Subtle Differences – August Edition

Vacation State of Mind

August in Italy is when nothing happens and also everything happens. There is a party or concert or dinner or market or town festa just about every day. We’ve been treated to art exhibits and concerts with world class musicians in the most unlikely and beautiful venues – a town with 12 full time residents, a theater that seats less than 100 and a church courtyard. I’ve toted hot kids to the river, I’ve bridal showered, cooked, danced, picnicked, and generally said yes to anything and everything until I had to finally take a break. So much doing and yet nothing can get done because all of Europe is on vacation. Businesses that aren’t tourist dependent close for at least two weeks in August and everyone is just okay with this.

Case in point: A while ago I was talking with my Italian friends about their broken car. They told me that unfortunately they wouldn’t get their car back for a couple of months. “What?” I said, “Why?” “Because it’s almost August and the mechanic doesn’t work in August.” “But it’s not August. It’s July 6th…” “Yes, but no one is going to order parts now; August is coming. They won’t order the parts until September.”

Art and music. Life and love.

There is a produce and local food shop a few miles from town that I like to go to. The man sells beautiful eggs of all sizes and colors and locally grown fruit, veggies, cheese and olive oil. I was there in late July to pick up a few things and he told me that he was closing for the month of August. The whole month? Yes. It’s the height of produce season and he owns a produce shop. This makes no sense to my poor little American capitalist brain, but also fills my heart with pride. These people have their priorities straight and embracing the vacation state of mind is the path of least resistance. Time is more important than money, at least outside of the big cities. Please never change, you strange and wonderful Italians.

The reason the vacation mindset can exist is of course because all the people catering to tourists are working their asses off right now and I want to be sure to acknowledge that. Everyone working in restaurants, bars and hotels is exhausted. Just running my Airbnb has given me a taste of the craziness and I can only imagine what it’s like for people on their feet for long hours in the hot sun every day. The DJs, beach umbrella salesmen and shell bracelet makers are ready to be done but they have a couple more weeks to get through. Starting in mid September handwritten signs will randomly appear on cafe doors and gift shops saying Chiuso per Ferie, Closed for Holidays. And those will be well deserved rests after slinging Aperol spritz after Aperol spritz, pizza after pizza to the August crowd.

Food.

Speaking of restaurants, you’d think that on a sweltering August day there would be salads or cold things on the menu of most eating establishments. Not true. There are a few places that have caught onto the fact that some people don’t want to eat a bowl of hot cheese when it’s 90 degrees out (or 32 degrees celsius, I’m trying to get used to thinking in this way) but not many. You’ll find the same traditional Ligurian dishes on most menus, all year long. Troffie pasta with pesto, potatoes and green beans. Stewed rabbit with olives, always served with roasted potatoes and cooked carrots. Some kind of stuffed pasta with butter and sage. Wild boar. Fried calamari. And 20 minutes away, when you cross the border into Piedmont it’s the same, but with slightly different things on the menu. Last Sunday I found myself eating braised beef cheeks and polenta for lunch in a tiny, stuffy, crowded restaurant with a bunch of other sweaty patrons while my friend downed a bowl of gnocchi drowning in cheese sauce. And of course you must have some red wine, tepid water and hot coffee with that. It’s how it’s done.

Colpo d’Aria (Again)

You might remember from my post in January about the Italian fear of getting cold. This does not go away in the hot sticky summer months. In fact it’s even more dangerous because of all the air conditioners you might run into. I really can’t overstate how universal this thinking is here. It’s common enough that my otherwise normal Italian friends will adjust the vents in the car so the A/C is not blowing directly on me, obviously not trusting me to look after myself. Even at the gym, where you want it most, they don’t turn on the air conditioning. It’s maddening. Instead they open the door so all the cigarette smoke and flies can come in. Because that’s healthier. I must be very strong, I was told, to be able to sleep with the air conditioning on in my bedroom and not get sick. Don’t I get allergies? A bad back? But I live on the wild side, I like to tempt fate and taunt people by standing directly under streams of cold air.

Ice

This might be related to colpo d’aria, though I haven’t heard anyone say so. There is just a lack of ice in this culture. Refrigerators don’t have ice makers. You can buy ice cube trays at the supermarket but they are the worst. It’s so much work to get the ice out that you just give up. If you order a soda it comes with a straw and glass but usually no ice unless you ask for it. It might not even be cold. I wanted to test a random Italian person to see what their ice situation was because I wasn’t convinced that it wasn’t just bad luck on my part. I was visiting a friend that I don’t know very well and when he offered me water I asked if he had any ice. He stopped and thought and said, maybe, but if I do it’s really old. He dug around for minutes in the freezer and managed to locate a tiny ice cube tray way in the back that was empty because the ice had evaporated after not being used for so long. So yeah, he proved my theory on Italians and ice better than I could have hoped. The only thing that regularly comes with plenty of ice is a spritz and I’m as confused as you are as to why that is, but it could explain why they are so popular.

My Coffee Club friends and I were really wanting cold coffee when the weather turned warm. This is a thing you can get here but it leaves much to be desired. They call it caffè shakerato. Different places make it differently but normally it’s just a shot of espresso shaken with ice, and sweetener if you want, and then poured into a wine glass. Sometimes there are a few coffee beans floating on top. I can only speculate on why you are charged three times the price of a normal espresso. We thought maybe we could explain how to make what I think of as iced coffee to the people at our favorite bar but, wow, what a production. They bring a glass with a few cubes of ice in it (never enough), a shot of espresso, and a glass of milk. So if four people want an iced coffee, there are twelve drinking vessels involved and they won’t fit on the table. And if some people want decaf and some people want soy milk it becomes all together too much to ask of one waiter. But you know what? I ordered a couple of real ice cube trays online so now I can make a pretty great iced coffee at home! It has become one of my primary summer foods* and Coffee Club meets in my kitchen at least a few times a week. The ice is plentiful, the A/C blows, and there is sometimes a pan of cream cheese brownies in the fridge. We enjoy these non Italian luxuries but non of us would ever really want to see these things in the bar. We are living in Italy because we love the cultural differences and I have no plans to Americanize our town by spreading ice and brownies all over the place.

*The other summer foods all start with the letter P: panzanella, peaches, Prosecco, pistachio nuts, potato chips and potassium-magnesium water. Since moving here I have loosened up a lot when it comes to what counts as a meal.