🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Italians

Italians (the Italian people) are a Romance people, the main population of Italy on the Apennine Peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia. Their traditions include home cooking, wine, olive oil, cheese, pasta, cured hams and sausages, along with opera, the violins of Cremona, town festivals and truffle hunting; UNESCO has placed many of them on its intangible heritage lists.

In 2025 UNESCO added Italian cooking to its Representative List: a shared activity built on respect for ingredients, anti-waste recipes and time at the table, often passed from grandparents to grandchildren and taught at home as well as in schools and universities. Listed separately is the art of the Neapolitan pizzaiuolo (2017): Naples has about 3,000 masters, and the young learn mainly in the «bottega», by watching them work. Opera singing (2023) passes orally from maestro to pupil. The makers of Cremona (2012) train at a specialised school and in local workshops; each builds three to six instruments a year, assembling more than 70 pieces of wood by hand. The lists also hold the Sicilian puppet theatre Opera dei Pupi and the Sardinian pastoral song canto a tenore (2008). In Nola, Palmi, Sassari and Viterbo residents jointly carry huge processional structures on their shoulders (2013), and the tartufai (2021) find truffles with a trained dog and lift them with a special spade, leaving the soil undisturbed, knowledge passed on orally for centuries.

Cows are kept in the Po Valley in the north, sheep and goats in the Apennines and on the islands, and water buffalo in Campania and Lazio; seasonal livestock droving in Italy is part of the multinational UNESCO element «Transhumance». Mozzarella di bufala, made from the milk of Campanian buffalo, is protected in the EU as a designation of origin. Parmesan is a long-aged hard cheese made from cow's milk, pecorino is a family of sheep's milk cheeses, and ricotta is made from reheated whey. Dry pasta is simply durum wheat semolina and water; in Rome's carbonara it meets guanciale, Roman pecorino and eggs, and no cream at all.

Italy is the world's largest wine producer: according to the OIV, it made 44.4 million hectolitres in 2025. Vineyards cover 726,000 hectares, and the country also ranks first for wine exports by volume, at 21 million hectolitres. Olives grow in 18 of Italy's 20 regions: about 179 million trees on 1.35 million hectares. The harvest is concentrated in the south, with Apulia producing about 32% and Calabria about 30%. The most widespread cultivar is Coratina, while Carolea, Frantoio and Leccino together cover a third of the olive area. The custom of using olive oil is thought to have spread across the peninsula from the south, from the lands of former Magna Graecia.

Prosciutto crudo is raw, uncooked ham from a pig's hind leg, salted and aged from a few months to over a year. Prosciutto di Parma is only the leg of Italian heavy pigs and sea salt, aged at least 14 months in the hills south of Parma and branded with a five-pointed ducal crown; the EU protected the name in 1996, in the same first list as mozzarella di bufala. In Friuli, Prosciutto di San Daniele keeps the trotter and ages at least 400 days; in Umbria, Prosciutto di Norcia dries in the mountains above 500 m. South Tyrol makes Speck Alto Adige, a boned leg cold-smoked at no more than 20 °C, and the Valtellina dries beef: Bresaola della Valtellina ages 4–8 weeks.

Salami is never cooked: fermentation and drying ripen it. In Emilia, Salame Felino matures for at least 25 days and Coppa Piacentina, a pork neck wrapped in diaphragm, for at least six months. Citterio, from Rho near Milan and founded in 1878, traces its story to a salame di Milano recipe that could travel with Italian emigrants. Tuscany puts fennel into the mix to make Finocchiona, while Lardo di Colonnata rests six months in marble basins. In the Marche, Ciauscolo is spread on bread, and Soppressata di Calabria comes sweet or hot with red pepper.

Grape pomace becomes grappa, an EU geographical indication of at least 37.5% vol.; a «riserva» spends at least 18 months in wood. An aperitif opens the evening, an amaro closes the meal, and limoncello from the Amalfi Coast must contain at least 250 g of lemons per litre.

At Christmas Italians set out panettone, a sweet bread leavened with natural sourdough. Its make-up is fixed by law: under a ministerial decree of 22 July 2005, the dough must contain at least 16% butterfat, 4% egg yolk and 20% raisins and candied peel.

Why it matters to you: many Italian products are protected in the EU by origin, so on cheese, olive oil, wine, ham and salami look for the DOP/PDO or IGP/PGI mark, which guarantees a specific place and approved rules. Parma ham is easy to spot by the crown on the skin, and sliced packs by a black triangle with the crown.