The merenda tradition is something that people do throughout Italy and it involves food.

Merenda is a small mid-morning and/or mid-afternoon snack that younger kids usually consume. The type and quantity of food varies from north to south.

Where does it come from?

Merenda comes from the Latin ‘’merere’’, that means ‘’to deserve’’, so it would be something that you deserve after having done something, for example, after kids had done their homework.

The mid-morning snack usually happens at around 11 am in schools and sadly enough in Italy, it lasts no more than 15/20 mins between lessons. In Italy we finish school at 1 or 2 pm so then we just go home to have lunch.

The mid-afternoon one happens between 5 and 6 pm and this could be with some friends, maybe you’re playing outside and one of your friend’s parents might ask you to join your friend for merenda. This used to happen a lot when I was younger too, just going to a friend’s house to eat a little snack in between our football games outside. 

But what is the traditional merenda?

Up to about a few decades ago the answer would have been easy.

Bread, butter and sugar in the north, and bread with olive oil and salt in the south. This was what our grandparents would eat, and I even remember sometimes my nonna would give me bread with olive oil and sugar for merenda. Weirdly enough I used to like it a lot.

Nowadays though, there is a lot more processed stuff and in fact, in Italy, we have snacks called ”merendine”, which are small brioches that you buy in packets. Other types of snacks could be fruit, yoghurt, biscuits and bread with Nutella spread. 

You can have merenda with either a sweet or savoury snack such as tarallini or crackers. Sometimes even sandwiches are a go-to. But most of the times it’s just something small to keep you going until the main meal comes around, either ”il pranzo”, lunch, or ”la cena”, dinner. 

The most common ones though are the sweeter ones, especially among the younger kids. These are called merendine, ”little snacks”.

Some of the most common ones are:

Le Crostatine. These are made out of crunchy biscuit and come in two fillings flavours, either chocolate or apricot. And I remember my friends taking these to school, they would always be all crumbled up in their backpacks. There was no way of saving them!

La Girella. A soft round sponge with a layer of chocolate filling. These were pretty damn good. You would also get a little surprise in the packet. Fun times.

Snack Cacao. This is almost similar in taste to la girella as it is the same thing but different shape maybe. A soft sponge with chocolate on top and at the bottom.

Mr Day Ciambella. A soft little ciambella (doughnut-shaped) with a tasty filling covered with icing sugar. These also used to crumble up in my friends’ backpacks! 

You will see these in most Italian houses with little kids even though they are not the healthiest thing for them. But back when I was at school, early 2000s maybe, these snacks were around a lot and still are today to some extent. 

Have you tried any particular Italian merendine? Maybe next time you visit, you could try a few! They’re addictive be careful.

Alla prossima,

Francesca