Snapshots from Italy: Spremuta, Anyone?
The height of citrus season is just starting to wind down here in Rome, and I feel an urgent need to get in on as much of the action as I can in the next month or so. Luckily the tiny fruitteria just outside my door is still piled high each day with an astounding assortment of oranges, tangerines, clementines, and lemons.
Other signs of citrus mania are evident on trips to the market. Huge takeaway buckets of sweet oranges are conveniently stacked at the front of my supermercato—there seemed to be one sitting in every creaking, wheeled cart I passed the other day. Even shoppers running in and out for a quart of milk and a pack of toilet paper were grabbing a sagging, red net bag of mandarins on their way to the register. I chose to participate this week with a pyramid of clementines stacked on my kitchen counter; they are like little wet, drippy, squirting balls of candy.
