Pizza purists in Italy were on Thursday celebrating a victory over the kind of culinary piracy that has seen their national dish tarnished with prawns and pineapple as Unesco decided to add the Neapolitan art of making pizza to its list of “intangible heritage”.

The Neapolitan art of the pizzaiuolo - the jolly pizzamaker who tosses his swirling pizza dough into the air - has been handed down for generations in Naples and exported throughout the world.

On Thursday it was given the coveted status by the UN cultural body’s world heritage committee meeting this week on the South Korean island of Jeju.