Grazia Incampo is 90, Teresa Calia 88. They have been friends since childhood, they make orecchiette and focaccia at the Antico Forno Santa Caterina in Altamura and, through videos posted on social media, they have become inadvertent wellness influencers.
The Washington Post featured them among the protagonists of "nonna-maxxing", a label with which the internet is turning the everyday lives of Italian grandmothers into a wellness programme: cooking instead of ordering in, using what you already have, not being alone, moving without going to the gym, and treating ageing as a part of life rather than a flaw to be corrected.
In their case, though, the success does not spring from a routine designed for social media. Incampo and Calia spent their lives working, making use of stale bread, and preparing food from whatever was on hand. In the videos they laugh, sing, and joke about wine; behind the reassuring image of the Mediterranean grandmother, the thrift and toil of a generation that grew up when wasting food was not a bad habit but a luxury remain intact.
The same distance surfaces in the story of Elda Sirizzotti, 86, who emigrated from Ciociaria to Canada in 1966. She grows herbs, cooks every day, and uses leftover vegetables for minestrone. Her granddaughter observes that the real lesson is not about recreating a picture-postcard Italian countryside, but about accepting a little more inconvenience: doing things yourself, waiting, preserving, looking after others.
"Nonna-maxxing" therefore says less about Italian grandmothers than it says about the present. Habits considered outdated for decades — cooking, mending, reusing, ageing without hiding it — are becoming desirable again precisely as wellness promises to simplify life through products, subscriptions, and new routines.
To live like an Italian grandmother, the Washington Post inadvertently suggests, you need to buy almost nothing. That is perhaps the aspect most difficult to turn into a trend.
