Twice each week, a caravan of macellai, pescivendoli, and fruttivendolo comes to town. They swell the streets beneath a medieval castle keep in the 14th-century northern Italian city where my family maintains a home.

When time allows, on Tuesdays or Fridays past, I’d stroll through the mercato, plucking from the stalls regional olive oils, Parma ham and various locally-sourced full-fat cheeses like Asiago, which takes its name from the village where it is produced a few kilometres away. In the Venetian Prealps south of our home, prosecco is the product of origin, one of our regional culinary mascots.