Cold comfort: From spaghetti ice-cream to borscht, how Europeans beat the heat

Wimbledon is no stranger to strawberries, but when the Polish tennis star Iga Świątek spoke of her favourite summer dish, it was far from the classic fruit and cream combination. "Pasta, strawberries, a little bit of yoghurt," she told her seemingly perplexed on-court interviewer, the former British player Annabel Croft, who could only respond: "How strange!" Among watching Poles, however, there was no such bafflement. The beloved meal is reminiscent of long, hot childhood summers.

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But what are the other snacks, drinks and quirky delicacies that get Europeans through the punishing heat of July and August? Five Guardian correspondents provide the answers:

Italy

When, in 1913, Giovanni Crescenzi opened Alla Fonte d'Oro, a drinks kiosk by Rome's Garibaldi Bridge, steps away from the Trastevere district, his main customers were thirsty tradespeople passing through the Lungotevere, the road running alongside the River Tiber. It was not until after the First World War that Crescenzi added grattachecca to his menu, an icy beverage for which the kiosk – today run by the original owner's granddaughter, Rosanna, and her son – quickly became famous.

Grattachecca, a snack with origins that can be traced to the Roman era, grew in popularity during long, hot summers in the Italian capital in the early 1900s. The drink is made with shaved ice, either scraped off a block with a type of ice pick, or put through an ice crusher, laced with flavoured syrup and topped with small pieces of fruit or coconut.

For Rome residents, grattachecca is a sacred refreshment, and stopping by Alla Fonte d'Oro, or one of the other few remaining traditional kiosks that serve it, is an essential way to get respite from summer heat.

"There is no better thing to help quench thirst," said Rosanna when I visited this week. The drink is also popular among tourists, although Rosanna said many mistook it for granita, the semi-frozen dessert invented in Sicily. Angela Giuffrida