Two bags full

My brief annual spells in Athens (one weekend in winter, assisting a local sports club to manage their team) take me to the same places. Unfortunately, I don't see much of the city of Athens at all, which is a shame, because last weekend was such a sunny one, and Athens would have been in her best form under all that sunshine. If I look at things from the outside, then the sky, the buildings, the people, the roads, the metro... they will look much like they looked the last time I was there. They don't change much at all. To see what is different, you need to 'read between the lines' in order to comprehend the fuller story.

These two bags full of Greek pastries like tiropita, tsoureki, stafidopsomo, and other delicious-looking bread/filo-based treats will look very tempting to most people.

But the pastries were stale - I could tell just by looking at them, as they remained so rigid in that flexible plastic bag. They were badly packaged and some were broken, before they had even been placed in the bag. If they had been bought, they would have all been placed carefully into appropriately sized bags with the bakery's logo - more than two, that's for sure - with a paper napkin wrapped around each one, and a few other napkins placed in the bag.

The man carrying the bags was standing in front of me on the ilektriko*. He had hopped in at one stop, and hopped off the next one, which gave me a very short period of time to observe him. His clothes were dirty, and they smelled. No doubt, he was picking up some food from a place where he knew he would find it. I don't think he would be eating it all himself - he was really quite slim. Because the bags were so full, I presume that he had not eaten any of the contents yet. He was probably taking the bags to some place where there would be others to share it with, people in the same position as himself.

I suppose it's a fair comment to make if I say that he would not be going hungry today. But I can't guarantee that he (or the company that he keeps) is not homeless.

*ilektriko - the oldest metro line in Athens, running south-north from the port of Pireas to Kiffissia.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki

Nostalgia (Νοσταλγία)

On Clean Monday, my husband bought the lagana bread for the meal I had prepared which we were going to eat with our friends. He bought 4 laganes at a total cost of 12 euro, 2 each from 2 different bakeries, which had opened up especially to sell the traditional bread for the first day of Lent.

I knew we wouldn't get through the lagana bread in one day. I also knew that we would still be eating lagana at the end of the week. You can tell that my husband isn't as frugal as I am. But bread is an absolutely essential part of his meal and he knows bakery bread well. He tends to over-buy... but we don't throw it away, and I sometimes hide it in the fridge to slow down staleness. My husband has been eating bakery bread in Hania for nearly 6 decades, so he is entitled to be a bakery bread snob. Over time, he has changed his preferences for his favorite bakeries; he knows when recipes change or the baker doesn't produce good bread consistently, and he is keen to try a new bakery (which don't pop up like cafes, souvlatzidika and tavernas, because you don't make good bread just like that). Being a bread snob, I know we are in good hands.

But it's different with lagana. Lagana is unleavened bread, so it goes stale much more quickly. It actually hardens to such a great extent that it is virtually inedible. It never lasts longer than 2 days... or so I thought.

It's Friday today, and there is still lagana in the bread box, the same lagana that was bought on Monday. We're still eating it, but this year, I don't have to perform magic tricks to make the lagana soft (eg by popping it in the microwave for 5 seconds). This is the second year I notice this happening. Before that, lagana was too dry to eat by Wednesday after Clean Monday. What has changed?

I remember hearing about lagana for the first time in my first year in Greece, when I lived in Athens. It was the 9th of March, 1992, and I had just returned from Crete, after getting my Greek identity card sorted out here (in the good old days, you had to deal with all your official paper work in the place where your birth was registered, whether it was a big city, a small town, or a minuscule village).

I had bought with me some lettuce and spring onions from my grandmother's garden (they were simply uprooted, with the soil still clinging to the roots: "they keep fresh that way," my uncle told me), a canister of olive oil ("you're only taking a koka-kola bottle's worth? That'll last you less than a week, Maria... ξιάσου (= suit yourself)...") and some fresh eggs, packed in such a way that they would not turn into raw omelette during the overnight ferry trip.

I recalled the foods of the day that my mother would prepare on Kathara Deftera in our Wellington home. Although it wasn't a holiday in New Zealand, there were a few years when we did not open the fish and chip shop on Mondays, which was perfect for celebrating Kathara Deftera (that didn't last long though: when the Chinese opposition sold his shop and it was bought by another Greek, both shops opened every day). I bought some olives, pickles and beans from the supermarket across the road, and I also popped into the bakery to buy some of that bread. I was surprised to see the lagana as I had never even heard of it before, and felt quite grateful to be experiencing Clean Monday in a quintessentially and veritably Greek fashion that year, unlike my parents, who were in New Zealand and would never come back together to Greece since my permanent move to Greece.

The lagana was crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I liked it very much. It went well with my oily salad and supermarket buys. I think I had some of my uncles' wine too (in a koka-kola bottle, of course). I didn't eat all the lagana in one day. I thought I'd keep some for the next day too, because I had heard that this bread is only sold on Kathara Deftera.

The next day, I prepared another salad (I remember eating salad all that week), which I would eat with the lagana. Alas, the lagana had hardened, and it was not easy to chew, even more so the next day. I asked my landlord about this, and she told me that this was normal. Lagana does not contain any raising agents, therefore it goes stale. There is a special reason for this, as a friend recently explained:

"On Clean Monday people look far more relaxed, probably in the absence of meat... 'lagana', the special bread for the day, shares the same root as the word 'lagnos' which means relaxed and not suppressed. For this reason, I suppose on this day children share a kite-flying experience. I remember a few priceless attempts to construct our own rocket-like kite that would reach the deep space or the neighbors' mystery backyard! Still I praise this holiday for its simple, cheap, healthy menu variety and activities that even those with difficulties can follow up." 

When there is so much to enjoy, you don't wait for the bread to rise. In the afternoon of my first Kathara Deftera in Greece, I recall walking to Filopapou Hill with friends, for the traditional kite-flying event, another custom of the day. (I must dig up my photos - I am sure I will find one of that sunny spring day in Athens.)

Lagana and white wine - it's still 'fresh', even today (the photo was taken last night).

But lately, for at least two years now, maybe even three, I notice that lagana stays soft. I can't tell you why, nor can I tell you if it's a good thing or not. (I suppose they are baking it with yeast nowadays.) All I can tell you is that things have changed. I'm glad lagana doesn't go so stale so quickly any more, but I can't help feeling a nostalgic sadness over this change of affairs. I suppose it is in our interests, but I still feel cheated. Life has changed, and it really is getting better (the wine is definitely better than that of the past), but those old days were good too, at least in their time.

The past is a different country; they do things differently there.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Greek spending habits (Αγοραστικές συνήθειες)

It was World Consumer Rights Day yesterday, with the local press publishing a report about how Greek people's shopping habits have changed with the economic crisis. The findings are based on a recent survey conducted by the Harokopeio University.

Here are some of the findings, in brief, translated from the report:

• 82% seek specials
• 80% compare prices
• 77% prefer Greek products over imports
• 74% use a shopping list
• 71% buy only what they need
• 70% buy the cheaper alternatives
• 93% have limited their 'eating out'
• 63% buy less meat
• 60% buy less fish
• 51% buy fewer sweets
• 48% buy less alcohol
• 70% eat more rice, beans and/or potatoes than they did before
• 46% eat more vegetables than they did before, and
• 50% eat more bread than they did before.

The key words describing Greek shopping habits are 'comparison', 'Greek products' and 'specials', which is basically an ethnocentric form of 'smart shopping'. Specials are found through advertising leaflets and the internet, while both shopping trips and the internet are used to make price comparisons. In 2012 alone, over 2 million Greeks made online transactions worth over €2.5 billion. This figure is quite significant when compared with the number of Greeks who use the internet, which is 6 million; in other words, of those who use the internet, 1 in 3 Greeks are now shopping online. 

The bread data given above are also a cause for confusion: the report mentions that Greeks eat less bread now than they did before. This may be due to having fewer members in each household/family, and dietary changes (mainly for health reasons). 9 out of 10 bakers report lower takings, which could be due to the higher prices of flour and petrol. Nevertheless, 39% of Greeks still buy bread on a daily basis, 25% buy bread every two days, while 28% buy it once a week. 86% still buy it from the local bakery rather than a supermarket; the main reason being stated for this is the better perceived quality, taste, freshness and aroma.

Attiki (also known as Attica), the administrative region of city of Athens, is one of the smallest administrative regions in Greece, but it has the highest population than any other. A very interesting finding of the survey concerned bread consumption in Attiki:

"The greatest daily consumption in the Attiki basin take place in West and East Attiki, in the southeast suburbs, Pireas (the main ferry port) and the western suburbs, while average daily consumption is noticed in the Municipality of Athens and the northern suburbs."

Such data give us a hint about the history of bread consumption. Bread is often associated with poverty, tradition and low education. The Western regions of Athens have always been the poorest, the northern suburbs are associated with the wealthier class, the eastern suburbs sprung from the need for more housing during the refugee crisis in 1922 (the population exchange between Greece and Turkey) and the southeast regions are less urban than they are rural.

In short, Greeks have made radical changes in their spending habits, with logic prevailing within a framework of a hierarchy of needs.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

500: Artichokes with purslane (Αγγινάρες με γλιστρίδα)

Flash fiction: 500 words (or thereabouts).

It is morning. The sky is clear and blue. It is hot, even though it is still early morning. It will stay hot the whole day.

The air is cool at this hour. Time to open the windows for fresh air, but not the shutters - the sun burns too brightly at this time. The rooms fill with the fresh breeze as the birds tweet their songs, as they feel the warmth of the coming summer.

The garden looks lush and verdant. All that winter rain is now working to its benefit! The tomato plants have grown stronger, they already need training. The zucchini is filled with small fruit - not long now, we will be eating them. The apricots are still green but the tree is overloaded.

It's Saturday and there are jobs to done and promises to be attended to:
"You promised to sew up my jeans."
"Didn't you say we'd bake a cake today?"
"Don't get me to do it, I'm going to sow some corn today."

It's Saturday and our supplies must be replenished before the shops close: 
"How much bread should I buy?"
"Do we need any milk?"

"What meat will we have for Sunday lunch?"
"Are there any leftovers? No? So, τί θα φάμε σήμερα?"

This salad was inspired by Magda's post on purslane. I used artichokes instead of the cucumbers mentioned in her recipe. 

There is no time to waste, but there is plenty of time. Time to turn the sheets, air the pillows, put on a washload, clear the dust off the shelves (it will come back in less than an hour), sweep the yard, mop the dusty balconies (which will fill up again with dust by nightfall), and simply enjoy the morning at home away from school, the office, the roads, and all the other emblems of civilisation that have ensnared us for the sake of the evolution of humanity.

Where we once thought that life can only get better, we now find that life can in fact get worse and we cannot keep up with improvements because we cannot compete with those who have jumped the gun. But when we cast aside the modern urban world that put us into this mess, and we put a bit of the primitive back into our contemporary, it is possible to believe that life can be sweet without too much sugar.

Spring is a time for new growth. The garden looks empty, but it still yields fruit to those that accept its offerings. The artichokes will begin to bloom if they are not harvested soon, and the purslane has just sprouted, all on its own, as if by magic. Lunch just needs some cheese today, with a few pantry staples added (olives and onions), and that ubiquitous splash of olive oil. We take it for granted that we live like royalty. But I'd prefer to keep such things to myself - I don't really want the place to get too crowded.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Lazarakia (Λαζαράκια)

It's Lazarus Saturday (Σάββατο του Λαζάρου) today. The Holy Week, the last seven days of Great Lent, begins tomorrow on Palm Sunday. According to the story, Lazarus was resurrected by Jesus and bought back to life after four days of being dead.



It's difficult to discuss death with children because it feels awkward. My children have reached the age where they know that death is inevitable, but they have not come close to death themselves. Two of their grandparents had died well before their parents married, another died when they were too young to have any recollections of their grandfather in living form, while the remaining grandparent is very old but seems to carry on as if she were half her age. Every now and then, we hear of an old or sick neighbour who died, but this kind of death does not carry the same weight, nor does it have the same significance as a death in one's own family. When death comes, we find that we are all quite unprepared for it, no matter how much we accept its inevitability.

There is a time for everything. Although I've never made lazarakia before, I now feel the need to. The making of lazarakia, a Greek food custom associated with Lazarus Saturday, is a somewhat appropriate way to introduce the topic of death to children. These spice breads are made to remember Lazarus who was raised from the dead. The dough is made without any animal products - as we are still in the fasting period of Great Lent - and then made into shapes of legless men, whose arms are tied around him, as was the custom in older times, when the dead were wrapped up, so to speak, in a sheet before they were buried.

 

"Aν Λάζαρο δεν πλάσεις, ψωμί δεν θα χορτάσεις" (Greek saying)

If you never shape dough into Lazarus, you will never have your fill of bread

Lazarus' experiences gave rise to the customs collectively known in Greece as Lazarika. The history of the Lazarika and lazarakia, while all-encompassingly Greek in nature, is not as common in some parts of Greece as it is in other parts, which explains why I'm not familiar with it myself. Most web-based recipes seem to come from the island of Kalimnos, where they are a steadfast tradition. At the children's primary school, they only make koulourakia in the run-up to Easter, never lazarakia, so I believe it isn't a Cretan tradition in the same way that it is in other parts of Greece. But Lazarus' story is an important one as Easter approaches. Lazarus died, and when he came back to life, he told people of what he saw there. Lazarus' death and resurrection forebodes Christ's; it is also the last miracle that Christ performed before his own death and resurrection. Hence the story of Lazarus teaches us that death is a form of new life.

Λάζαρος απενεκρώθη, Lazarus became undead,

Ανεστήθη και σηκώθη. Was resurrected and arose.

Λάζαρος σαβανωμένος Lazarus was shrouded

Και με το κηρί ζωσμένος And all tied up.

-Λάζαρε πες μας τι είδες "Tell us Lazarus, what did you see?

εις τον Άδη που επήγες; When you went to Hades?"

-Είδα φόβους, είδα τρόμους "I saw fears, I saw terrors

είδα βάσανα και πόνους. I saw troubles and pains.

Δώστε μου λίγο νεράκι Give me a little water

Να ξεπλύνω το φαρμάκι So that I may wash off the poison

Της καρδίας, των χειλέων From my heart, my lips

Και μη με ρωτάτε πλέον. And don't ask me anything else.
(From Magdalini's blog)

You can use your own favorite sweet bread dough to make lazarakia, as long as it's lenten (ie there are no eggs, butter or milk in the recipe). The original recipe that I used is in Greek. I've adapted it for my kitchen.

You need:
500g strong flour (or all-purpose flour)
1 sachet of dry yeast (in Greece, this come in 7g packets)
about 3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup sugar (I used pure maple sugar, a present from a Canadian reader)
3/4 cup raisins (I didn't have any in the house, so I used bitter orange spoon sweet, chopped small)
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
some whole cloves (these are traditionally used for the eyes)



In a small bowl, place the yeast in the water, add 2 tablespoons of the sugar and 4 tablespoons of the flour, and mix till the yeast dissolves. Allow the yeast to show signs of rising (about 20 minutes).
In a large bowl, place the flour and sugar, spices and raisins, mix them together, make a well in the middle of the bowl and pour in the yeast mixture. Knead well, adding flour/water appropriately to get a dough that is not sticky. Place the dough in an oiled bowl in a warm place, covered with a tea towel, and allow to rise for two hours in a warm oven. (I left the dough in a cold oven and allowed it to rise overnight.)

Shaping the dough is an important task. Divide the dough into ten balls the size of a mandarin (they would each weigh about 100g). From each ball, remove a small piece which will be rolled out like string. Divide this in two (for the arms). The remaining dough ball is shaped into a long oval loaf. (You can make an incision on one edge with kitchen scissors to form legs if desired.) Place the dough string crossed over the body, sticking it down on the underside of the bun. Place the cloves on the other edge, making them look like eyes.

Place the lazarakia on a lightly oiled baking tray and allow to rise for 30 minutes, covered with a tea towel. Brush them very lightly with orange juice or water. Cook them in a moderate pre-heated oven for 30 minutes.


Shaping the lazarakia is a fun way for children to pass their time. People who like to shape cookie, bread and pastry dough will enjoy this exercise. The lazarakia have a special shape, which, thanks to the internet, is not difficult to copy. Even if you can't make your lazarakia today, don't despair. It's not too late to make them tomorrow, because they can be eaten throughout the whole of next week (if indeed they last that long), as they do on the island of Kalymnos.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

The way we... (Όπως ήμαστ...)

John Lucas was forty-seven years old when, in August 1984, he began a year of living in Athens. His memoirs do not tell us anything that we do not know already:
 

"Bureaucracy, of which I encountered all too much, was, as it remains, a nightmare. Nothing was ever done as and when it should have been. Half the time you couldn't even locate the official who was supposed to deal with whatever case you were required to present to him. Either you had just missed him or he would be in tomorrow. (Oh, no, he wouldn't.) And if you did track him down, he would tell you that you had the wrong documentation... In every other country... bureaucrats are likely to be soulless, but after all they're not paid to have souls. They're paid to be efficient. And for the most they are. You may not like them but they get the job done. They take pride in their work. But in Greece, nobody wants to be a bureaucrat. You go to see one and he's not interested in discussing the reason you're there... He'll be OK as long as you keep to every subject but the one you came to him about, but as for the goddam money you're owed by his department, or the piece of paper you need to get some work done, forget it... A refusal to follow approved or orthodox procedure was, I soon came to understand, commonplace, and could be infuriating. "

Very few people who have dealt with Greek bureaucracy will disagree with Lucas' views. But they may be surprised to find out that, for Lucas, this was "the price to be paid for something I grew to love: a deep-rooted sense that individual lives are of paramount importance and not to be held to account by, let alone made the victim of, some god almighty officialdom".

He paints a very bleak picture of the world he left behind:

"When I arrived in Athens in August 1984 I left behind me a nation that was growing increasingly cowed by such officialdom... By 1984 something pretty horrible had begun to infect public life in Britain. You could smell its presence in the very language used by politicians... It was the language of sadism masquerading as masochism. It was about pain. 'We must take some painful managerial decisions' - meaning, we're going to sack you... 'We must grasp the nettle' - meaning, you're the one who will be stung... Nor can it be a coincidence that this was the moment of 'nouvelle cuisine' - pay more, eat less - nor that those who knelt at the altar of the new orthodoxy tended to wear the 'executive' shirt... whose collar and cuffs were white, although the body of the shirt came in gamey reds, blues, or greens... it said, I may look like fun but don't try messing with me. 'What kind of prat wears a shirt like that?' a friend asked... Answer: the kind of prat perfectly happy to sack a few hundred men before settling down to a fruit juice and a slice of rye bread (unbuttered)."

Lucas says that he doesn't remember ever coming across the executive shirt being worn in Athens at the time. He remembers other things instead:

"I do remember, however, asking myself how many men it took to give you a piece of bread. In Babi's taverna... the answer was three. One to cut the bread, one to put the slices into a basket, and one to bring the basket to your table. I don't imagine Babi gave any of them much if any money, but they all got fed."

Lucas's book (despite its serious misgivings, especially concerning the transliteration of some Greek words) transported me to an Athens which I was fortunately very unlucky (sic) to see when I arrived in 1991; although many people will argue that nothing has really changed, what is about to come will clearly eradicate even the tiniest memory of those strange times.

"Μια νύχτα θα 'ρθει από μακριά, βρε αμάν αμάν, αέρας Πεχλιβάνης να μην μπορείς να κοιμηθείς, βρε αμάν αμάν, μόλις τον ανασάνεις θα 'χει θυμάρι στα μαλλιά, βρε αμάν αμάν, κράνα για σκουλαρίκια και μες στο στόμα θα γυρνά, βρε αμάν αμάν ρητορικά χαλίκια."  
Pehlivanis (Fighter) - Thanasis Papakonstantinou

Even my own memory has been tainted. I find it hard to remember how I felt when I had spend a lot of my time waiting in a queue all morning, crawling up the steps of a decrepit building in Voukourestiou St at the (now defunct) DIKATSA to get some documents officially translated; "Why didn't you just use Google, mum?" I am sure my children are bound to ask me if ever I recount this story to them.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

The way we were: Studying in Italy (Σπουδές στην Ιταλία)

My husband attended university for one year in Italy in the late 1970s. 

My family was poor. We lived in various old rented houses around the town, most of which were demolished once we vacated them. My parents couldn't really afford much more than the basics in life for me, which we had. That's why they made a conscious decision to have only one child; they both knew what it meant to come form a family with too many mouths to feed. There was always good food on the table, I had a warm bed to sleep in and I went to school and got an education.

When I started high school, my father made it clear to me that he wouldn't provide me with pocket money unless I worked. Every weekend, starting spring and finishing in autumn, I'd take the KTEL bus from Hania and go to the village, where I was responsible for irrigating the fields. In those days, the water would be passed through cement channels, and I had to move the hoses around to make sure that each tree was watered. I never questioned why my father never did this, and why I had to; it was just what was expected of me.

During my teens, I also started working on construction sites during the summer when the school holidays started. That was a way of supplementing my pocket money. I'd carry buckets of cement up ladders, lay bricks and scrape off the runny bits of cement. A lot of my friends did this work too, so I didn't feel alone or left out. It was a way of life back then in the late 60s and 70s. If you were poor, that's what life held for you back in those days. If your parents were rich enough to supply your monetary needs, you were lucky. I was unlucky. With the extra money I made, I was also expected to pay for my extra tutoring, so I paid for my private English lessons. I was a good student, and I liked school very much.

Eventually, I wanted to go to university, but I didn't get a place in the business schools at the Greek universities that I applied for. I felt devastated, so I asked my parents if I could go to Italy and study there. Italy was where many Greek students headed to for tertiary education because it was cheaper to study there than England. My parents agreed; I was to find out much much later what I couldn't realise then, and that was that they couldn't actually afford to send me abroad for an education.

I began to learn Italian before I set off for Pisa. A friend of mine recommended the University of Pisa to me, and he said he knew where we could find accommodation. I enrolled for an accountancy degree there. My friend set off in late summer, a little earlier than than I did, for Pisa, but told me that he would meet up with me at the airport. I never saw him again. When I arrived in Pisa, I didn't find him at the airport. Instead, I was greeted by two other Greek students, Nikos and Yiorgos. They were both from Hania. I was welcomed into the country like I was some kind of celebrity; they were all smiles and hugs. I wondered how they found out I was arriving; I hadn't told anyone I was coming!

Nikos and Yiorgos introduced me to a lot of people on my first day. It seemed that every one in Pisa was Greek, not Italian. They took me to a friend's house, where I stayed for a couple of nights before finding accommodation with a group of other students in a very old narrow house with three floors,  at Number 82, Via Mancini. The house was so old that when the bus passed by on the street, all the furniture in it rattled and moved. The wardrobe in my room moved a few inches every time the bus passed, and I'd have to move it back in place against the wall. But the house was actually quite comfortable - it was heated, we had running water, both hot and cold, an indoor bathroom (all of which I didn't have back home) and we could cook our meals in it.

Greek-Italian rendition of "Il Sultano di Babilonia e la prostituta"

I was expecting Pisa to be like Athens, in other words, like any other big city that I knew, and so far, Athens was the only one. But it wasn't like that at all. It had a really good transportation system, everything ran on time, and people were very polite. I had heard the phrase 'una fatsa, una ratsa' spoken by Greeks about the Italians, but I can't say that I found that. The Greeks were wild compared to the locals. The Cretan contingent there was even wilder. Italian men visited hair salons, not the barber, and had their hair blow-dried, if they actually felt that they needed a haircut in the first place.  They wore gold chains, and sprayed themselves with perfumes. At first I thought they were gay, but then I relaised that they couldn't all be gay. They were just Italian men. But they liked us as friends, and I never felt like a second-class citizen in Pisa. We socialised among the Italians as if we were at home.

I shared a room with a Greek from Sparti. The other three students all had their own rooms: an Italian from Sicily, a Greek from the island of Chios and a Greek Jew from the island of Rodos. He was really shifty and made himself out to be the boss in the house. He kept himself to himself and we tried not to get in his way. He had a raging temper when he felt bothered by something. Not even the Sicilian could get round him. We all took turns at keeping the house clean. Except for the Roditi. He never did any of the cleaning.

We all took turns at cooking too. I remember cooking fasolada and yemista. They were easy cheap meals to make. But most of the time, we ate lunch at the student restaurant, which we had to pay for. At every meal, we ate a primo piato of spaghetti or pennes with a choice of a thin red or white sauce. It wasn't very tasty, but it filled us up. Then there was a second meat course (chicken or pork) served with a bit of salad, and some rice or potatoes. There was never any dessert, but we sometimes got a sanguini orange, or occasionally an apple (never a banana - that was imported and too expensive to feed students with). That kept me sustained throughout the day.

My parents sent me money every month and they phoned me once a month to see how I was doing. I never wrote letters to them, but I sent them a few postcards instead. They would also send me some of our olive oil from our own production, packed in a can, along with some cheese and some paximathia (rusks). That formed my morning and evening meals. The money was just enough to pay the rent and to buy my meals at the restaurant. I also bought some milk for breakfast, and some bread, which I could sometimes sneak out from the student restaurant. But the money never lasted me the whole month. My parents were too poor to send me any more; they sent me what they could afford, and I was too proud to ask for more. By the end of the month, I would not have enough money to spend on enough food. The other boys would always help me out, but I felt embarrassed about my situation. Most of the time, I'd simply dip some bread in the olive oil that I had left a piece of cheese sitting in so that it would have more taste, and just wait for the next month when my parents would send me more money.

Nikos and Yiorgos turned out to be involved in the PAK movement. I found that out after a few weeks of settling into studies. They asked me to join the Greek students' chapter in Pisa. I couldn't say no, after all that they'd done for me. They were my friends, they found me friends, they found me a home, and when I had no more money, they'd make sure that I was looked after. They even introduced me to girlfriends and took me to parties. The Spartan I was sharing a room with was also involved in PAK. He was quite wealthy. During the weekends, he would hire a car and drive us around the area. Only the Roditi didn't come with us. He often stayed in the house alone. We got as far as Florence once, where the Spartan paid for the hotel.

At the end of the university year, towards the beginning of summer, I returned back to Greece with Nikos and Yiorgos. They had a car and we drove back into the country, taking a ferry to Kerkira. Cars were always stopped and sometimes searched in those days. We had only just left dictatorship rule and the political situation in Greece was still messed up. Nikos and Yiorgos gave me specific instructions on how to behave when we driving across the border and when we were talking to customs officials. They had printed out a whole lot of politically-related leaflets and posters in Italy, which they wanted to smuggle back into Greece. The literature was all hidden below the trunk of the car. Our suitcases were sitting on it.

We weren't searched, but it was an uneasy feeling not knowing if I was safe. It was the first time I had ever felt frightened. It made me question relationships of this type: I was in need and they helped me out, but they also put me in danger. I vowed to myself not to return with Nikos and Yiorgos to Pisa in the following term. I would try to make it alone.

What I didn't know at the time was that I would never return to Pisa to complete my studies. When I arrived back home, I found my father in very poor health. He had just been diagnosed with cancer. He had his vocal chords removed; he never smoked again after that, and he used a special microphone to talk. I signed up for a mechanics course in Hania. That way, I could also help with the work on the fields. When I graduated, I spent three years doing military duty. I never left my family home after that. I began working with my father; we shared the shifts in his taxi. I also maintained our olive and orange groves. What else was there left for me? At least I never had to work again in construction, because I'd already done enough of that.

If you liked this story, you may also like to read about:
- one of my husband's favorite children's bedtime stories, and
- why I never make lahanorizo in our house.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Cheap and frugal (Φθηνό και οικονομικό)

The concept of frugal food recently gripped the food-related sections of the mass media. In the UK, scientists (not cooks or nutritionists!) recently resurrected the toast sandwich, which is supposedly a very cheap nutritious meal, providing you with enough calories to fortify yourself without it being too fattening (as long as you don't eat more than one of these), made with just three slices of bread - a slice of toasted bread, buttered and seasoned, tucked into two slices of untoasted bread. Apparently, it costs 7.5p and yields 300 calories - very cheap* and very filling - but wholly unappealing.

The whole concept has been borne out of the global economic climate. It's nothing new: bread (not necessarily with marg) is often what sustains the poor all over Europe, but should be viewed with caution, as George Orwell's experiences tell us, in Paris...:

You discover what it is like to be hungry. With bread and margarine in your belly, you go out and look into the shop windows. Everywhere there is food insulting you in huge, wasteful piles; whole dead pigs, baskets of hot loaves, great yellow blocks of butter, strings of sausages, mountains of potatoes, vast Gruyere cheeses like grindstones... You discover that a man who has gone even a week on bread and margarine is not a man any longer, only a belly with a few accessory organs... Have you noticed how bread tastes when you have been hungry for a long time? Cold, wet, doughy—like putty almost. (George Orwell, 1933, Down and Out in Paris and London)

The budget traveller's hotel breakfast doesn't change much from London to Paris - except in the freshness and shape of the bread served. No need to tell you which photograph represents which city.

... and London:

... men... slightly underfed, but kept going by the tea-and-two-slices which the Londoner swallows every two hours... his cheeks had lanked and had that greyish, dirty in the grain look that comes of a bread and margarine diet... two years of bread and margarine had lowered his standards hopelessly. He had lived on this filthy imitation of food till his own mind and body were compounded of inferior stuff. It was malnutrition and not any native vice that had destroyed his manhood... Food, to him, had come to mean simply bread and margarine—the eternal tea-and-two-slices, which will cheat hunger for an hour or two... a ration which is probably not even meant to be sufficient... The result is that nearly every tramp is rotted by malnutrition; for proof of which one need only look at the men lining up outside any casual ward. (George Orwell, 1933, Down and Out in Paris and London)

Freshly baked bread and olive oil make a hearty Greek snack any time of the day. My kids like this kind of snack in the evening. They toast thick country-style bread and pour olive oil over it, sprinkled with a little oregano and a little lemon juice. The bread is dense, crunchy on the outside, soft inside. This kind of bread meal probably won't be considered cheap in Northern European countries, where freshly baked bread is regarded as a 'gourmet', 'artisanal' product and olive oil is an expensive import. Pre-sliced bread is unsuitable for this kind of snack.

Bread and oil are considered staples in Greece, but not in the same form as presented in the bread-and-marg meal: in Greece, spongey square mass-produced slices of bread are only considered edible in the form of a toasted sandwich filled with ham and cheese (at the very least). If this were ever to be presented to someone in Greece with the ham and cheese replaced by bread (and I wouldn't want to be the one to do it), the recipient would probably (and rightly) think of their host as completely lacking in social graces. Even the poorest Greeks right at this moment would laugh at the thought of such food being dubbed a meal. Moreover, Greeks do not resort to other commonly regarded cheap meals in the UK, such as tinned baked beans (~12p per 200g serving) or Chinese bowl noodles (~11p per packet). Again, these cost (much) more to buy in Greece, because, like the sliced-bread lunch, such convenience food has never been regarded as a real meal. (I bet many/most Greeks wouldn't know what to do with the tin/packet int he first place.) In the Greek price comparison sites, they aren't even listed, which shows that they aren't considered a common shopping item in Greece.

 

Above: Frugal meals in our house are very common because they make use of whatever is growing in the garden, which is what a lot of our meals are based on, supplemented by cheap store-bought carbohydrates like pasta and rice. Rice parcels can be made throughout the year with different seasonal leaves and herbs. Right: summer - zucchini flowers, vine leaves and tomatoes. Left: winter - squash flowers, wild-growing sorrel and chinese leaves from our garden (the seeds were a present from a friend). Nothing is truly 'free', but it can be considered as very economical.
Below: Lemon-cured olives collected from local trees, garden-fresh radishes and roasted peppers in olive oil, slow-roasted pork (the cheapest meat on the Greek market - Greeks generally eat less meat now) with freshly harvested potatoes from a friend's garden - a typical Sunday meat meal in our house. It is both frugal and sumptuous.

Frugal food means different things to different people, according to where they live and what their situation is. Urban dwellers' meal choices could theoretically be the ones containing the most variety because of the choices made available to the masses, but to have such variety on their table, they need to pay for it: they are in that difficult position of, generally speaking, needing to buy all their food needs, so their idea of frugal food is no doubt ruled by the contents of their wallets. Discount supermarkets are preferred to the corner store, with people using the street market (in Greece this is known as 'laiki' - λαϊκή) more often. In rural areas, frugal meal choices often combine great variety with high quality, depending on what's growing in the garden, the trees and the fields. There is an element of truth when they say "Το φαγητό είναι το λιγότερo"** in conjunction with the crisis. Their only restriction is that they must produce it themselves - for rural people, this comes naturally.

Despite Asian fare being considered the cheapest kind of restaurant meal in other European countries, in Greece, this kind of meal costs much more than a cheap taverna meal. But with the abundance of fresh ingredients available to the rural Cretan, even international cuisine can become standard fare at a miminum cost. Left: onion bhaji, garden-fresh sauteed chinese leaves (the seeds were a treasured present from a friend) with Greek cured meat (lountza - a kind of Greek bacon: a little goes a long way), and eggplant fried rice. Right: boiled rice, stir-fry chicken with black beans, and sauteed chinese leaves. Frugal daily meals consist of some kind of bean dish twice a week - but it's only cooked once: the second time we eat it, it will be a leftover from the same cooking session. Frugal meals mean being economical from many aspects: money, energy and time all count. 

Greeks now earn less money and are required to pay more special taxes, often with little warning given, under the threat of having the power disconnected if they don't cough up. What we often took for granted has now come under heavy scrutiny. In the past, fruit fell off the trees and onto the ground - this rarely happens now (it's harvested before it falls). The four most oft-discussed topics we hear being talked about concern what heating fuel we use (this one tops the list), which system heats our water supply (ie do we have solar panels, and is our water heater connected to the central heating system), what's growing in our garden these days and whether the latest tax bill has come yet. 

 Heating fuel has now become very expensive, so most people in Hania are now investing in fireplaces or indoor wood-burning ovens/heaters. This is our pile of firewood - the heater will be purchased soon.

We also hear stories about food insecurity, as they apply to other people: Άλλοι πεινάνε - καλά είμαστε εδώ***. This pretty much sums up city life for me: it was never really sustainable. Frugality is nothing new to most rural dwellers. They've been living in crisis mode most of their lives, well before the global economic crisis even hit the news. They've never thought of any part of their income as 'disposable' - to them, that part was always called 'savings'.

A meal out is definitely out for now (pun not intended) - when we eat 'out', it's usually a cheap and tasty souvlaki every now and then: YA! near the Hania town hall sells them at 2 euro per pork gyro and 2.20 euro for chicken, beef or kebab.

Πενία τέχνας κατεργάζεται: "the need for survival (ie hunger) creates ways of survival", the Greek form of the proverb 'make, do and mend'.

*The same meal in Hania costs about 18 euro-cents (twice the price of its British variant): LIDL sliced bread costs E1.19/20 slices and E1.59/28 slices (the same bread could possibly be bought more cheaply from another supermarket).
**"Food is the least of our worries." 
***"Others are hungry - we're fine here." 

*** *** *** 

Stale bread is never thrown out in our house (and probably not in other Greeks' houses now, either). Apart from warming it up (it softens this way) and spreading it with oil or butter, it is used in the mixture for biftekia (meat patties) and skordalia, a garlicky dip. The crusts are removed from stale slices of traditional bakery bread (it can be made with stale mass-produced bread too), which are soaked just a little so as to soften them and make them easy to blend with garlic, salt, vinegar and oil. I used a mixed-grain bread to make mine (pictured, above right), and left the crusts for dipping. This cheap and frugal bread dish is simple to make, and forms a staple part of a lenten meal, especially on Palm Sunday. The dip can also be made with boiled potato (pictured, above left) when there's no stale bread at hand. 

It may sound like the Greeks are eating bread with bread in this way - but again, skorthalia is never served on its own: in fact, it's traditionally accompanied by boiled beetroot and fried fish. It's all a matter of identity, not just a case of a more refined cuisine: you eat what you are.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Ancestral land (Πατρικά εδάφη)

Tune in every second day this week to see how we spent our family holiday in Central/Northern Greece. 

Evritania is the most mountainous region in Greece. It remains the least accessible for this reason, but at the same time, it also contains some of the most dramatic landscapes you will encounter in the country: tall peaks with sudden drops in altitude, dense forests with rivers gushing their waters even in summertime, alpine landscapes blessed with Mediterranean sunshine. It also possesses some of the least explored Greek countryside, given its difficult driving conditions. The weather is very changeable in this region, so that at many times, you might experience the four seasons all on the same day; if you don't know the roads of the region very well, you could end up rolling the car into a ditch and getting stuck for hours before anyone comes along to help.

While we were in the region, we decided that it wouldn't have been worthwhile if we didn't explore all those difficult-to-access places, because if we didn't make an effort to get to them now, just think how likely it would be for us to get to them at a later time, when we wouldn't be touring the same region and the austerity measures began to hit us hard.

"You're setting yourself a difficult task," Hrisida exclaimed when we told her we wanted to visit Limni Plastira (Plastiras Lake). "It looks like its directly north from Karpenisi, but there is no direct arterial route to get there. If you choose the road via Fourna village, you'll need at least two and a half hours to get to your final destination, and you'll be driving along very narrow windy unmarked roads, I wouldn't do it with two children in tow."

"Are you worried we will see ghosts like the time we visited Kremasta Lake?", I enquired sarcastically. Maybe she was trying to scare us into not going.

"Don't be silly," she laughed me off. "This lake doesn't have drowned villages lying on its bed. It's just got an airfield." Once Plastiras Lake was built in 1959, it turned the mountain villages into lakeside resorts.

"Sounds good to me," I said. "How long will it take us if we stick to the main roads instead?" This meant that we would be driving more kilometres, but the route was easier because we would be sticking to the national highways.

Lake Plastiras is not labelled on this map; view directly north from Karpenisi in the South.

"Oh, about two hours," she replied, "or so," she added as a mumbled afterthought. We figured it would take us the same amount of time any which road we took. So we decided to do the long and winding scenic road first and return via the easier route. Remember Cavafy when he tells you to pray that the journey to Ithaca is long, and full of adventure?

"OK," she waved us off, "have fun, it's a nice day for it," she cheered us on, "and take care on the road. Driving conditions are good until Fourna, and after that, just be careful: remember, we don't drive more than 50km/h on those roads." We thanked her and set off, lunches packed, and water bottles empty - there would be plenty of clean ice-cold water en route through this mountainous region sandwiched between Agrafa and Farsala, some of the most famous landmark villages of the area.

At the village of Timfristos, we realised we should have topped up our petrol tank, so we stopped at the main square to ask the old people gathered at a cafe there where the nearest service station was.

"Which direction are you driving in?" they all asked at once, showing great interest in the destination of strangers in their parts, with their out-of-town licence plates, maps in hand and cameras swinging from their necks.We stuck out like sore thumbs.

"We're heading towards Plastiras Lake," I replied.

"PLAS-TI-RAS?!" an old man cried. "You're going the wrong way!"

"When did you last go to Plastira, Cosma?" the other men in the parea groaned.

"Take the road to Redina," another one quipped.

"Don't go from there!" one more cried. No one had, as yet, told me where to fill up on petrol.

"Stop talking all at once," said a middle-aged woman dressed in tidy village garb, carrying a black handbag, who was sitting on a bench near the main square, looking as though she was waiting for the next bus to pass. This had an immediate effect on all of them: they shut up immediately.

I asked the group if the road to Kleitso was good enough for a small family car like ours. They all rolled their eyes.

"Oh, you don't want to go from Kleitso, dear," one man said. "You need to take the road to Redina." But I had studied the map quite well the night before. Going through Redina would mean taking a detour and the drive would take longer. I was sure there was a road going from Kleitso to Plastiras Lake. I didn't recall my friend mentioning the village of Redina, only Fourna.

"Why can't I go through Kleitso and then on to Neraida?" I asked, showing him the map.

"Kleitso!" he exclaimed in horror. "Don't even think about it!" he said. he waved his hand in the air. "I can't see that," he said, pointing to the map, "I haven't got my reading glasses with me. But I know that that road is full of nasty turns and bends, so it'll take a long time to get to the lake from there, and I can't recommend that it's in good condition." He looked at my car. "Don't think you'll get far with that out there," he chuckled. How strange, I thought, wouldn't my friend have told me that before I started out? I asked him once more where I should go to find a petrol station.

"Ai-yioryi," he replied. Short for Agios Georgios; it was on our map. That would involve a much smaller detour than the proposed route from Redina. I thanked him and got back into the car. Close by to Ai-yioryi, we came upon a road sign showing the distances to all the surrounding area. Kleitsos was mentioned; Redina wasn't. We took the road for Kleitsos.

*** *** ***

Driving through the mountainous regions of Evritania, we were quite surprised to find so many people on the road. We had been warned that the route we had chosen was considered remote, but that did not seem to be the case at all! Apart from simple cars like our own, there were pick-up trucks, whose drivers seemed to be local people getting their agricultural tasks done; then there were the service vehicles - DEH was quite busy today giving taxpayers their money's worth; the narrow winding roads, lined on both sides by dense forests, were also being used by large lorries. The road was tarmacked, with obvious signs of recent renovation; it felt quite safe, and the stream of traffic was a sign of development. The road was also a shortcut to the longer route used in former times before the road was renovated, a sign of progress and development, whose existence had not yet been disseminated very thoroughly. That is to the off-the-beaten-track traveller's advantage; being one of the few to know this is a triumphant feeling - we were not being harassed by too many other drivers on the road.

But there were a number of sights on that road that reminded me of its remoteness to the modern world, signs of former times when people were were cut off from each other and communication would have been hampered by the peaks and waterways that Euritania is so well known for, exactly that which gives her a feeling of inaccessibility. Just past the village of Fourna, we were reminded of the enemy with the presence of a rusty WW2 road roller, and a little further on, a wooden bridge. The Nazis wanted roadways running through Greece to make it easier to conquer the country, just like the modern German tourists who want good driving conditions during their holidays, so they bought their technology with them to accomplish the task. Who knows what the condition of the road at this point might have been, had the area not been given a head start in the 1940s?

Tiny villages with roughly built houses, functional buildings and flowering gardens, grape vines covering the yards with people sitting under their shade; these people looked more than pleased to be tucked away from the main drag on a remote patch of land. Despite the forests and hills that kept the locals of the area well separate - and well protected - from the perils of the rat race, it was clear that life was running through the veins of these sparsely populated areas. The public rubbish bins were being emptied as we passed through the area, a modern sign of people's mark in an area. These people must be doing something here that enables them to live far away from the urban world; a vegetable garden, some animals, cheese-making, some beans for the winter and corn for the summer were probably sustaining them, providing them them a reason not to leave their ancestral lands. Crisis? What crisis? If you have land, you have food; if you have food, you don't starve. The forests shade them from the heat in the summer, and provide them with firewood for the winter. What else is necessary? Contrary to what we are being led to believe, these people like the way they live.

Agia Anna, between Kleitso and Mavrologgo, Evritania

An hour into our journey, we had just passed the village of Kleitso, when we began to drive on what felt like a particularly long stretch of empty road. Up to that point, there had been the odd village or two emerging after every few minutes or so of driving, where human existence was visible. But at this point, out of nowhere, the road suddenly gave way to a clearing where a number of roads met up, with a children's playground situated across from a church, a spring and what looked like a house. Near the playground was a picnic area. There could not have been a more perfect place for us to rest our car and refresh ourselves with a picnic. Was this the middle of nowhere? It did not concern us - at that moment, it felt like the best place to be on earth.

A hunter's/climber's/walker's lodge is built here on the same spot that the famous hero of the Greek revolution George  Karaiskakis fought off the Turks in 1824. The spring is named after him. The church honours St Anna.

The sun's rays were beating down on us, but we did not feel the heat. A cool breeze was blowing, which made us return to the car to get our jackets. Unbeknownst to us at the time, we had reached 1200m above sea level, and the place where we had parked our car was a very significant historical site. Not that it would have meant much to us at that moment: we felt like we were the first to find it, since we were alone up here, all by ourselves, enjoying one of the most magnificent views. A packed lunch, ample supplies of refreshing spring water, the clear view and the clean mountain air made us feel like the luckiest people on earth. Who could afford such a view? Who could afford such a clean environment? How many people were in that fortunate position to be able to enjoy this moment at least once in their life? We felt utterly thrilled to have got this far. Hooray for our old car that never let us down, hooray for our good fortune to take this route, hooray to us, for there could not have been luckier people in the world enjoying a moment like this one than ourselves.

We ate slowly, but we got through it all: sandwiches, boiled eggs, graviera, tomato and cheese salad which we ate with the gritty corn bread (that was something new to us) and the soft white rolls we had bought from the bakery in Karpenisi that morning. The fresh crisp mountain air whets your apetite. We kept filling our water bottles with the refreshing icy cold water from the spring. And when the picnic was over, we began to pack up our bags, making sure that we left no rubbish behind. We wanted to treat our host with the respect that our host had shown to us.

It was at this moment that the old man appeared. I had just packed up the last of our picnic utensils and was shaking the crumbs out of the plastic bags onto the ground to make a worm's or bird's dinner. The children had gone to the swings to amuse themselves before we left the area. The man was walking very slowly towards us, emerging from the steep hill that we had driven up. He had a thin wiry body, probably from the amount of walking that he did in these remote parts of the mountains; this could not have been his first time up here on foot. He looked well kept for an old man: his clothes were clean and tidy, his face was shaved, and his boots seemed sturdy.  He was carrying something: an old sardine can, which was filled with what looked like a dry grassy weed. Before we had the chance to ask him what he was carrying, he walked in our direction and greeted us.

"Kalimera," he said, smiling, showing his toothless mouth, a sign of the bad dental health typical of this man's age group. It's usually a sign of the sacrifices these people have made to raise their families, not a sign of a lack of available care. The old man did not take a seat on the picnic bench, nor did he seem tired.

"Kalimera," we all replied, wary that we were strangers to his part of Greece and not wishing to make any wrong move that may offend.

"You're not from here, are you?" he guessed correctly. We told him we were Cretans taking our holidays here.

"Oh, Crete, it's nice down there, isn't it?"

"Have you ever visited?" my husband asked.

"No, no, I've just seen pictures on television." This old man looked as though he had never left the area. Now there was a split second of silence, like the moment when you want to ask a million questions but you don't know which one to ask first, the moment you want to start a long conversation but you know you don't have this luxury.

"Are you from the area?" my husband asked the man.

"Yes," he replied, "I live in the neighbouring village." He mentioned the name but we didn't catch it. It did not sound like one of the villages I could recall passing."Been here since I got married. I'm from another village, just further along this road," he said, pointing to one of the roads in the junction near the church, "You're just passing through, I suppose."

"Yes, we're on our way to the lake."

"Oh, the lake, I went there once, a long time ago, when it was first filled." He paused for a moment. "Lots of people go there on a trip."

"Yes," my husband nodded. But we were curious. "And er... what are you doing walking up here alone?" my husband asked him.

"Oh, I live here in the summer, near my sheep". He pointed to the road behind him. "I've got a small hut here where I rest and sleep. I usually stay here all the summer."

"Oh... it's beautiful up here."

"Yes," the man said slowly, in a neutral voice, neither agreeing or disagreeing. "It's good up here." He stopped and looked around the area, his eyes gazing at the mountain face covered in fir trees. "Life's dealing us hard blows these days," he continued. "I like to get away from it all up here, it feels better to be far away from the madness," he laughed, sounding quite youthful, despite his old-age croaky voice. "It's sometimes better to get away, but it's not an easy life wherever you are, and it doesn't seem to be getting easier, either way." The men discussed the economic crisis and its consequences on our lives. During this discussion, the old man revealed to us that his wife lived in the village and he had two sons, one living in the large urban area of Lamia, while the other was aborad (he didn't specify where). They were both married with families of their own. I wondered when the last time was that his grandchildren had seen him.

"What can they do?" he said. "There are no jobs here even if they wanted to stay. There's no life these days as a farmer here, what with the loneliness and when winter sets in. There's no money, either."

At this point, I felt saddened that we had eaten everything in our picnic, except the apples, and we could not offer the man anything, but then again, he wouldn't have been able to chew on the apples, what with no teeth. Then I remembered the biscuits we had left behind at the hotel room, which could be dunked in milk or water and softened enough to become easy to digest. I had been toying with the idea of taking them with us, and left them in the room at the last minute.

"Does it snow here in the winter?" one of my children asked the man.

"Oh, it snows a lot here," he replied, "all the trees get covered in snow in the winter, and the road is cut off until the snow plough comes along to clear it. It doesn't snow so much in Crete, does it?" he asked us.

This man had probably been born and lived within a radius of 20-25 kilometres all his life. He might have travelled as far as Athens, maybe even Thessaloniki, but not much farther. A feeling of loneliness crept upon me as I watched him, but at the same time, I knew that this man's whole world had always consisted of these mountains and a flock of sheep; he has known no other world. I thought about my mother in law who lives in the same building as us, and tried to put the thought out of my mind that this man could have an accident here and not be found until it was too late.

"Do you per chance have a cigarette?" he asked us.

"Oh, you got us there," my husband chuckled, "we are both non-smokers." At that moment, our souls were crushed, our hearts were broken and our minds were fraught with guilt. We had nothing to offer this man, not even a cigarette. The size of his pension was not a question: he could probably afford a cigarette, but there was nowhere to buy it here.

"Well, I'd better be off now, I suppose," he said. "It's been nice meeting you." He shook my husband's hand. "I hope you enjoy yourselves here. The lake shouldn't be too far away from here." As he walked off down the path he had indicated where his sheep were waiting for him, we got back into the car and drove away, feeling quite devastated. We had been given the opportunity to take in everything that the area offered to us, but we could not offer anything in return. By this chance encounter, we had caught a glimpse of life in the middle of nowhere, where you could feel nameless and your existence could be forgotten, even though you yourself would carry on living, without ever questioning if life was actually worth living. When all you have is a piece of ancestral land, you live off that. You don't expect much more to life, that's the farmer's lot. Your main hope is to go through the cycle of life without burdening anyone along the way.

*** *** ***

We continued on to Limni Plastira where we saw the dam that saved the whole region from serious drought, but throughout the journey, we were haunted by the image of the old man.

I wonder what he's doing now, a month after we came across him. It's probably cold up at St Anna's church, and the snow will soon start falling. Pretty soon, he will be leaving the area with his sheep (that is, if he has not already left), in search of warmer climes in the lower regions. Most likely he will be thinking about summertime, in the hope of returning to his hut. I think I'll buy a packet of cigarettes and leave it in the storage drawer of the car, just in case.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.