What is Merenda? An Italian's Guide to Eating Between Meals in Italy

Pane e Nutella. Pane e burro. Pane e salame. Every afternoon after school, without fail, something simple on the kitchen table or in front of the television before going out to play with friends, and at the time it felt like the most ordinary thing in the world. It was only years later, living in Australia and finding nothing quite like it in my everyday life, that I understood what that small daily ritual actually was: la merenda, one of the most deeply rooted and least understood food traditions in Italy, and one that most tourists miss entirely.

For someone like me who grew up in Italy and then lived all of her adult life in Australia, there are things that when I get back home strike a chord precisely because they have no direct translation in my everyday Australian life, and merenda is one of them, that cherished afternoon pause that sits somewhere between a snack and a small meal and belongs entirely to its own moment of the day.

The tradition is older and more practical than it might seem. In nineteenth-century Piedmont, the merenda sinoira was the name given to the meal that farmers (contadini) ate after five in the afternoon during the long days of the growing season. As the days lengthened through spring and summer, the contadini stayed out in the fields longer and needed to replenish their strength before the evening meal, which in Italy has always been served later than anywhere else in the world. A small meal in the late afternoon, substantial enough to sustain another few hours of work, was not an indulgence but a necessity, and the tradition it gave rise to is alive and well today, even if most of the people enjoying it are no longer coming in from the fields.

Bologna, La Grassa, and the Aladdin's Cave Problem

So imagine my delight when back in Italy for a trip just recently, visiting Bologna, we stumbled upon a prosciutteria that also prepared merenda, beautifully assembled and ready to eat at small tables inside or outside, or packed up for the road, and I have to warn you that walking into one of these places and choosing what to have is rather like being in the proverbial Aladdin's cave and being told you can only take what you can carry in your hands, because the abundance and the beauty of what is on offer is genuinely overwhelming in the best possible way. The prosciutto, the mortadella, the cheeses, the little accompaniments all arranged with that effortless Italian elegance that makes everything look abundant without being excessive.

And all of this in Bologna, the city also called La Grassa, the fat one, a nickname the city wears with enormous pride and complete justification, because it is arguably the food capital of a country that takes food more seriously than anywhere else on earth, and that is a very high bar indeed.

And here we were in this place simply called La Prosciutteria, watching our merenda being beautifully packed ready for our train back to Trentino where I was staying on Lake Garda, and I can tell you that there are worse ways to travel than with a carefully assembled merenda from a Bologna prosciutteria sitting beside you on a train heading north through the Italian countryside, the kind of moment that makes you feel very lucky indeed to know this country the way I do.

Four Kinds of In-Between Eating

Italian in-between-meal eating falls roughly into four categories, and knowing which is which will help you navigate what you find wherever you are in the country.

Wine-bar snacks are the most social and the most civilised, designed to be enjoyed standing at a counter or perched on a stool with a small glass of something, convivial and unhurried without ever becoming a full meal. A quick note here: in Italy a bar is not just a place for wine and spirits, it serves coffee, soft drinks and alcoholic drinks all under the same roof, so the snacks in this category can be found in any bar, not only in dedicated wine bars. If you are in Venice, ask for the baccàla mantecato, a creamy whipped salt cod that sounds alarming and tastes extraordinary, and order a small glass of wine called an ombra to go with it. In Tuscany look for crostini with chicken liver pâté or, if you are very lucky, lardo di Colonnata, thin slices of lard cured with herbs in marble basins in the Apuan Alps, one of those things that sounds like it should not be as good as it is.

Afternoon snacks are the direct descendants of that Piedmontese farming tradition, substantial and deeply regional. If you are in Bologna or anywhere in Emilia-Romagna, find a place serving gnocco fritto, pillows of fried dough that arrive hot and slightly translucent, wrap one around a slice of mortadella and you will understand immediately why this region is called La Grassa. In Liguria, eat the focaccia di Recco, filled with soft fresh cheese and baked until blistered and golden, at any hour of the day and feel no guilt whatsoever. In Piedmont, if the timing is right, sit down to a merenda sinoira, that generous late afternoon spread of salumi, cheeses, anchovies and frittata that can, if the company is good, quietly replace dinner altogether. My merenda adventure in Bologna sits firmly in this category.

The aperitivo is a category all of its own and one that many tourists stumble into without quite understanding what it is. In the early evening, roughly from six to eight depending on the city and the season, Italians gather at a bar for a drink, usually a Spritz, a Negroni, a Campari or a glass of wine, accompanied by small bites that come with the drink, olives, chips, bruschetta, small sandwiches, sometimes an entire buffet in the more generous establishments of the north. It is not dinner, it is the bridge between the working day and the evening meal, and it is one of the most enjoyable Italian rituals there is once you understand what it is and how it works.

Street food that can become a meal is the most democratic and the most fun, eaten on the go or standing at a counter and costing a fraction of what you would pay sitting down in a restaurant for something considerably less interesting. In Rome, find a supplì, a fried rice ball with a molten mozzarella centre that stretches dramatically when you pull it apart, and do not leave without trying pinsa, one of Rome's most beloved street foods and a favourite snack in the city for longer than anyone can remember, a lighter, crispier cousin of pizza that has been feeding Romans on the go forever. In Naples, try pizza fritta at least once, and in Sicily do not leave without eating an arancina and a paper cone of panelle, chickpea fritters stuffed into a bread roll with a squeeze of lemon, a combination so simple and so good it requires no improvement.

A Note on Etiquette, Including the Spritz

One of the things that bewilders tourists on their first evening in Rome or Bologna or Florence is that restaurants at seven in the evening are either empty or full of other tourists, because most Italians simply do not eat dinner at seven, they are probably still working or finishing their aperitivo, or their merenda, or their cicchetti, and dinner will not begin for another hour or two at least. Understanding this is the first step toward eating in Italy the way Italians actually do it, and getting that right is not about following rules for their own sake, it is about having a much better experience.

The Spritz seems to follow tourists around Italy like a faithful dog, and it is a very good drink, but it belongs to a specific moment of the day, the early evening aperitivo hour before dinner. Drinking a Spritz at noon, or with your pasta, or at the end of a meal, is not wrong exactly, you may drink what you like, but if you want to experience Italy the way Italians actually experience it, learning a little food and drink etiquette goes a long way, not because the rules are rigid but because they exist for a reason, and following them opens doors that a tourist with a Spritz at lunchtime will never quite find.

The same applies to the merenda itself. Do not look for a cafe serving sandwiches in the Australian sense, do not look for a snack bar in the English sense, and definitely do not look for fast food in the American sense. Instead, find the local version of what I have described above, ask what they have, point if necessary, and eat it at small tables inside or outside the way everyone else does, because that is both the correct and the most enjoyable way to do it.

So next time you are in Italy, take my advice: push dinner a little later, find yourself a merenda in the late afternoon, perhaps with a glass of something cold and a view of the sun going down over the rooftops, and I promise you will thank me. La merenda is one of Italy's most wonderful secrets, hiding in plain sight on every street corner, and now that you know what it is, you will never look at an Italian afternoon the same way again. Italy does not really have fast food. It has something much better: slow food eaten at the right time of day, in the right place, in good company, and if you are very lucky, packed up beautifully for a train journey through the Italian countryside.

Grazia