The Aperitivo Hour, or: How Italy Invented the Concept of Earning Your Drink With a Small Plate of Olives
The first time someone put a drink in my hand at six in the evening and then, without being asked, also produced a bowl of crisps, some olives, and a small plate of things on bread, I assumed there had been a mistake. There had not been a mistake. This was simply how it worked. I was in Milan, it was a Tuesday, and I was being handed a Campari spritz and a minor selection of snacks as a matter of course, the way other places hand you a menu or a napkin. Around me, people in good coats were doing the same thing with the relaxed efficiency of people who have been doing this their whole lives, which they had. I have thought about that Tuesday many times since. The aperitivo — from the Latin aperire , to open, as in to open the appetite, as in the whole thing is technically a preamble — is one of those traditions that sounds, when described plainly, almost too sensible to be real. At some point in the early evening, you stop what you're doing, go somewhere with tables and good lig...
