Competence skills required in sustainable agriculture

We're not really as independent as we think or would like to believe that we are - we are now interconnected, and will always be dependent on each other.

To throw a spanner in the works, we rarely hear about how Scotland's food supply will be affected by the vote, do we? It's taken for granted, I suppose, that highly developed countries do not produce much of the food they need to feed their nation. It's not considered important to sustain their politico-economic survival; they happily import most of their food needs and take it for granted that these imports will always be plentiful.

Such countries also take into serious consideration food rules and regulations, and are very bookish, being highly knowledgeable about a wide range of topics without actually having direct experience of the topic in question, perhaps due to weather and landscape.

 As an English teacher in an academic environment, my job involves reading and translating a lot of scientific texts. I have been working on a translation (into Greek) of a report concerning what is seen as desirable skills to be taught in training programmes for sustainable organic farming courses, as suggested by questionnaire respondents from Greece, Spain, Hungary, Croatia, France, Italy and Austria. Based on my work, I present a (rather long) list of questions about sustainable farming, and how likely it is that your country can succeed in providing its citizens with food produced in your own country. It is based on the knowledge acquired over time by individuals, in order to maintain a sustainable farming business.

CAN YOU/DO YOU:
- understand the differences between conventional, integrated and organic farming in terms of inputs and farming techniques?
- understand the impacts of conventional farming practices on resources-vulnerability and irreversibility?
- understand the ecological basis underlying the dynamics of agriculture?
- understand the environmental complex-the behavior of the plant Is aware of the basic farming work skills?
- understand the interactions between several agro-systems in the scale of a territory?
- understand the importance and impact of the agro-ecology in the micro and macro environment?
- understand the connection of the agro-ecology with the market (better communication with the market)?
- design and apply management plans taking into account the ecological components and functions in various agro-ecosystems?
- communicate with farmers?
- understand the impacts of conventional farming practices on resources-analysis of the impact of agricultural management?
- understand the ecological basis underlying the dynamics of agro-understanding of the components and ecological functions in agro-ecosystems?
- understand the environmental complex, the sum of interactions acting on a growing personal and collective farm?
- apply ecological components and functions in different agro-ecosystems?
- use basic farming work skills?
- solve simple problems in the area of environmental protection and agricultural production
- link economic, social and environmental fields
- understand the technical basis of the agro-ecological transition, its conceptual design and technical and economic changes in the farm?
- know the Legislations and Regulations for the transition to organic farming?
- have a command of/be fully conversant with the relevant OA legislation & its application to certification standards to farming?
- have an awareness of the importance, methods and certification of organic production?
- Is familiar with the management and maintenance of quality?
- have knowledge of the basics of social psychology on the theme of resistance to changes (since Lewin, 1950’s)?
- understand the agro-ecological transition of planned changes for converting a conventional farm into an organic farm?
- know and understand Legislation and Regulations for the transition to organic farming?
- translate regulation requirements into changes of agriculture practices?
- master technical developments and measure economic impacts?
- find information and communicate via the internet ?
- understand the importance of the interaction between populations (biodiversity, functional diversity, ecological diversity) during farming production?
- manage biodiversity conservation and productive purposes?
- understand the role of agrobiodiversity in farmscape planning, plant protection, soil fertility and weed management?
- know the rules and expectations of seed-production, storage, processing, and preparation?
- understand the capabilities for raising maximum yield through a proper production plan, plant selection and protection?
- understand biodiversity, functional diversity, ecological diversity-is able to manage them effectively during farming?
- recognize the impact of certain plant cultivation activities on the environment and their acceptability in terms of biodiversity conservation?
- produce seeds?
- think the food autonomy for cattle in a farm scale, using density of animals and available surface areas?
- plan agricultural production with reduced harmful impact on biodiversity?
- understand the soil as a living medium - is aware soil components affecting soil quality and fertility and the importance of their ontogeny ?
- understand the dynamics of organic matter in the soil ?
- understand the role of organic matter in the soil and the importance of the living environment as a dynamic?
- control pests and diseases of edaphic origin?
- understand the role of the soil alive in the control of diseases and health of plant?
- understand the agronomic and pedodogic functioning of a soil?
- understand the mechanisms of maintaining and increasing soil fertility through litter and green manure crops?
- understand the importance of conducting soil analyses?
- understand the differences in the inputs for soil nutrition in different farming systems?
- know the differences between fertilizers and amendments, schedules for the inputs in response to crop needs, has mastered the mechanics of analysis of nitrogen balance, to manage correct fertilization?
- know the main green manures, their mode of culture, schedules for destroying them, principles of degradation (restitution of nitrogen into the soil)?
- produce production site analyses?
- maintain the organic matter and soil fertility high using OA accepted techniques?
- understand the soil as a living medium - Is able to identify the functionality of the data in relation to the production dynamics?
- understand the dynamics of organic matter in the soil?
- make decisions to improve soil quality and fertility, through self-fertilization and according to the law of the OA?
- control pests and diseases of edaphic origin?
- identify those components of biodiversity most important for management and control?
- know how to observe and analyze the soil functioning (using simple tools like auger, spade, to achieve profile analysis for crop diagnosis)?
- identify beneficial microorganisms in the soil and their importance in improving soil quality and fertility?
- make proper choice, use proper method and time of pesticide application ?
- make nutrient management plans individually, and include them into systems by cultures and by technologies, taking into account crop ?
- know the effects of production process (quality, application)?
- have a strong understanding of the N cycle and how this connects to N availability for plant roots?
- understand the parameters that affect a process?
- understand the different fertilization technologies, and include them into the possible technologies?
- understand the importance of organic matter for various crops?
- have some familiarity with the possibilities of the production and / or supply of compost?
- Is aware of decomposition process and application methods?
- understand composting competence?
- produce and apply compost/ green manure?
- understand the quality and maturity of compost?
-  understand and interpret analytical techniques and in situ techniques used to evaluate parameters related to the quality and maturity of compost?
- manage the composting process and to limit losses from wind and leaching?
- select the proper form of organic fertilizer for certain types of soil?
- determine quantities of organic fertilizers that are brought into agricultural area to minimize the contamination of surface and groundwater, and maximize nutritient availability ?
- organize collective actions?
- understand crop rotation and association?
- know the specifics of vegetables grown?
- understand cover crops and mulching?
- know how to apply different culture techniques as cover crops, intercropping, mulching?
- understand plant infrastructure?
- understand the role of auxiliary vegetation ?
- update your knowledge in organic and biodynamic agriculture?
- know insect-attracting plants ?
- connect organic farming techniques with their effect on agrobiodiversity, plant nutrition and crop protection?
- design appropriate rotation schemes and partnership?
- apply different culture techniques such as cover crops, intercropping, mulching?
- understand plant infrastructure?
-  choose and design hedges, borders, vegetable islands to diversify and protect crops?
- have knowledge of important  weeds and soil diseases?
- apply different ecological preparations for plant protection against diseases, pests and weeds?
- apply various technical interventions in agriculture, without adversely affecting the structure and quality of the soil (reduction of required actions in tillage )?
- use properly machines of cultivation?
- integrate technical exchange networks?
- use insectary plants ?
- understand the ecological management of greenhouses?
- have knowledge of different ecological cultures?
- know the principles of crop growth without soil on inert materials?
- know the specifics of growing plants indoors?
- understand specific features and risks of production in greenhouses?
- understand the different sprouting technologies and equipment?
- understand the closed sprouting system’s barriers, peculiarities, its special plant protection and maintenance?
- understand the proper techniques of non-degradable waste management and disposal of materials?
- understand energy issues (direct consumption and indirects energy costs, life cycle analyze,…) of equipment such as “greenhouses” and “shelters”?
- understand instalation and maintenance of plastic equipment and microclimate conditions?
- understand special problems of plant protection from diseases and pests in greenhouse conditions?
- understand the specifics of greenhouse production?
- have previous experience on greenhouse production?
- act in order to combat pests and diseases in greenhouses?
- understand the ecological management of greenhouses?
- schedule an annual crop rotation, maintaining soil fertility and control pests and diseases according to regulations?
- use different beneficial insects to combat major crop pests?
- master  techniques of organic control in greenhouses (crop auxiliaries etc) and of fertilization ?
- have knowledge of soil diseases and crop turnover?
- insert intermediate crops or green manures between or during crops, to promote soil biological activity through the presence of plants and living roots?
- master technical and economic constraints in greenhouse production ?
- apply ecological principles in  greenhouse conditions?
- produce vegetables indoors (sowing, optimal processing time and picking)?
- manage methods of biological control?
- use the proper techniques of non-degradable waste management and disposal of materials?
- understand basic features of the nutritional ecology of biological control agents?
- have knowledge of species of biological control agents available in the market ?
- have knowledge of conservation, biological control and ecological engineering methods used in open field crops ?
- know the theoretical foundations of ecology applied to plant pathology?
- understand the theoretical concepts that relate to soil-living nutrition and resistance to pests and diseases?
- understand the environmental risks of synthetic inputs and differential substances permitted in organic farming?
- know the importance of the role of weeds in agro-ecosystems and the theoretical foundations that allow the recognition of the most important species and their growth cycle?
- consider pests and diseases as regulators of  agro-system imbalances, and accordingly to use early preventive control and to strengthen the immunity systems of plants?
- understand the possibilities of purchasing ecological resources, and oftheir synergy?
- have knowledge of ecological preparations to protect plants from weeds, pests and diseases?
- have knowledge of the availability of the list of approved substances?
- have knowledge of the different possibilities for controlling harmful organisms in crop production?
- have knowledge of the permitted preparations/combinations in organic farming?
- understand their limited applicabilities and impacts?
- have knowledge of important local weed species and their growth and development?
- understand alternative techniques of plant protection, compatible with organic farming?
- identify pests and key species of biological control agents?
- make decisions regarding the management of prevention techniques and control according to regulations?
- have knowledge of trophobiosis as a unifying concept in agroecology?
- use the substances permitted in organic farming?
- master pests and auxiliaries' life cycles in order to promote biological control?
- make environmental protection agents?
- prepare pesticides from farm materials ("compost brew") or from plants from environment ("nettle brew", Equisetum extracts, Tanacetum cinerariifolium extracts etc.)?
- choose environmentally most acceptable methods of plant protection? 
- prepare an independent protection plan?
- recognise pest herbivores, illnesses, and disorders (visible symptoms caused by missing microelements)?
- apply the appropriate techniques to control weeds?
- master design approaches for innovative cropping systems?
- support the farmer in his agronomical technical reasoning?
- have knowledge of postharvest handling and packaging of fresh and processed products-knows what are the conditions to be met by a commodity and what are the factors of shelf life?
- have knowledge of regulations affecting the development of an ecological food-knows the rules governing the sector in postharvest ?
- understand storage principles and protection during storage of organic raw materials and products?
- have knowledge of methods of determining the period of harvest / picking, determine the physiological and technical maturity with chemical and organoleptic path?
- implement postharvest rules at the producer level or enterprise level?
- adapt to the rules governing the sector in postharvest?
- select the method of keeping the product with regard to its ultimate purpose?
- plan and execute harvesting, processing, transportationactivites and related operations?
- know the dynamics of the water cycle, biosphere level of the edafosphere and water balance in the plant?
- have knowledge of the theoretical basis from agroecology to facilitate water management in agricultural systems?
- have knowledge of the methods with the environment to ensure product quality?
- have knowledge of the quality of used water?
- understand  the advantages of irrigation?
- have knowledge of the importance of preventing pollution of watercourses and groundwater?
- have knowledge of methods to manipulate the environment to ensure product quality maintenance?
- have knowledge of the methods with the environment to ensure product quality maintenance?
- know how to apply dosages based on culture and stage of growth?
- understand  ecological principles in moisture conservation?
- have knowledge of irrigation methods?
- understands agro-climatic issues linked to global warming?
- understand irrigation methods which assure environmentally sound water management?
- advise farmers on optimum use of irrigation water/is able to provide/ take water samples for analysis?
- analyze water data and present it as a basis for decisions?
- extrapolate knowledge of water systems (the dynamics of the water cycle etc) to the design of crop and soil management?
- use techniques of soil management, planting, seeding and crop diversification to conserve water and can optimize irrigation?
- manage water: inputs (saving systems), limiting losses through evapotranspiration (mulch and organic mulch), surplus management (drainage, shaping boards cultures), associations of beneficial cultures, to create microclimates (agroforestry)?
- plan the installation and use of irrigation systems?
- plan the required capacity of the irrigation system and related costs of installation and usage?
- create and manage water-saving irrigation?
- calculate optimal water consumption and analyze profitability?
- apply an irrigation program ?
- master techniques for water management?
- master irrigation systems?
- have a developed consciousness of the usefulness of irrigation in agricultural production?
- implement irrigation system on agricultural land?
- prepare independently the farm’s water management and irrigation plan?
- meet the water needs and control the dose to be applied depending on the growth stage of the crop?
- know the basic characteristics of the water used for irrigation?
- know the consequences of tillage and their behavior depending on the type of soil?
- explore the features of machinery for planting, application of manure and compost, forage, and crop cultivation?
- have knowledge of proper handling of tools and machinery on a farm?
- understand tillage?
- comply with hygiene rules and food safety regulations ?
- know the machines which are specially created for Organic Agriculture ?
- stay safe at the work according to national legislation by having attended relevant training?
- master the appropriate equipment for mechanical weeding?
- master spraying equipment to ensure proper application of bio pesticides?
- know how to properly maintain machinery?
- understand the advantages and application of  the planned preventive maintenance system?
- understand energetic issues (direct consumption and indirect energy costs, life cycle analysis) linked to agricultural equipment?
- know collective approaches for using agricultural equipment : group property, farmers groups, support societies?
- understand environmental impact of agricultural machinery use?
- have the appropriate handling certificates and is able to handle the machinery safely ?
- understand soil management with minimum tillage and no-till?
- fix the use of specific tools, at the right floor-and-tempering time for cultivation?
- prepare and execute machine handling and control instructions?
- drive tractors and garden tractors with implements?
- perform maintenance of the facilities?
- select and use appropriate equipment for each job, in order to maintain and enhance biodiversity, particularly in soil?
- safely and properly use machinery?
- provide proper first aid?
- know the rules regarding the labeling of organic products?
- understand the packaging industry at the national level and in exports?
- know the main functions of packaging in fresh and processed foods and the different characteristics of each?
- have knowledge of the legal regulations of processing and labeling of organic products? 
- have knowledge of the importance of proper harvest time depending on the purpose of the product?
- have knowledge of the principles of organic products preservation, drying techniques and preserving ecological products?
- have knowledge of the list of approved substances and ways of processing?
- understand the role of packaging as selling tool?
- have knowledge of and  introduce  and maintain a complex HACCP system?
- understand the basic semi-finished and finished product production technologies?
- have knowledge of the best professional practices, standards and specifications of packaging and stripping/wrecking?
- understand energetic issues (direct consumption and indirects energy costs, life cycle analysis) linked with packaging?
- understand the process for proper selection of packaging (reusable, bio degradable material)?
- understand processing and packaging technology?
- know the basics of environmental labeling?
- differentiate the peculiarities of the labeling of fresh produce and processed product?
- have knowledge of the packaging industry at a national level and for export?
- apply this knowledge (main functions of packaging etc) to decision making in business?
- process products respecting sanitary regulations?
- handle machinery
- use methods of analysis of food hygiene to map the organic quality in farming food processing
- understand marketing channels in the eco-sector
- know how to differentiate the characteristics of the ecological food chain and all possible forms of marketing and distribution sector
- understand short channels and markets nearby
- understand the characteristics and potential of this type of marketing
- know the importance of online market and social media
- understand the importance of innovative marketing
- differentiate the characteristics of the ecological food chain and all possible forms of marketing and distribution sector
- design strategies to optimize this type of distribution with small farmers and small markets or consumer groups
- work at the enterprise level in the positioning and dynamics of eco responsible products
- know the marketing channels
- design labels and packaging of eco products in order to attract customers
- make market research and recognize optimal business oportunity
- master marketing techniques
- raise awareness about sustainable agriculture among employees and the environment
- raise awareness of the consumer about the benefits of ecological products on health and the environment
- know the importance of the tourism sector in the rural economy
- understand farm and / or ecotourism
- understand the differences between agro-tourism and green tourism
- know the basics of tourism 
- understand ways of selling tourism offers
- understand the regulations and limitations regarding agrotourism (village tourism)
- be sensitive to different cultures
- communicate and transfer the culture of an area
- understand green tourism
- introduce the environmental factor within the tourism sector
- understand farm and / or ecotourism
- link concepts and requirements for greater economic diversification in rural and local areas
- quantify its project to assess its profitability
- create good communication channels in marketing promotion 
- discover / plan new facilities to attract visitors
- create their own agrotourist household (on the base of possessed agricultural farm)
- find product niches to get a better price (additional income, …), combination of offerings   
- master the standards required for hosting disabled people
- find advice for dealing with tourism
- make a business plan (a form of agricultural tourism, finance, market demands, marketing, resources, etc.)
- integrate agrotourism into the course of business of the farm
- deal with agrotouristic activity (i.e. to plan activity, to lead marketing, to organize the stay of guests in the household, to manage finance aspects of the activity)
- have mastery of organic agriculture communication in order to respect competition rules?
- know how to support decision making by a farmer in a context of uncertainty?
- know the basics of a Firm's Social Responsibility approach?
- have mastery of the techniques of active listening (identifying customer needs through an open questionnaire)?
- identify the difference between needs and the expectations of a farmer?
- have mastery of at least one foreign language?
- evaluate the overall performance of a technical proposal (environmental, social and economic impacts, stakeholders identification)?
- link a technical proposal and farmer 's strategic directions?
- master the stakeholders' identification in an organic farming project?
- support farmers' groups (at least, to organize meetings)?
- have some level of mastery of ICT tools?


If you answered YES to a good deal of the above questions, then you probably have the right skills to be an organic farmer and manage a sustainable farm competently. You are also most likely to be a good listener, and a good decision maker, and will be able to survive a bout of bad luck (eg finance or climate oriented) to a great degree. Such skills are what is keeping Greece afloat at the moment: while most developed countries disregard their food supply as playing a great role in their economy, and importing most of their food needs, Greece produces a great deal of fresh food that is used in its raw state by Greek citizens, as well as being exported. What's more, Greek food is considered very highly among the global community.

Make what you wish of the competences stated above. They are based on skills, competences and knowledge which are believed to be inherited informally and non-formally from one farming family member to another, especially through experience, and which are slowly being lost over time as people gradually move away from farming as a career/main job, hence the need to formalise such training in recognised courses for would-be farmers.

Some skills cannot be taught just from a book, while others need a substantial period of time to be understood to the point that a person can practice them. Farming depends on hands-on experience. Once such skills are debased, then the big-business agro-industry rightfully must become a standard feature of our lives.

©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 week in food

I am too busy to write, so I'll just post photos of last week's delicious food in my home.

Mother-we-love-you makaronada:


Organic acorn tomatoes, from the street market (together with plum cherry tomato, regular tomato, and a local variety of beef tomato):


Cretan particular (Tamus creticus, aka avronies, with tomato and eggs):


Another Cretan particular: grape hyacinth (vrovioi)


The first strawberries of the season:


Spring is definitely here.


©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.

Organic puttanesca (Βιολογική πουτανέσκα)

It's Holy Tuesday (Μεγάλη Τρίτη) today, the only day when the Hymn of Kassiani is heard in the Greek Orthodox church.

"Are you free?" A very pretty young woman got into the car at Nea Hora. She was slim, with long legs, and a round unblemished face. She had long blonde hair curled up in a bun. But I couldn't see her eyes. She was wearing sunglasses, even though the day was not sunny.

"For you, honey, I'm always free." I'd been waiting in the rank for one hour before I managed to crawl my way to the beginning of the queue. For my good luck at landing such a beautiful fare, I hoped she would be worth my pocket. As I started the car, I noticed the other taxi drivers waving me off with big cheesy grins on their faces.

ΓΑΙΑ - GAEA

"I'm going to Gaea," she said. Oh, great, I thought. I had just landed myself a quickie. I would be losing my place in the queue only to rejoin it half an hour later.

"So you're into organic food, are you?" I said, just to make small talk. "Is that how you keep yourself looking so gorgeous?" I didn't expect she'd answer back. Not that I was really interested. I was just pondering over how busy the Dikastiria taxi rank might be.

"I just want to stop off and do some shopping there, and then go somewhere else," she continued, ignoring my flattering remarks. Oh, wonderful, I'm now going to be tied in one place, losing money on waiting time. I had now entered the thick stream of traffic on Kissamou St. The dowdy look of the street with its old apartment blocks, its cheap-looking shops, the rubbish on the road and and the stinky atmosphere of car exhaust fumes suited my mood. I was going to be in for a long wait.

I used to shop at GAEA; these days, I prefer local over organic.

Parking outside Gaia was non-existent. I parked right outside the shop, narrowly missing a crate that had been placed in front of the store to allow the goods lorries to drop off produce. From my position, I was able to see straight inside the shop. It wasn't very busy.

I've never bought anything from an organic store myself. I don't even know what it means for something to be organic. Does it mean that there are no chemicals in the food? I don't believe it. Nothing grows without chemicals these days. If it does, it doesn't look big and shiny and clean, like the stuff I could see in the crates outside the store. Tomatoes in winter? My foot. Bloody ha-ha, if you ask me. If I eat anything organic, it's because I grew it in my garden, or picked it from my fields. It's organic de facto. 

The woman was taking quite a while. Twenty minutes had passed already, while new customers were going in and out of the shop, but there was no sight of her. She must be one picky lady!

Finally, she came out of the store, holding four bags of goods. Even her handbag was fatter than when she went into the store. I got out of the cab to open the hood for her. I could have told her to open it herself, but I really wanted to see what she had bought. Apart from a couple of small bags of fresh produce, I noticed a lot of pre-packaged good. Not all of the products were identifiable to me.

"Πολύ πράμα," I joked with her. "You must have paid a lot of money for all of this." I was hoping that she would reveal exactly how much she paid; she didn't. I helped her load the bags into the car. She held onto her handbag.

"Oh, it's all worth it," she said, as we got back into the taxi. "Gaia sells good clean food. I would never swap it for cheap supermarket produce. If you have children, you should buy all their food from here."

"Yes, indeed," I pretended to agree with her. "I've got two, and my wife's very careful about what she cooks with." I turned on the engine and looked at her, with a big smile on my face. "What goes into our bodies is really important. So where are we going to now, my lovely?"

"Minoos." Minoos? Opa!

Minoos St, Hania

"Exactly which part, love?" I asked a little cagily, not wanting to sound too obtrusive.

"Minoos," she repeated. "You can leave me at the cafe," she said, "it's a little too narrow for a car your size," she explained.

"OK, ma'am, whatever you say," I grinned. It's been a while since anyone said that to me.

By the time we arrived at the cafe, the sun was shining. Spring weather is changeable. One minute you need an umbrella, the next minute you need sunglasses. My pretty fare was well prepared. She never took her shades off the whole time I was with her. I got out of the car to open the boot, while she fumbled in her bag to find her purse among all the new items she had placed in it when she did her shopping.

Red light at night, sailor's delight

"Kalimera, kiries," I said, half-looking in the direction of the cafe, where the other prostitutes were airing their fannies, taking advantage of the good weather. They all said 'Yia', lifting their hands to greet their colleague, half-smiling as they looked in my direction.

The packet of biscuits my husband was given

The fare cost €7.50. The woman gave me €10. "Keep the change," she said. I thanked her. As she put her purse back into her bag, she gave me one of the items that could not fit into her bag, after she had tampered with it when she was searching for her purse. "Here, take it," she said, "a little present from me."

"Oh, thank you, you really shouldn't..." I started. "You bought it with your hard-earned money."

"No," she answered firmly. "You keep it. Give them to your children. They'll love it."

I thanked her and waved to everyone at the cafe. They shook their heads backward in reciprocation. When I got home, I gave my wife the packet (it turned out to be imported biscuits), and told her who gave it to me.

"Did you notice the price?" she said, showing me the sticker she found on the packet. "€3.49 for a packet of biscuits?! They must be raking in the money! Even during a crisis!"

Theme music to Safe Sex (1999)

*** *** *** 

"Smitten by Kassia's beauty, the young emperor approached her and said: "Through a woman [came forth] the baser [things]", referring to the sin and suffering coming as a result of Eve's transgression. Kassia promptly responded by saying: "And through a woman [came forth] the better [things]", referring to the hope of salvation resulting from the Incarnation of Christ through the Virgin Mary."

I make the most incredible puttanesca sauce - nothing to do with my technique at all - made with organic pantry staples: green olives, capers, peppers, onion and garlic, in tomato sauce - all foraged/grown/preserved by ourselves in summer/early autumn. The capers also include the leaves - the white spots are a natural result of the pickling process. And of course, it's lenten.

Kassia wrote many hymns, the most famous of which is the eponymous Hymn of Kassiani, commonly sung late in the evening service of Holy Tuesday. The Hymn of Kassiani is popular with sex workers in Greece, who may not often be seen in church at other times of the year. They come in great numbers, in order to hear the Hymn of Kassiani, as it is traditionally associated with the woman fallen in many sins.

  

©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.

Fast food is good food (Το γρήγορο φαγητό είναι καλό φαγητό)

My husband and I were recently talking about moving house and building a new one a few kilometres away from where we currently live now, in a countryside setting.

Left: The view we have now. Right: The view we want in the future.

It may sound like we have suddenly come into a windfall. Fortunately or unfortunately - depending on the way one views the saying 'money can't buy happiness' - this isn't the case. One day, we'd like to be able to move house for a change of lifestyle: we'd like to live on a large tract of (family-owned) land, closer to our orange orchards and olive grove, giving us more flexibility to grow more of our own produce, including the possibility of raising animals (something we aren't doing now) for our own use.

Our closest neighbours at the moment near the olive grove live 1.5 kilometres away - they are retired Germans! We often see them foraging along the road heading towards our grove. Living in the countryside is not as difficult as it seems in modern times, since the roads are now tarmacked, and basic services (water, phone, electricity) are more readily available.

Keeping animals carries with it a huge responsibility - it means that you can't leave your home without making arrangements for someone else to carry on your work while you are away. (This way of life is not much different from how we live now - living with an elderly person who has lost her mobility means we still do pretty much the same thing.) Since we'd both be closer to retirement, we would have more time on our hands to do this. And as I look out from the window of our new house that looks down onto our olive trees and up to the Lefka Ori, I would then be inspired to type up that novel that I've been writing in my head for the last year or so...

Another view of Lefka Ori from the olive grove

But it seems that I am coming in too late to the game. Food from the earth is old hat; according to Rachel Laudan, I'm a Culinary Luddite!

The article presented in the above reader was written almost a decade ago, and was recently revised for publication in the Utne Reader, which provides a number of links to other food-related debates. It received some attention in the NY times blog; the comments there share similarities in their misunderstanding about modern food with some of Rachel's ideas about slow food. In essence, one could say that humans now all eat processed food, whether they like it or not, but the notion of 'processed (ie fast) food' needs to be distinguished among categories of food and not confused with 'junk food'.

One of the recurrent themes in the article is that "Eating fresh, natural food was regarded with suspicion verging on horror, something to which only the uncivilised, the poor, and the starving resorted."* If this has some measure of truth, it is only because refrigeration wasn't invented until relatively recently, and even then, most people (in the case of Greece, as recently as less than 40 years) wouldn't have had a refrigerator in their house, so they would have spent a lot of time foraging fresh ingredients and eating what they could there and then before finding other ways to preserve or store it before that fresh food - both raw and cooked - went bad.

 

It is difficult to understand the feeling of euphoria that a farmer has when he plants a successful garden...

The availability of refrigeration ("egalitarian, available more or less equally to all, without demanding disproportionate amount of resources of time and money") has obliterated any revulsion against eating fresh food; it's helped many of the still "uncivilised" and "poor" to be able to preserve their own fresh produce easily and make it available to them in less abundant times - so long as there is regular power supply in their area. We don't usually starve in this day and age due to lack of food; it's usually war, politics and mismanagement that keep food away from the needy. How many times have we heard about supermarkets and the ordinary public that throw away edible food?

The evolution of mankind has constantly improved living conditions for people and animals, and even for plants. Through evolution, we went from milk to yoghurt, from dry crackers to soft raised bread, from freshly caught fish to salted cod. Through evolution, we went from being primitive nomads foraging their food daily to civilised settlers with "a securely-locked storehouse jammed with preserved, processed foods."

Some people buy their processed food; some others process their own produce. We generally live in abundant times, with the luxury to do both at whatever cost we can afford.

But these ample supplies of preserved food were not actually enough. As Rachel admits: "the rich, in search of a varied diet, bought, stole, wheedled, robbed, taxed, and ran off with appealing plants and animals, foodstuffs, and culinary techniques from wherever they could find them." In other words, fresh food really was the key to the tastiest meal for both the rich and the poor, but for the former, it put them out of their routine in their quest to procure it, while for the latter, it was all they had. Food rationing during WW2 in Britain put the lack of fresh food (with a heavy reliance on preserved imported food) in the spotlight:

We all think and talk about food eternally, not because we are hungry but because our meals are boring and expensive and difficult to come by... what I wouldn't give for orange juice or steak and onions or chocolate or apples or cream. (1941 diary extract, quote from the Ministry of Food exhibition)

Boring. That's how they regarded the "modern, fast, homogeneous and international" food that was being imported into the country during the period the UK was subjected to food rationing.

I spend a lot of my time preserving fresh produce, especially in the summer. Two of the most important products in our Cretan kitchen are tomatoes and olives.

"Traditional societies," Rachel reminds us, "were aristocratic, made up of the many who toiled to produce, process, preserve and prepare food, and the few who, supported by the limited surplus, could do other things." Throughout the world, there was, is, and always will be, a divide between the rich and the poor. The world survives on this kind of separation of the people. The rich will always have access to better quality food in a greater variety than the poor, while the poor will constantly be working to provide food and other services for the rich. Some people will continue to "get on with their lives", while others will continue to provide the basic services the former group needs to continue with their lives.

Despised products like corn syrup and GMOs will continue to be hated while, at the same time, be considered more acceptable elements of the food chain for certain elements of society (the poor is an obvious one), besides bringing in great profits for their makers. Discount supermarkets will probably always sell the cheapest canned tomatoes, while placing an organic label on the packaging will always give added value; you buy the quality that you pay for. The range in prices for food is there to remind us that we all have different pockets and different priorities. No matter how the world changes, people will always need to be fed, and the food people generally want to eat still comes from freshly grown produce that is processed, preserved and prepared into an edible form, not from chemicals or glass tubes. Fresh food will continue to form the basis of fast food.

We were recently invited to dinner at the country house of some friends who spend their summers on the island. When it was time to serve the meal, the first thing the hostess did was to tell us what each dish was, and the origins of the ingredients: "The chicken is from the village, the rabbit is from my mother's farm, and the artichokes (in the tart) were freshly picked and refrigerated by my mother in the spring." None of the food was processed by the hosts, and some of meal wasn't what I'd call traditional Greek cuisine, but they took pride in knowing the origin of the fresh ingredients.   

"City dwellers, above all, relied on fast food." No surprise, and they still do, since they are the ones most likely to live in small dwellings with tiny kitchens and no gardens; they are also the ones who are most likely to work not just outside the home, but for long hours away from home and quite a distance from home, so they need to have easy-to-store (or -buy) food that can be cooked or reheated quickly. There are times when these townies differ little from mountain dwellers who need to have a bit of salt cod in their pantries (or frozen fish in their deep freeze) if they want a taste of fish every now and then without putting themselves to the trouble of procuring it the day they want to cook it. That's what evolution has given us: time-saving technology and the ability to store safely preserved fresh food that doesn't go off quickly.

Boureki in 15 minutes, with the help of a mandolin slicer, then into the freezer it goes, with a note attached: "Just add oil"; 'fast food' that my grandmother would have recognised. The aspect of "servitude" is now performed by technology.

That's why I can send my kids away to study without worrying what they'll be eating**, because no matter how 'bad' the food is wherever they are, no matter how much of that notorious 'bad food' they pour into their bodies, food safety can generally be relied upon by keeping in mind a few general rules. And that's the idea that I have about that village house: while my kids are away eating 'bad food', I'll be growing fresh produce and turning it into 'good food' (just like I do now), so that when my brood comes home for the holidays and we want to spend quality time together as a family, I won't need to slave away in the kitchen preparing their favorite pastitsio or boureki or order take-out food because I had gotten used to having more me-time and don't want to give it up. I'll just pop a tin of freshly preserved food out of the fridge and get on with life, and my kids won't even know it wasn't prepared on the same day - they are eating the same food cooked in the same way now.

Apart from the refrigerator and deep freeze, my right-hand man in the kitchen when I preserve/prepare fresh produce is my instant mixer/cutter - can you see it? It's a tireless servant, cheap to buy and lasts for ages. 

I take exception to the idea that slow food is just a notion of bygone times: "... it is easy to wax nostalgic about a time when families and friends met to relax over delicious food, and to forget that, far from being an invention of the late twentieth century, fast food has become a mainstay of every society." My experience of eating in Crete goes wildly against this: people take great pride in the food they grow, cook and eat, and they always share it among family and friends. It is unthinkable to do otherwise. It is also difficult to believe (for a Greek islander like myself) that most people do not partake of a delicious meal in a relaxing environment with their family; they are missing out on one of the greatest moments in life. A common prejudice is that people who are very involved in food production live a simple isolated life and do not have a good grasp of modern life; in short, they show signs of a lack of progress. How far away from the truth that is in Crete.  

Vegetarians aside, I pity those who cannot savour the taste from the tapsi in the photograph below. Everything (literally, including the salt) was harvested/raised/produced by the man (he's my age) in the top left photo, while his wife (sitting next to him, 10 years younger) cooked everything shown on the table in the top right photograph. You might be wondering if they live a peasant lifestyle: he's a carpenter, she's a school cleaner, and they live in the town in a semi-detached suburban house. Their land and their food is very important to them. Their 3 children go to school in the town, and take part in urban activities. They are no different to the teacher and the taxi driver who visited them.

The idea that home-cooked food is 'slow' will never have occurred to some Cretans, since they often assume that this is the only kind of food that can be called 'φαγητό'. When they eat 'fast food' (don't confuse this term with its modern meaning of 'junk food'), they'll tell you that they didn't cook any 'φαγητό' (food) today, because they didn't have time, eg during the olive harvest, but even though it wouldn't be as appetising or appealing as their slow food, it would still have been somewhat tasty and delicious, maybe a boiled farm-fresh egg and a potato, served with whatever fresh seasonable salad vegetables are on hand, all doused with olive oil, and a few slices of bakery bread, with maybe some tinned tuna or luncheon meat for extra protein.

This kind of meal is touted as Cretan breakfast - it is what tourists look out for on a tourist menu. Most of the food in the photo involves requires a minimal amount of processing; it can also be said to be 'fast food' as it is very quick to prepare.

This kind of meal is called 'πρόχειρο φαγητο' (Google translates this phrase as 'snack'), nearly always made with slow food, not a supermarket TV dinner or a can of baked beans. Fast food to those people is a boiled potato without the horta, a salad without the roast meat, the ubiquitous slice of bread and hunk of cheese that children carried to school with them for 'κολατσιό' reminiscent of the post-WW2 era when Greece was rebuilding herself from the ravages of war.

 
As I was writing this post, I went about on my normal daily food-preparation duties: cooking the Sunday roast (using granny's recipe), watering the garden, and harvesting fresh produce. My daughter made me a (classy) glass of orange juice using oranges from our own trees, and at the end of the day, I ate some of my home-prepared 'fast food' on a slice of bakery bread and thought about the different ways I was going to prepare/preserve my produce (the eggplants were turned into moussaka (frozen in portions), while the zucchini were made into boureki for the next day's meal.

One thing I particularly like about the food customs in Crete is that they haven't quite yet reached the completely globalised point as they have in other cultures. Nearly all global foods are available on the island, but you will have to visit  the high-end supermarkets to find (to put it more politely) acquired tastes. For instance, don't look too hard to find chili-flavoured strawberry jam in Crete. Not that people shouldn't eat chili-flavoured strawberry jam, but here, they don't need to, nor do they demand it, and if it were available, given that people's tastebuds are culturally attuned, it probably wouldn't be popular. Again, only the high-end supermarkets make the effort to sell outlandish food, eg, of all things, Mexican blackberries! Of course, outlandish food calls for outlandish prices: imported Dutch strawberries (off-season) are now available for over 11 euro a kilo!

Peruvian asparagus spears are available in the local supermarket (at absurd prices), but it's highly unlikely a local will buy them. This kind of food is generally bought by tourist residents, ie Northern Europeans who have retired here. 

In Crete, people can still find a great variety of good quality affordable locally produced food. In the prefecture of Hania alone, I counted at least 15 varieties of locally produced cheeses (the French would relish in the sight!), each made in a different village of Western Crete, less than 100 kilometres from the main town, ranging from 10 to 18 euro a kilo, in the local supermarket. This range does not include the imported cheeses which are also available, eg Edam, Cheddar and Gouda, to name a few of the well-known mass-produced global cheeses. Local, national and imported cheeses are eaten with a different purpose in mind; convenience and choice are available for all.

Cretans generally demand a high degree of traceability in their food. Origin and degree of processing are just as important as price and taste in their decision to buy fresh produce. The range of graviera cheeses (starting from the white block where the woman is standing, right up to the green round on the other side) available at the local supermarket shows just how much variety there is in a small town like Hania - these cheeses are all made in villages within less than 100 kilometres of the main town; they all have their own distinct taste and cannot be confused with each other. These cheeses are rarely available outside Hania, and each region in Crete has its own local cheesemakers. In the summer, Athenians holidaying in Crete buy cheese rounds in their hordes, as variety in Cretan cheese isn't easily available there - transport costs make it unfeasible to send such products even to the mainland...

The food industry is a profitable one in Crete; people still look for quality and ask about origin. Does this make us culinary Luddites? Are we eating in an unsustainable or old-fashioned manner that does not bode well for our future progress? Is it just a waste of time to teach the next generation about this old-fashioned food chain, because in the hi-tech, wireless world that they'll be living in, they won't have the time to cook and eat in this way? I really don't think so. From my own family's experience, where I try to ply them with non-Greek favorites, I have come to the conclusion that people will continue to eat the way their culture has brought them up to eat:

An American needs food but wants a hamburger, French fries, and a soft drink. A person in Mauritius needs food but wants a mango, rice, lentils, and beans. Clearly, wants are shaped by one’s society. (A Framework for Marketing Management, by Philip Kotler, 2001).

*** *** ***

Just like the average Greek, fast food (of the type referred to in the article) is everywhere in my own life - but not necessarily in the form that we normally associate with fast food. Fast food allows me, the person who cooks for the whole family, to get on with my own life: I usually buy our daily bread from the bakery; I buy fresh meat ready chopped in the way I want it to cook a meal; I keep a small piece of ham to slice for sandwiches; I buy fruit and vegetables that I don't grow from the supermarket; we always buy our cheese. They are my fast foods - but they were prepared/grown/raised in appropriate facilities with the latest technology that the producer can afford (this is especially the case with bread), using as many locally sourced ingredients as possible. When we process our own food, this shows 'choice', not a lack of progress. But there is also a lot of fast food in my house that I have prepared myself. For a start, there are tins of boureki, pastitsio, moussaka, papoutsakia, home-made pizza and spinach pasties in my deep freeze throughout the year, made with the fresh produce from our garden, which I processed, prepared and preserved. That's how I can have a 'fresh' meal on the table every day even though I didn't have time to cook.

Aubergine cubes, bell pepper shells, tins of prepared Greek meals (the one you can see is moussaka), all waiting in my deep freeze for their turn to be eaten in less abundant (and busier) times.

A (foreign) friend of mine once asked me if I had a once-a-week takeaways night in our house. I admitted that I didn't. This is not because we don't like takeout pizzas or souvlaki - they are both regarded as treats, not 'πρόχειρο φαγητο'. I can produce my own version of fast food in the same time that it takes to order it over the phone and wait for it to arrive to my house: a slice of bread or some bakery rusks, topped with a piece of cheese, cured olives from our fields, a piece of roasted pepper preserved in its own marinade, a freshly marinated anchovy, et voilά, I've got myself a pizza (albeit in deconstructed form). When we eat food that wasn't prepared by ourselves, it usually feels like our own because there is traceability in the ingredients used. Having access to a variety of nutritious safe fast food shows 'progress'. It isn't necessary to resort to the masses of verified junk loaded with sugar or fat. 

When I met up with Kalofagas recently on his first visit to Hania, we (his friends in the area) decided that the best meal Peter could eat was a home-cooked one, because that is what truly represents the taste of Crete, not a standard uniformly Greek tourist restaurant meal. My "ethnic" dishes of "peasant origin" may have been "invented" for the "urban aristocrats" but they probably never tasted as good as when they were cooked in a farm kitchen!
The menu was as follows: ορεκτικά - marinated sardines, roasted peppers, eggplant dip; κύρια πιάτα - pilafi, boureki, eggplant imam, yiahni green beans, pork steaks; επιδόρπια - orange pie, kalitsounia with honey. 

A question often asked of school pupils to discuss in the classroom is what technological innovations they would like to see in the future that haven't yet been invented. When they've all finished telling me about aeroplane cars and cleaner-robots, I then tell them what I'd like to see invented some time: an oven which will automatically prepare my choice of meal where my only input is the provision of the raw ingredients. Now that's what I call tasty freshly prepared fast food, made with as much fuss as the way the dishwasher gets my plates spanking clean.

*** *** ***

Rachel insists that, as a historian, she can't accept the sharp divide between good and bad food, in the way that the Culinary Luddites claim. She makes a plea instead for Culinary Modernism:

"We need to know how to prepare good food, and we need a culinary ethos, As far as good food goes, they [the Culinary Luddites] have done us all a service by teaching us how to use the bounty of delivered to us (ironically) by the global economy. Their culinary ethos, though, is another matter. Were we able to turn back the clock, as they urge, most of us would be toiling all day in the fields or the kitchen; many of us would be starving. Nostalgia is not what we need. What we need is an ethos that comes to terms with contemporary, industrialised food, not one that dismissed it, an ethos that opens choices for everyone, not one that closes them for many so that a few may enjoy their labour, and an ethos that does not prejudge, but decides case by case when natural is preferable to processed, fresh to preserved, old to new, slow to fast, artisanal to industrial. Such an ethos, and not a timorous Luddism, is what will impel us to create the matchless modern cuisines appropriate to our time."

In other words, food in this day and age has to come fast, otherwise we won't be able to cope with the other demands made on us by modern life. There is an assumption in the article that most people are (or should be) living urban lives, even though some of us have made a conscious choice not to be urban. It all depends on priorities. For rural people however, it is anathema to suggest that the emphasis on fresh food produced on a small scale is a misconceived notion; it can be equated with removing the very means that allow them to survive. In order to use 'fast food' instead of producing/preparing their own 'slow food', not only will they have to buy their food, but they'll have to be in paid employment to achieve this, and that's just not going to happen for at least 12% of the Greek population in the coming winter; Fraser and Rimas are probably correct to a certain extent when they advocate that we learn to store surplus food, live locally, farm organically and diversify our crops.

As a linguist, I'd argue that Rachel didn't really mean we should be eating modern fast food at all - just faster (and safer) food than what it was in the past.

*The inverted commas " have been used to denote quotes (in bold) from the article.
**Some Greek mothers never stop worrying about what their kids are eating when they are studying as far away as the UK. They will send them food parcels to their children, containing meals they cooked at home the previous day, froze solid, then sent to the UK by courier! (But that story is for another post.)

©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.


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