make the list of UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage, joining Japanese, French and Mexican cuisine on the roll of honour.
“This will certify that it is a heritage that deserves to be defended, safeguarded and valorised,” he said.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government has launched a drive to protect and boost Italian food products and cuisine worldwide, safeguarding them from an unending assault from ‘Italian-sounding’ inferior clones, among other things.
UNESCO’s Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity is all about the practices, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities, groups and sometimes individuals recognise as part of their cultural heritage.
Examples include community gatherings, oral traditions, songs, knowledge of natural spaces, healing traditions, foods, holidays, beliefs, cultural practices, skills of making handicrafts, methods of agriculture and cattle breeding, traditional navigation skills, cooking skills and more.
In its candidacy dossier, Italian cuisine is defined as a “combination of social practices, rituals and gestures based on the many local flavours that, without hierarchy, identify it and mark it out.
“This mosaic of traditions reflects the country’s biocultural diversity and is based on the common denominator of conceiving the moment of preparation and consumption of the meal as an occasion for sharing and talking.”
ANSA
