“Fai tu, che mi fido.” “You do it, I trust you”; a small but mighty sentence. But, when it comes to your grocery list for the week, there’s no one better to put your trust in than a fruttivendolo. At Milan’s Frutteta Garibaldi, Pippo, a fruttivendolo from one extremity of Puglia, and Franco, from the other, tell me their regulars will often give up the reins, entrusting the duo to pick out their fruits and veggies.
Translating to “greengrocer”, a fruttivendolo acts as the Goldilocks choice between a supermarket and a farmer’s market, offering the fresh, local options that the former lacks and more flexible opening hours than the latter. Here, they sell seasonal bounty–and the occasional pantry staple–from standalone storefronts: brimming with eggplants and peaches, apricots, cherries, plums in the summer, and displays of pears and straight-from-the-forest funghi porcini in fall.
