HOW TO BE ITALIAN: SUMMER

Reclaim the Night

Summer will be hot. Barring a few uncollaborative days, it always is. When temperatures of 30°C or even 90°F are making headlines in other countries, Italians allow themselves a wry chuckle, and wish that they could turn the outside temperature down to those mild and pleasant marks. But they can’t. So they adapt. As far as possible, they stay indoors in the hottest part of the day, peering quizzically from their windows at the sweating tourists. They emerge after dark, like vampires, to stalk the streets for innocent virgin gelatos, sorbets and granitas.

Work those Shutters

There is a reason why Italian houses and apartments have shutters. Sunlight illuminates, but it also brings heat. Closing the outside shutters (le persiane) and/or the inside shutters (gli scuri) will keep some of that heat out. In the hottest part of the day, closing the doors and windows will do the same – however counter-intuitive it feels. They can be thrown open again in the cool of the evening. If all else fails, you can lie under a ceiling fan, place a bowl of ice cubes in front of a table fan, or take a cold shower. Air-conditioning also exists, but most Italians, deep down, consider it to be a form of cheating, like making pesto in a blender rather than with a pestle and mortar.

Mare o Montagna?

When an Italian city-dweller announces to their friends or neighbours that they are heading off on summer vacation, the standard response is: “Mare o montagna?”. This says as much about Italian geography as it does about the local psyche. Italy is crowned by the Alps, but it also has a mountainous backbone in the Apennines, the range that runs down the entire length of the Italian stivale, or boot, from Liguria all the way to Calabria. Very few Italians are more than two hours’ drive from either a beach or a cool spot up in the hills. The montagna option is by no means all about fitness and adventure sports. It's not unusual to drive up a winding road to a ski resort in August to find groups of locals doing just what they would back home: playing cards, walking arm in arm along the main street, indulging in the defiantly popolare genre of partner dancing known as ballo liscio. The only difference is that the thermostat has been turned down and the roads are a little steeper.

Embrace Ferragosto

August is traditionally the month when everything grinds to a halt. Factories close, many businesses either shut down completely for at least a couple of weeks or go into suspended animation. In larger cities, municipalities impose staggered vacations on bakeries, bars, gas stations and other such useful enterprises, to ensure that at least one stays open in any given district. The still centre of this urban exodus is the national holiday of Ferragosto on 15 August. Time was when the residential suburbs of a city like Rome would be a tumbleweed wasteland on this day that writer Carlo Grande has called “a liminal moment, the watershed of summer”. But since the early 2000s, with disposable income levels stagnating, more and more Italians are experimenting with Ferragosto at home. When they meet in the street or the one bakery that’s still open, they greet each other like survivors, with a strange mix of pride and embarrassment. It’s a little like walking through a schoolyard in the middle of the summer holidays: a little sad, a little exciting. If you’re an Italian completist, Ferragosto in città is definitely something to experience.

Make No-Cook Meals

When the kitchen is already sweltering, do you really want to heat it up some more? Find yourself a mozzarella from Caserta or Salerno, a succulent beefsteak cuore di bue tomato, a handful of fragrant basil leaves, the best extra-virgin olive oil you can lay your hands on, and you have a caprese salad. Serve with friselle rusks that have been dipped in cold water for six seconds, shaken dry, and dressed with a little oil, a little salt, perhaps a little oregano. For dessert, find some strawberries and drizzle them with good balsamic vinegar – not the spray-on stuff. Finally, if cooked tomatoes are more your thing than the raw variety, and it’s a hot, sunny day, try this. Get a bunch of cherry tomatoes, slice in half, place on a baking tray, sprinkle with olive oil, thyme, salt and black pepper. Move your car into the sun, close all the windows, and prop the tray up on the dashboard, right under the windscreen. In an hour or so, you will have a tray of fragrant car-confit tomatoes, to use as you will. And the car will carry the aroma of an Italian restaurant for days after.

Artwork by Anna Monaco (@anouk)