Simmering Summer: Milan at Ferragosto

Milan normally swelters in August, and there is a steady desertion of the city which peaks at Ferragosto, the national holiday in the middle of the month. This year cooler weather and the credit crunch weren't enough to stop the exodus either. Apart from the larger chains and supermarkets in the centre, the shops all pull down their metal shutters and stick up cute handwritten signs announcing as much as a month's absence and cheerfully wishing their customers a good summer. Well, why wouldn't they be cheerful? They're off to soak up the sun on the coastlines of Liguria and Tuscany and Veneto, to build up their tan, swim in the sea and play in the mountains.

The day I arrived was market day round the corner from my aunt's, so off we went for a peek. Bearing in mind that it was in its much reduced summer format, and towards the end of the day's sales as well (a sweaty 2pm), the array of fruit and vegetables made me feel like Dorothy stepping into technicolor for the first time. From drab, grey Whitechapel into a riot of colour, in just a few hours. I asked myself repeatedly why I'd waited a whole year to come back.


On Ferragosto itself my aunt cooked up a "scorpacciata" (a feast) of seafood: spaghetti alle vongole (clams) and big fat prawns fried up in a pan with no flavours or frills added - they were juicy and perfect just as they were.


My auntie revealed that to get the best eating out of your clams, you should soak them overnight in salted water, so they spew out all their grit and sand, and you don't get it between your teeth when you're chomping on a forkful of slippery spaghetti and molluscs.