eternallycool.net

For tourists in Rome, the most obvious way to cool off on a hot summer day is to head to the nearest gelateria. Romans (and tourists in the know) consider other options as well. Gelato is fabulous, but when it’s really really hot, Romans will forgo the creamy cone or cup in favor of something even more refreshing, the grattachecca.

The grattachecca is essentially a snow cone. It’s shaved ice heaped into a cup and topped with sweet syrups, fruit juice, and sometimes even vodka or Campari.

The icy treat has a long history in Rome. A New York Times article suggests that the etymology of the word itself – grattachecca – provides an explanation of the origins of this summer delight:

The word grattachecca is derived from two Italian words: gratta, meaning to scrape, and checca, a diminutive in Roman dialect for Francesca. The story goes that, around the turn of the century, a woman named Francesca invented this summer treat for her 11 children and spent most of her time thereafter responding to their relentless pleas that she scrape more ice.

Francesca may have built up her biceps by spending a lot of time scraping ice, but so do the young men that do the arduous the job now at Rome’s many grattachecca stands. They use an instrument that resembles a carpenter’s wood planer, a pialla, to shave huge blocks of ice, and their bulging muscles attest to the number of times they repeat the action each and every day, for lines can be exceedingly long, especially on weekend evenings when Rome’s hip and happening are headed down the banks of the Tiber River for dinner and drinks.

Most of the grattachecca stands around Rome line busy streets and their signs often sport names like Sor Pino or Sora Mirella (Sor and Sora are the Roman dialect equivalents for Signor and Signora). We prefer Sora Mirella, near Tiber Island and on a corner of the Ponte Cestio in Trastevere, where the house special is a coconut grattachecca with real pieces of coconut sprinkling the top, and where the basic grattachecca costs about 3.50 euro (though the Superfrutta, with mixed syrups and seasonal fruit on top will run you a pricey 5.00 euro – but it’s worth every eurocent!).