Italian truffle hunting has made it
onto the UNESCO list of the world's intangible cultural
heritage, a UNESCO panel announced in Paris Thursday.
Practitioners of the traditional practice put in their bid eight
years ago.
Farm group Coldiretti said the accolade "is an important step
towards defending a system marked by a special relationship with
nature in a rite that is rich with anthropological and cultural
aspects.
"It is a tradition that is decisive for many mountain rural
areas which are disadvantaged from the tourist and gastronomic
standpoints".
The art of truffle hunting, Coldiretti said, involves a network
of around 73,600 practictioners, called 'tartufai', organised
into 45 groups in a national federation ranging from 44,000
individual tartufai to 20,000 'free searchers'.
Truffle hunting, Coldiretti said, joins Sicilian puppetry
(2008), Tenor singing (2000), the Med diet (2010), Cremonese
violin making (2012), processional shoulder-borne machines
(2013) and Neapolitan pizza makers (2017) on the UNESCO roll of
honour.
Other Italian treasures to be so honoured include falconry,
dry-stone walling, the Prosecco Hills, and the beech woods of
Aspromonte, the farmers' group said.
Gastronomes and enthusiasts of the prized and pungent fungus
known as the white truffle just had a great 2021 season with
prices rising to record levels due to a COVID-linked scarcity.
The most prestigious truffles are found mostly in the
Piedmont region near the town of Alba, where a yearly fair
celebrating and auctioning the culinary treasure takes place.
White truffles are more pungent, rare and expensive than
black ones, which have a longer growing season and are more
common in the center and south of Italy.
On November 11, the annual World Truffle Auction at the
Grinzane Cavour castle outside of Alba once again attracted
tycoons from all over the world to contend for the most valued
tubers on the market this season.
Nestling in the roots of about 50 trees - mostly oaks
but also hazels, poplars, mulberries and willows - truffles
are rooted out by specially trained dogs.
With demand shooting up over recent years, hunters have
become increasingly competitive and there have even been
reports of skulduggery such as hamstringing or even poisoning
the champion dogs of rivals.
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