I use my phone to do anything, to optimize my time and better organize even small daily actions. One of the moments when it doesn’t come in handy is when I go shopping – which I do a few times, honestly – when I’m still tied to more analog tools, like the shopping list, written by hand, on an improvised sheet of paper.
I’ve never tried supermarket apps or home delivery of groceries. Although there are many ways to avoid queues at the checkout, the shopping list retains that charm of Sunday at the market and fruit in paper bags.
Giulio Castoro, admin of the Instagram profile @Insta_della_spesa (73.1K followers), has been posting photos of shopping lists found in supermarkets for years. An archive of a thousand lists, now collected in part in the book “Prosecco, pannolini e pappa per il gatto”.
Published by Il Saggiatore, the book is a collection of 150 colored sheets, improvised paper cuttings, in which precise and bizarre instructions for shopping have been pinned, divided by theme: children, roommates, singles, couples, family, the elderly and artists. Castoro’s idea is to joke about the weirdness of some of the lists, in he notes to remember to buy “a life”, “things” or “Gigi Proietti”. Someone on the shopping lists chooses to rehearse for the next art exhibition, others draw the map of the supermarket they know by heart.
Each list says something about the person who wrote it. I’m not talking so much about eating habits, but how much love goes into cooking or plans for the weekend, whether it will be a “Beers, Beers, Beers” or “prosecco and cookies” or “chamomile tea” night. You can tell people’s personalities by looking at the color of the papers used, the color of the ballpoint pen or whether the items are written in cursive, block letters, right or left justified, even better if bulleted lists.
“Prosecco, pannolini e pappa per il gatto” is a wry look at the simplicity of our everyday lives, a little note, lest we forget.
