As Easter approaches (Πλησιάζει Πάσχα)

Here are some springtime images of urban and rural Hania, taken during the weekend, for you to savour as you think about your next holiday in Greece, or reminisce about your past ones.

Lazarus Saturday

The presence of family-oriented Northern European tourists on their sunny break was very visible in the town last weekend. We passed a couple with a child, all wearing socks with Birkenstock sandals. We then saw another couple with a child, all looking quite patchy red, especially the man, who was wearing shorts - it's still a little cool here! His shins were the colour of beetroot-coloured water. My daughter made a comment that she could smell suntan lotion in the air, while my husband commented that it had been a long time since he saw such pale faces streaming out of the airport where he was waiting for a fare...

Red roof tiles, stone walls, blue shutters, all under a blue sky surrounded by green trees - this classic Greek image happens to be an old school building in the town centre. These buildings have been reinforced against earthquake damage.

The Venetian harbour, with the lighthouse in the distance. I will never forget my friend's reaction while visiting me in Hania in summer about 20 years ago. I was living with my father in the town centre at the time, so we walked from there through the rather untidy concreted and highly urbanised area of Hania, towards the Venetian harbour. From the hot dusty streets of the town centre, I turned into Halidon St, which is full of tourist shops. You walk down here to get to the Venetian port. The sea is not visible from the top of the street, and you actually have to walk quite a way down before you sight it. My kiwi friend who had been living in London at the time was getting a little agitated (too many people, too hot, not used to sweating profusely, etc) and she was showing a bit too much impatience for such a short walk..Suddenly she saw the lighthouse (you kind of see it before you see the sea), and again very suddenly, she saw the Venetian harbour, and she just about fainted from the beauty of all that imagery coming into view all at once without any warning...

I can imagine the group of friends who had been sitting here enjoying the sunshine, in this narrow lane in the old town...

... right below the minaret, which was probably last in use about a century ago, before the population exchange between Greece and Turkey. 

Greece beckons...

Δρόμοι γεμάτοι πιπεριές - Streets lined with pepper plants

και ξαφνικές καλοκαιριές - And sudden summer days
απ’ τα μισά του μήνα Μάρτη - From the middle of the month of March
στον κόσμο τούτο είναι φορές - In this world there are times
που πάει κανείς και δίχως χάρτη - When you simply don't need a map

(Song by Petri Salpea, 1971)

Palm Sunday

The good weather allowed us to clear our orange orchard of tree trimmings. We spent the morning in the field, sapping up the very warm weather.

In the orange orchard, we've also planted a few fruit trees -this one is a nectarine tree. The orchard is surrounded by olive groves, all owned by the extended family.

Since we fenced off the property, there has been less 'traffic' passing through, which has all been beneficial for the naturally occurring flora of the grove. I also found the field full of honeybees. (As long as you don't bother them so that they do not get agitated, they do not cause problems.)

Although Palm Sunday is traditionally celebrated with a fish meal, we had to find an easier option as we were away from the kitchen. The fire from the burning wood doubled up as our cooking fuel.

As we left the field, the sky darkened slightly. By the end of the day, it was raining. That's springtime Crete - the weather is variable. But the rain is highly desirable in an agriculturally rich area like Hania which has a dry run for at least three months in summer.

©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.

Bitter orange (Νεραντζάκι)

What does the Greek economic crisis taste of? One of the projects at the 2nd Symposium of Greek Gastronomy that greatly touched my heart was that of the bitter orange art project by Ino Varvariti and Persefoni Myrtsou. They harvested the well known bitter oranges in December 2012, January 2013 and March 2013 from the trees that line the roads of the largest cities of Greece, Athens and Thessaloniki, as a way to identify the taste of the crisis. Bitter orange trees are very hardy trees, and they make a spectacular sight throughout the period when the dark green foliage stands as a stunning background to the bright orange fruit that it is laden with.

Bitter orange trees in Syntagma Square

Bitter orange trees in an inner-city Athens street.

These bitter orange trees are used purely for decoration, as their fruit is too bitter to be eaten raw. They can survive in cold/low temperatures where sweet orange trees do not grow, even in highly urbanised settings. When they are in flower, they mask the polluted air of the city with the sweet smell of their blossom; when the oranges take on their bright colour, they look similar to a Christmas tree. Christmas is when they look their best.

"Their strength against harsh weather conditions and sicknesses, their fragrant flowers and their beautiful fruits, are some of the reasons why these trees are often planted in the urban centres of Greece in order to embellish the urban spaces. However, these 'urban' bitter oranges are rarely harvested by the citizens, due to the polluted environment of the cities and due to the fact that the origin of food is usually connected to its production in the rural space."

I thought that the historical centre's taste of bitter orange was a little more bitter than Syntagma's taste. By trying the different varieites, you are able to understand the effects of the crisis in each area through the bitterness of each variety. 

But the fruit of these trees, despite being too bitter to eat raw, can be used in a number of ways:

"After a certain procedure and with the addition of sugar, it is often used for the making of marmalades and sweets. Also, the leaves, the flowers and the skin, due to their fragrance are used for the making of confectioneries, in alcoholic beverages and in aromatology."

In Crete, the juice of the bitter orange can be used to flavour dishes or to marinate meat and fish, in the same way as lemons. Bitter orange juice is also used as a curing treatment and preservation for olives. The peel of the fruit can be dried and candied, to be used as dried fruit in sweets, pies, savouries and salads. But most of the time, the peel is turned into a typical Greek dessert known as the γλυκό του κουταλιού, the spoon sweet, where an array of bitter or under-ripe fruits are turned into a syrupy dessert.

Bitter orange spoon sweet is typically served in Greece as a refreshment with a glass of water, sometimes together with black coffee. This is considered a special treat for guests to one's home. Therefore, it serves as a medium for discussion

The harvest points of Persefoni's and Ino's bitter orange spoon sweet were some well known spots in central streets running through Athens. Most of these areas carry some emotional weight in the minds of all Greeks:

"The selected urban areas (around Syntagma Square, the historical centre and Kypseli in Athens; Agiou Mina, Vassileos Irakleiou, Proxenou Koromila and Mitropoleos streets, as well as the “Upper” town in Thessaloniki) are spaces registered in the personal and collective subconscious as agents of historical memory, but they also remain alive parts of the cities in the present. Now the marks of the economic crisis are visible in these spaces."

So Ino's and Persefoni's bitter orange, harvested from the urban areas of Greece most heavily bruised by the economic crisis, takes on a symbolic social character:

"The spoon-sweet still maintains this [hospitality] attribute, and thus becomes the point of departure for the creation of new associations and construction of new meanings. Furthermore, it enables an open dialogue and exchange of ideas in relation to the crisis in Greece."

By turning the urban bitter orange into spoon sweet and serving it in the village of Amari, Persefoni and Ino brought the taste of the crisis to the Symposium and to the village of Amari. It had also previsouly travelled to Berlin, as part of the exhibition “Domestic crisis” at the Institut für alles Mögliche. There, the audience, being predominantly German, had to be shown how to eat the bitter orange spoon sweet, because, being German, they were not familiar with this tradition, unlike at Amari, where the bitter orange was more well known to the participants and the subtle differences in taste among the different areas where the fruit was harvested (they were all prepared separately) could be appreciated.

The bitter orange spoon sweet project was directly associated with the economic crisis, as was my own presentation (Greek food, Greek identity and the economic crisis). If I lived in the middle of the crisis-ridden neighbourhoods where the bitter oranges were harvested, I would probably be the first to use them. Therefore, I can relate to Persefoni's and Ino's urban bitter orange spoon sweet - it's all part of the frugal food lifestyle that the crisis has forced us to adopt.

All the photos (except the first two) come from the artists' personal archive. The photos of the bitter orange trees in urban Athens have been taken from the blogs credited to them below each photo. The italicised paragraphs come from Persefoni's and Ino's exhibition work.

©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.

Apple orange pudding (Πουτίγκα με μήλο και πoρτοκάλι)

At the moment, eggs are plentiful becuase they are in season. Go on, laugh all you like - during winter, hens don't lay so many, but as soon as the weather warms up, they do, and when it gets too hot, they stop again till it cools down, and they stop in winter. Last year, in one of Crete's coldest winters, I didn't get given many eggs. This year, in one of Crete's shortest winters (that wood fire stopped working at the beginning of March), I am constantly given eggs by friends and relatives, which means more omelettes and more desserts.  When you know the taste of real free-range eggs, you won't be able to go back to store-bought eggs in an omelette.

Although oranges are a year-round commodity, we notice that the summer variety (Valencia) is starting to ripen a little too quickly, again due to the good weather. So that's another seasonal commodity that needs to be used up creatively. Apart from fresh orange juice, orange can also be used a flavouring agent in sweets and savouries. 

We also had a lot of apples at home, due to the chidlren being given boxes of fruit at school under the asupices of the EU. They each brought home a box of fruit containing oranges, pears and apples. Unfortunately, the apples and pears were not in the best condition; they were OK under their mottly skin, but kids only notice the mottley skin. They went uneaten all through the week. 

In keeping with my frugal regime of using fresh produce creatively to ensure the family doesn't get bored with eating the same thing, I used our seasonal and abundant fresh produce and gifts, together with our own olive oil, to make a delicious dessert, based on a traditional recipe for English apple pudding.  

I recreated it in my Cretan kitchen, replacing (like I usually do) ingredients which I don't normally use (eg butter) with local produce (eg olive oil) in the batter (although I kept the butter in the syrup to make sure it congealed). Instead of milk, I decided to use freshly squeezed orange juice in both the cake and the syrup. The result was a heavily scented orange pudding, reminscent of the Greek portokalopita, a refreshing pie made with oranges which uses torn up sheets of filo pastry.

The syrup was poured out spoon by spoon over the pudding. What strayed to the bottom of the baking pan was eventually soaked up by the next day. 

This pudding made a fantastic breakfast to go with my sugarless morning coffee. All in all, it cost me a mere €1 to make. In this modern world, where we want to have more than we can afford but don't know how to do it without begging, stealing or borrowing, my thriftiness makes me feel that I can conquer the difficult financial hurdles that have been imposed on us. Since Thatcher's death, we are constantly reminded that the economy of a country cannot be run like a household:

Despite my dislike of Thatcher's policies, I could not help but have a regard for her commonsense attitude to good housekeeping, her wartime spirit of keeping the larder full of baked beans and dried goods just in case. Many economists despised this spirit, and warned her you couldn't run the country as you ran a household budget... (Guardian, 13/4/2013)

but at least I'm not trying to make my household go down the drain together with the country. And the country can be assured that I won't become Prime Minister.

 ©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.

Marble cake (Κέικ μαρμπρέ)

Life these days is always busy. The weather has been too good to keep us indoors, so we're often running errands, getting chores completed and trying to tackle the garden which is now full of weeds, save the spinach plants.

Here's the chocolate version of the old-fashioned Greek keik.

Use the same recipe in the link. Instead of pouring all the batter into the tin, pour just half of it. Then beat in 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder to the remaining mixture in the bowl. Now pour the chocolate batter over the yellow batter, scraping off the batter in the bowl with a spatula. Cook the keik in the same way as the recipe states.

One other version that I also like to make is the same as the above marble cake, with the addition of dark chocolate chips in the batter before dividing it in half. I like this version of the old-fashioned bundt cake because of the jaffa taste of the chocolate and orange mixture. Any way you make it, it is a sure winner because of its plainness.

©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.

FISIKA - organic olive oil soap products (FISIKA - Σαπούνι από βιολογικό ελαιόλαδο)

Doing business these days is getting increasingly difficult due to competition from large companies that kill off their smaller competitors. Multi-nationals have moved in for good, and they can't be smashed. Small businesses are on the ruin, and they can't be saved. To survive in the business world today, you need to be selling a product or service that is unique and cheap, as well as sustainable. You've got to come up with an idea that no one else has thought of, and the idea needs to be worked over in great detail both in theory and in practice, so that the end result is a high quality product that people will prefer over cheaper alternatives.

FISIKA: producers of organic olive oil soap products and personal care products like creams and balms. They use natural products to scent their soaps, including lavender, grown on the only lavender farm in Crete.

For this to happen, you obviously have to put in a lot of work, devoting your time selflessly to the task. Hence, it's best if you love what you're doing, because you will be occupying a lot of your time doing the same thing. There's no point in the early stages of a small business in hiring third parties to do the work for you - not only will they not be able to grasp your original idea and sense your vision (because they don't really understand it), their contribution will purely be of a functional nature and they will need to be paid from your profits, which will be small because your product is competing in a very tight business world.

Organically produced olive oil soap for the home, to be given as presents, and as a aromatising agent in rooms and cars, cupboards and wardrobes, all at reasonable and affordable prices.

Once you've worked out a really good new product/service, you've then got to market it in such a way that it reaches not just the mass audience, but also an appropriate potential audience. If you don't target your product to the right people, your super-product will fail to bring in that small profit that will keep you and your business going. Even if we love doing something, and our hands are hard-working, we cannot do it without a way to pay the expenses involved in doing it.

All the products are hand-crafted; the whole procedure uses natural processes.

After visiting the oldest olive tree in the world, I got back onto the coastal road instead of the highway to get back home. The highway is great for getting from A to B very fast, but it's not as well sigh-posted for sightseeing as the old national road, which in this case is the coastal road from Kissamos to Hania. Apart from historical and archaeological sites of interest, it hides many delights for olive devotees - organic olive oil producers, olive wood carpenters and olive oil soap makers, to name a few. These people are dedicated to producing wholly local natural products from wholly local resources. There is great interest all over the world in high quality natural products. Coupled with the move against multi-nationals constantly being in control over our pockets and our minds, these kinds of businesses have now made a great impact on the market.

Maria's hand-crafted soap carvings are the first thing you see before entering the FISIKA store.

The workshop of FISIKA, a producer of natural soap products, is located just a few metres past the old German bridge in Maleme*. It is run by Voula, Filio and Maria, three women who have been involved in soap making for many years of their life. Sisters Voula and Filio used to help their grandmother and aunt to make soap when they were young, while Maria now decorates and carves the soap made by her mother and aunt. As Voula explains:

I've been involved in village activities all my life, even though I have lived in a variety of places like Germany, Alexandroupolis, and Samothraki, before coming to Crete, which I now feel is my home. Before I got involved in the soap business, I used to work in various places: restaurants, olive farms, olive processing units, the tourist trade, you name it. Before we even put it into our minds to open the business, we used to make the same soap we sell here in our own home. Eventually we began to experiment with herbs and essential oils for their properties and natural scents and different soap textures for different skin types. Gradually we realised we could be making these products on a larger scale. But we also knew that none of us could actually afford not to continue to work in other paid employment while we are building up the business. We have been open for about 18 months till now. And although we work many hours, every single day of the year, and we've had hardly any time off since we decided to open the shop, we enjoy what we do, and my tiredness is relieved from being involved in what I really like doing.

We use the standard Haniotiko olive oil soap in our home, so we are quite familiar with this natural product. But FISIKA's olive oil soaps have that added dimension which is lacking from ABEA's products: they are made using purely organic olive oil, they are scented with organically produced substances, and they are all hand-crafted and designed in such a way that you are attracted to the product. My children also got the chance to watch part of the process involved in making soap, while I reminded them that this is what their grandmother used to do too, and this is what their father used for many years, which was made using their own olive oil supplies from the village fields. I wonder if yiayia is up to making soap one more time, to pass on the trade to me...

Organic olive oil soap for all skin types and scent preferences: palin, coffee-vanilla, laurel,  ash-sandalwood, myrtle-aloe vera, nettle-rosemary, chocolate-jasmine, milk-honey and orange. These natural products, suitable for all skin types, feel beautiful to touch, they are lightly scented and of course, they are environmentally friendly to the greatest degree.

The Sika family's business is just another of the many that have come out as an answer to the crisis. Opening up a new business these days will not make you a rich person. It will not pay off immediately. But if you enjoy what you are doing, and you are devoted to perfecting your craft, it will be appreciated by those who seek your product.

*The German bridge was originally built in 1901, using steel imported from Germany, but it was designed and built by Greeks. It was partly destroyed during the Nazi occupation, and was roughly rebuilt by the Germans. It has been renovated twice since then.

©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 Lollipop Shoes by Joanne Harris (Τα Γλυφιτσουροπάπουτσα)

If you have ever stayed in a cheap hotel on a Greek island, you may remember seeing a few shelves full of mainly novels in the lobby or near the entrance to the hotel. I once stayed in a hotel where there were a set of bookshelves on every floor of the hotel (yes, I did make sure to visit every floor during my stay). Cheap hotels hold some of the best English language libraries in Greece.You will also find a good number of novels written in German, Dutch, Swedish and possibly Danish. You won't find many French books though; this shows where most of our European tourists come from. The tourists bring these books over as reading material for when they are sitting under an umbrella on the beach. At the end of their stay, they leave the books behind in the room they stayed; they obviously don't feel the need to carry them back home, where books are cheap, they buy them regularly, they pass them round to others who also read regularly, they take them to second-hand bookshops, they talk about them in reading clubs, etc, etc, etc. It's quite the opposite situation in Crete, so I'm very thankful for those tourists who leave their books behind, which gives me a chance to get my hands on cheap reading material.

On our most recent summer mini-break in Paleohora, we stayed in one of these hotels. I got may hands on The Lollipop Shoes (by Joanne Harris), which is the sequel to Chocolat, which most of you reading this blog will know from the highly successful film by the same name. This time, we find Vianne (the heroine of Chocolat) with a new identity and a new chocolaterie, living in Paris close to Sacré Cœur, which is what initially endeared me to the book, as this is where we recently spent a most enjoyable family holiday, staying near the metro station close to this spot in Montmatre. The story deals with the power of chocolate once again, mixed with spells and cantrips in the occult world, with a similar group of interesting characters as those in Harris' earlier novel. I found the 600 pages of The Lollipop Shoes more gripping than the 300 pages of Chocolat, and couldn't put it down; it was the perfect way to spend my time under a wide straw beach umbrella on Grammenos Beach.

Chocolate is part of global cuisine. Nearly everyone knows it and eats it. The book was filled with tempting descriptions of chocolates of all kinds: fudge squares, coconut truffles, rum truffles, peach brandy truffles, mendiants du roi, hazelnut rolls, chocolate cake, lavender brittle, hot chilli squares, white chocolate angels, chocolate mice, coconut macaroons, violet creams, all calling out to the reader: try me, taste me, test me.

Working with chocolate is not like cooking a family meal. Different forms of chocolate have different temperature and handling needs. The result of a chocolate project is often a work of art. I had a little bit of leftover 70% bio-chocolate from when I made Elizabeth Bard's molten chocolate cakes, which I decided to use in combination with the peel of some organic oranges from our own orange orchards. The basic recipe for the sugared orange peel is from Kiki's blog, which appears in Greek. I have adapted it to make one of the chocolates described in The Lollipop Shoes: chocolate-coated candied oranges.

At this time in the season, the oranges in our fields are in a bad state; Greece is too far away from Northern Europe for her high quality products to warrant attention, while she is too close to Turkey, a major producer of citrus, to compete with them for their market share.

You need:

4-5 pesticide-free oranges with a thick peel (remember, you are eating the peel!)

2 1/2 teacups of sugar for the syrup
1 1/2 cup of water for the syrup
1 more cup of sugar for rolling the peel in
100-200g of 70% chocolate (depending on whether you want to coat each individual strip of orange peel completely or only partially, so that some of the orange is still exposed)

Cut the oranges into into 6-8 segments and remove the fruit and pith. Only the peel will be used; the oranges can be juiced beforehand, or they can be eaten fresh as is or used in a salad. (Kiki says that the peels can be placed in a plastic bag and kept in the refrigerator; you can add to your peel stocks as you eat the oranges.) Cut the peel into lengthwise slices 0.5-1.0cm long.

Fill a pot with tap water and boil the orange peel 5 minutes in a pot of water just covering the slices. Then drain all the water from the pot and repeat this process twice. (This is to make the peel taste less bitter.) Once the peel has been boiled three times, lay the strips onto a piece of kitchen paper and let them dry as much as possible: the drier, the better.

Make the syrup by boiling the 2 1/2 cups of sugar with the 1 1/2 cup of water. Let the syrup boil for 5-10 minutes, and then add the orange peel. Lower the heat (this is important so as not to burn the pot!) and let the strips boil away in it until they have soaked up all the syrup. Stir with a fork, taking care not to break the peel. This will take nearly an hour.

Allow the peel to cool down. Lay a piece of greaseproof paper onto a baking tray. Tip 1 cup of sugar into a bowl. Coat the peel strips, one by one, in sugar. Lay them on the lined baking tray, well spread out to allow them to dry quickly. This will take at least 3 hours. Don't be tempted to eat them yet - you haven't coated them in chocolate!

When the strips are quite dry, shake them so that as much excess sugar falls off them. (This sugar can be re-used in any way you would normally use sugar.) Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil. Dip the orange strips in the chocolate with a fork - don't be tempted to dip them in with your fingers, because you'll get covered in chocolate and then you'll have to lick it off, won't you? - then lift them out of the chocolate and wait until the excess chocolate stops running, then place each one on the foil to set. If you don't want to cover them completely, pick up each strip with your fingers and dip it into the chocolate until half way. Then finish the process in the same way as described previously. Allow the dipped peel strips to set; they are best stored in the fridge.

Oh, and don't wash out your double boiler just yet! Add 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup milk to the bowl and reheat, allowing the chocolate to melt in the liquids. Pour the drink into a cup and sprinkle some pepper or hot chilli flakes over it (and maybe a dash of your favorite liqueur). Now you have your hot toddy, all in one.

These delicious treats aren't very sweet at all, but they do contain a lot of sugar, so it's best to make them for sharing among many people, so that you don't feel the temptation to eat too many on your own. They are also rather fiddly and time-consuming to make, so it's best to make them to be served as a  special treat. They also look spectacular in pretty transparent jars, to be given as a present to good friends. 

A small update:

The second batch I made of these was rather different: this time, I used the whole orange cut up in slices, with some flesh remaining on the peel (I wasn't fussed about the juice that drained away - you can do this over a bowl and drink the juice) and followed the same boiling procedure as the recipe states. Then I cooked the slices in the syrup, again as the recipe states, but I didn't coat them in sugar (I wanted to purposely avoid this step, to avoid a gritty look to the final product).

I let them dry in the air for a couple of days, but they never actually got very dry. This is the effect I wanted: a soft juicy-looking fruit. Most of the flesh had melted away, but the peel was still firm enough to handle. I then coated each piece in the chocolate and let them set in the fridge. I found that these (unlike the first batch) were best stored in the freezer (not the fridge) and I took out the amount that I needed as I served them. They never really froze rock solid either, so they were either very chewy when eaten straight out of the freezer, or very soft if left to thaw. Either way, they were delicious!

©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.

Fanouropita (Φανουρόπιτα)

Lost something? Want to discover something? There is still time...

Tomorrow is dedicated to Άγιος Φανούριος, St Fanourios, in the Greek Orthodox church, whose icon was found in the Byzantine period on the island of Rodos (Rhodes). The attribute associated with St Fanourios in popular tradition is that he is the finder of lost objects, as his name suggests: in the Greek language, φανερώνω (fanerono) means reveal. Breads and cakes are baked in his name and offered at the church in the vespers (the night before the feast day) or the morning service (on the feast day), which are then blessed by the priest and shared among the congregation. In this way, the maker of the cake has hope that their lost object may be found. For the same reason, unmarried women may bake a cake in his name, in the hope of discovering the name of their husband (there is no account of the vice versa happening!), and sick people may do the same in the hope that a cure will be found to treat them of their ailment; the 'lost object' takes on a metaphorical meaning: luck, fate, destiny. St Fanourios is often depicted carrying a candle like a torch, looking for something. 

Although St Fanourios was a saint, his mother apparently did no good during her time on earth, according to one version of the story of his life:

"Η μάνα του Αγίου δεν ηκαμε καλό ποτέ τζη. Μόνο ένα κρομμυδύφυλλο ήδωσε μια βολά σ'ένα διακονιάρη. Σαν απόθανε ήβραζε σ'ένα καζάνι με πίσσα και ο Άγιος αρώτησε: α-Γιάντα η μάνα μου είναι εκειά μέσα;

Ο Μιχαήλ Αρχάγγελος τ'απηλοήθηκε: -Γιατί δεν ήκαμε ποτέ καλό. Να ρίξομε το κρομμυδόφυλλο που ήδωσε κι ανέ τηνέ σηκώσει να βγει επάνω, να σωθεί...

Ερίξανε το κρομμυδόφυλλο και η μάνα ντου βγήκε στα χείλια του καζανιού μαζί με τρεις άλλες γυναίκες που πιαστήκανε κι αυτές από το κρομμύδι. Μα η μάνα ντου τώσε δίνει μια σπρωξιά και πέφτουνε πάλι μέσα. Τοτεσάς λέει ο Αρχάγγελος: Θωρείς πως κι επαέ είναι ακόμη κακή.

Τοτεσάς ο Άγιος Φανούριος ζήτησε μια χάρη: Να μην πηγαίνουνε πράμα γι'αυτόν, μόνο για τη μάνα ντου για να λένε να τση συγχωρέσει ο Θεός..." (quotes found in http://firiki.pblogs.gr/tags/fanoyropita-gr.html)

The above text about the mother of St Fanourios has been written in the Cretan dialect. This is not surprising, since the saint is more highly revered on the island than in other parts of Greece. The churches that are named after St Fanourios take on a more celebratory nature during this time: racks are brought in, tables are laid out, people arrive with their cakes and breads, and the priest blesses them during the service.

St Fanourios church, Kalamaki, Hania 
 "man asks, gods give, man gets and shows gratitude, gods are pleased"

The vegan cake baked in St Fanourios' honour (called φανουρόπιτα, fanouropita) is the Greek version of gingerbread, resembling a sweet bread rather than a cake. Although it doesn't contain ginger, this spice could easily replace the traditional ground cloves and cinnamon. It also has special properties: it must be made with seven or nine ingredients. Apparently, this is not up to chance, as the power of  7 or 9 is well known in prophetic or magical practices! In keeping with the tradition of 'finding things', the cake batter always contains spices and dry fruits; as you eat it, your teeth will 'find things' in it! The cake also uses typical Greek-inspired ingredients like olive oil and orange juice, two products my island has a plenty of. 

St Fanourios parish in New Jersey provides a simple recipe in English, which is the one I used to bake a small fanouropita yesterday. Most fanouropita recipes are based on this one. To maintain the idea of the 7 or 9 ingredients, use self-raising flour and a spice mixture to give yourself more leeway!

As Allison says, the cake is a forgiving one, because it is very easy to make; Allison also makes fanouropites for charity in New York. Recipes abound on the web for fanouropita, so you can easily make one of your own. Mixing olive oil and flour is a tricky business - if there is too much flour, the batter will thicken too quickly and won't be able to be poured into the baking tin easily. As you add the flour to the oil mixture (containing spices, orange juice, brandy or water and raisins and/or walnuts), keep stirring the mixture without stopping, until you are ready to pour it into the baking tin to cook. Some people dust the cake with cinammon-scented icing sugar once it's cooked after it has cooled down a little.

The timing of the feast is an appropriate one: the summer heat is waning and the weather is slightly cooler on the saint's feast day, just when a spicy cake will go down well with a cup of tea in the evening.

UPDATE 26/8/2012 - The link that I used to make my fanouropita doesnt seem to be working. Here is a similar recipe:
1 ποτήρι λάδι (1 cup olive oil)
1 ποτήρι ζάχαρη (1 cup sugar)
1 ποτήρι χυμό πορτοκάλι (1 cup orange juice)
1 κουταλιά κουταλιά ξύσμα πορτοκαλιού (1 tablespoon orange zest)
3 ποτήρια αλεύρι που φουσκώνει μόνο του (3 cups self-raising flour)
1 κουταλάκι σόδα (1 teaspoon baking soda)
1 κουταλιά κανελογαρύφαλα (1 tablespoon cinammon and clove spice mixture)
1/2 ποτήρι καρύδια χοντροκομμένα (1/2 cup roughly chopped walnuts)
1/2 ποτήρι μαύρες σταφίδες (1/2 cup raisins)

Χτυπάμε το λάδι με τη ζάχαρη, προσθέτουμε το ξύσμα και το χυμό του πορτοκαλιού και τέλος το αλεύρι ανακατεμένο με τα υπόλοιπα υλικά. Αδειάζουμε το χυλό σε ταψί Νο 28 και ψήνουμε σε μέτριο φούρνο για 45-50 λεπτά. Όταν κρυώσει λίγο, πασπαλίζουμε με ζάχαρη άχνη." (Νίκος & Μαρία Ψιλάκη, "Το ψωμί των Ελλήνων και τα γλυκίσματα της λαϊκής μας παράδοσης").

Beat the oil with sugar (REALLY WELL), add the zest and orange juice, and beat again (REALLY WELL), then add the remaining ingredients. Pour the batter into a 28cm diameter baking tin. Cook 40-50 minutes in a moderate oven (180C). When cold, you can also 'ice' it with a dusting of icing sugar. (From Psillakis N and M "The bread of the Greeks, and the sweets of our traditions").

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