Village markets are a great asset and I don’t allow them to be considered only as small oases of a world that is now gone. The local market is not made up of simple purchases, the market is passion and joy. It is not about counters and expanses of products: the local market is a scent of its community that spreads in a sea of laughter and shouted words, of prices exchanged like jokes around a table. It is a moment of sharing!

In that day I stunned by the scent of porchetta and went somehow lost between one counter and another. At the local market, you also learn about the latest weekly gossip. ;-) Only here do items cost a few pennies and thousands of words.

There is no store more sustainable than a local market and the products are always fresh. Not to mention the importance of negotiation, the most fun part of the game. Alone, with its effervescence, its colors and the humanity that populates it, it manages to give life, real life, to a place you’re visiting, to a city as to a village.

When I was a child, Thursday morning had become a tradition to go with my grandmother to the market. I still remember the joy that accompanied me on the street. And the smell, oh! How I miss that smell! The freshly baked croquettes, the stuffed sandwiches and the cheese, how I love cheese. The fruit counter was always the last one visited and every time I managed to get a bunch of grapes: what a delight those grapes were!

With my grandmother and her slow walking, it took us about thirty minutes to walk two hundred meters, but, once we arrived, a world of colors and scents opened up before me. I don’t know why, but every time I think of a happy memory of the past, all I can think of is that the immense counter of sweets: brigidini, almond crispy and colorful candies. The scent of vanilla dominated the square, happiness dominated me.

Already at the age of six I was pervaded by the passion for good food and cooking in all its facets: always been greedy and a born curious. Not to mention pots and pans, dishes and kitchen equipment… I was not interested in clothes, I found much more interesting those tools that seemed to me at the time so bizarre.

Taking a few more steps, we entered the next square, the Piazza della Cisterna: hats, pretty clothes and leather goods of all kinds shone like stars in the night. It was always fun to try on those cute little hats: the weirder they were, the happier I was.

Don’t get carried away with the convenience of a simple supermarket, let yourself relive the unique flavors of the past!