Tinned tomatoes

I've been following the populist 'no more tinned tomatoes' debate that broke out just over a week ago in the New Zealand media, when a women's refuge worker demanded (not just requested) that food donations to the charity should not include tinned tomatoes. The 'Treatise on Tinned Tomatoes and Why They Are Like Books' did not get as much airtime as did the readers' vicious comments about the connection between 'poor people' and tinned tomatoes, which sounded like it was coming from non-Maori/Pasifika (read: white) higher-end middle class New Zealand society. The post (I found a cached version) did not actually villify tinned tomatoes. All the reasons that the writer gave for banning tinned tomatoes were based on solid facts and sound logic. Given that we are just days away before Christmas, it shouldn't be too difficult for most people to see why words like 'tinned' and 'staple foods' don't collocate well with 'Christmas'.

The women's refuge worker claimed that refuges (like food banks) often have many tinned tomatoes in their pantries, often past their due date. Women who use refuges generally don't use tinned tomatoes, nor did the people who raised them, and some of the women who use refuges don't even (know how to) cook. So if you gave those women a choice, they would never even ask for tinned tomatoes. In other words: if a woman cooks with tinned tomatoes, its a cultural thing. Pasifika/Maori women - the main users of women's refuges in NZ - are unlikely to have a cultural background of cooking with tinned tomatoes. Middle class NZ society might be very surprised to discover this: some people just don't use this quintessential global pantry stocker. By judging these women on foreign (to them) cultural terms, ie as good and knowledgeable budgeters ("tinned tomatoes are cheap!", "tinned tomatoes are versatile!"), the 'tinned tomato brigade' can't actually see what these women are feeling when they enter a refuge, ie sadness, depression, shellshock, running away from violence. Coupled with a lack of life skills and literacy skills, being cash strapped, in debt and looking after children, they wouldn't even feel like cooking, let alone cook from scratch: tinned tomatoes usually imply cooking from scratch.

Women who turn to a refuge for help have no family support - if they did, they would not be asking a refuge to help them. The writer made a point of how important it was to help such women get what they wanted, rather than what other people feel they need. In such moments, they want simple comforts: "spaghetti on toast or really simple things, stuff [that can be eaten] straight from a can if needs be".  Donors donate what they think poor people (which does not always mean the same thing as 'women in a refuge') need rather than want: "That’s you putting your values, and your mores, and your cultural prejudices on other people." Offering to teach women how to cook, how to use tinned tomatoes, and any other life skills they may be lacking is all very well, but there's a time and place for everything; when they arrive at a refuge, they need to settle into a new kind of life. Eventually, they may start preparing meals like they used to for themselves and their children; but some of these women may never want to cook, let alone from scratch. So tinned tomatoes are probably never going to be useful for them.

My old no longer wanted books started this foreign language library at CIHEAM.MAI Chania. Many students use it in their free time, and students also add to the collection.

The writer made the analogy that "tinned tomatoes are a bit like books": just like we don't all cook, we don't all read. While cooking and reading may sound like very basic activities to some people, to others they are not. For some people, cooking and reading are very difficult activities. Giving things to people who need things is not the same as giving people presents: the things you give to people who need things have to be useful things. Giving tinned tomatoes - a very cheap common product - to someone who has never used them is like giving away your old books which you no longer wish to read to people who never read novels. The better off harbour comfortable perceptions about what others should be doing all the time to become better off.

The treastise against tinned tomatoes aroused a storm of comments from both sides of the argument. A (Maori) woman working for another women's refuge added canned chickpeas and canned lentils to the forbidden list of items that refuges didn't want:

"We ask for fresh meat and vegetables and we get beans and lentils. What are our people going to do with chickpeas? Are they going to be making hummus in the safe house? Like tinned tomatoes, chickpeas and lentils have to be cooked and accompanied with other ingredients, using knowledge and supplies that many families [don't] have."

A (white) woman working for a Salvation Army food bank said she was shocked to hear that other charities were turning away tinned tomatoes:

"...the refuges are being a bit fussy... We are very short on things like [tinned] tomatoes... chickpeas and lentils are staples in Salvation Army food parcels given to families at this time of year... The staples are never going to go out of fashion. And hungry families will usually eat anything."

Anything? I doubt it. (And she also put her cultural prejudices into the picture by calling women in refuges hungry.)  Food is incredibly personal and highly cultural. Clearly the Salvation Army is catering for different kinds of people from those entering a women's refuge. People on a low income may also lead a more stable kind of life, not the nomadic existence of a woman fleeing from violence. Processed food is not necessarily the greatest miracle in the food world to make women's lives easier; having someone doing all the bloody cooking for you is even better than buying, carrying, storing, preparing and cooking food yourself. We don't all have that luxury of a private home cook; this usually happens when you are very wealthy or if you live in a cultural setting where one of the household's women (eg the grandmother) will prepare meals for all the family members, who may be working out of the home, or have been assigned other tasks. As mentioned above, if a woman has this kind of family support, she would not be asking a refuge to help keep her safe in the first place.


Snails and xinohondro - highly acquired Cretan tastes!

As I was following the discussion in the media, what really struck me was how unlikely it is among these refuges that someone will be cooking something for someone else, so that those people who need a decent meal (especially children) would find something that wasn't full of sugar/fat/salt (read: snack-type ready-to-eat highly-processed, eat-from-the-packet kind of food). It is already obvious that a lot of the people using these services don't have many life skills needed in order to maintain a healthy standard. So why not have someone cooking something on a regular basis, which can be served up to everyone and is also healthy and comforting? Some of the commentators mentioned that they would like to do such a thing as a cook-up, where some of the meals produced can be frozen for emergency moments. I think that the answer to this question will bring to the fore a host of other social issues that will be difficult to resolve.

It seems to have escaped people's notice that a lot of people in highly advanced countries like New Zealand are too busy to cook these days. This doesn't apply just to people in difficult situations. Most people in advanced countries spend their time in many creative ways, which often include doing things away from the home. And when they do have free time, they spend it more leisurely. Cooking is not a leisure activity when you are thinking about how to feed a family. It's a chore.

Lentil (φακές - left) and bean (φασολάδα - right) stew/soup - it depends on how much water you add.

Cooking for others, cooking with tomatoes and cooking with beans are therefore all very culturally based. In truth, I cook tomato-based bean dishes not because they are the yummiest thing imaginable, but because I have to feed a family, and beans are a pretty good quick cheap choice of food which can be prepared the night before, by the working woman in the household. (I am doing this right now as I write: a pot of lentil stew is boiling away on the stove. It should be ready before midnight. No, I don't use a pressure cooker.) This is not to say that a woman living in New Zealand from the Maori/Pasifika cultures cannot do the same thing for her family as a Greek or Indian woman (two cultures which use beans a lot in their daily diet); she doesn't do this simply because it's not part of her culture. She could be taught to do something like this - but if it was never part of your culture to prepare food in this way, learning to do this kind of chore is very difficult in modern times, when people are generally being 'taught' to treat food as a commodity: you buy/eat food when it's time to eat, or when you're hungry, or maybe to comfort you - and it's all ready prepared by someone else, and - generally speaking - you will generally cook when you feel like it. What may have been part of the food culture of a Maori/Pasifika woman fifty years ago has now changed, due to her translocation - due both to internal and external migration - into a highly advanced society headed and directed by non-Maori/Pasifika leaders. No matter how settled a woman in New Zealand who has turned to a refuge becomes, she is unlikely to revert to a less processed-food daily diet.

*** *** *** 

The 'tinned toms' discussion that ensued tells us much more about comfort food, processed food, and the act of cooking, than it does about how to use tinned tomatoes. The following can be implied:
- Comfort food is ready-to-eat food
- Cooking is for people who lead stable lives
- Canned chickpeas and lentils are the kinds of food that connoisseurs, health-freaks, vegetarians, vegans (and generally other 'smart-farts') know about (and eat)
- Certain cultural groups eat a lot of chickpeas and lentils, so they will know what to do with them
- Certain classes of people - especially those whose lives are less complicated - have the chance to be more adventurous in their food experiences
- Canned food (eg chickpeas and lentils) is for poor people
- Canned tomatoes are useful in a home where the act (which is now often considered an art) of cooking can actually take place (read: you have a kitchen, a stove/oven, AND you can afford to pay the electricity/gas bills)
... inter alia.

Canned tomatoes - and muuuuuuuuch more recently canned beans, but never ever canned lentils, except at LIDL when it's having a 'Spanish week' - are highly popular among Greek food banks and especially in soup kitchens. They are cheap and easy to work with. They make quick filling meals. A heated tin of tomatoes could quite possibly be poured over some boiled pasta. BUT: If this was never part of your culinary repertoire, then you will not eat it, let alone know how to make it. Culinary knowledge in western countries has passed into the realms of mystery, while things like chickpeas and lentils are considered food for the poor - or food for cultured. Even Greeks will acknowledge that beans are cheap and that's why the eat them.  Most Greek women with a family (including me) will cook up a bean dish once a week on a week-day, de rigeur.

I can't actually imagine any working Greek woman with a family here in Crete not cooking up a bean dish at least 2-3 times a month, but this is based on cultural norms. Greeks may have become impoverished - but still, there is much truth in saying that theirs is a dignified kind of poverty. We can have our cake and eat it, because we know how to make the cake. Greek identity these days often implies food knowledge. Recent Greek emigrants due to the economic crisis often end up working in their own food-based business. Their family background is not necessarily middle class. They rarely realise the superiority of their culinary skills because until they leave Greece, they do not realise that there are people out there who lack such knowledge. They are also astounded to learn that most people in highly advanced societies watch cooking shows and buy cookery books - but they rarely cook meals: most of their food will have been prepared by someone else, for them to heat and eat.

It's still not very common to see soaked ready-to-use chickpeas (let alone lentils) in Greek supermarkets; on the other hand, there is a plethora of dried beans on the shelves. If such canned products were presented to a Greek woman, and she was asked to produce something on the spot with them, I don't think she'd have much trouble producing a hot comforting meal in little time. All you need to make classic Greek φακές (lentil stew) and ρεβιθάδα (chickpea stew) are tomatoes, beans and water; if you add some minced onion and garlic, salt and pepper, your soup/stew - depending on the amount of water you add - will taste nicer. A hot bean soup made with canned tomatoes makes great comfort food - and it tastes better the next day.

Puttanesca is one of the quickest things I can cook from scratch 

Tinned tomatoes are often hailed as a food processing miracle by media cooks:

"The larder is worryingly bare when you've run out of tinned tomatoes. They are the cook's comfort blanket, the progenitor of any number of soups, sauces, stews and braises... Tomatoes are the best source of the carotenoid pigment lycopene. Some studies suggest it can help prevent prostate, lung, and stomach cancers. Tomatoes are an interesting exception to the rule that cooking food reduces or destroys valuable micronutrients: lycopene is better absorbed when it has been heated, either during processing or cooking, as the heat turns the molecule into more useful isomers. Tomatoes provide significant amounts of bone-strengthening vitamin K, and some research suggests that lycopene also supports bone health. Many studies link tomatoes with heart benefits, and although the mechanisms aren't yet clear, the antioxidant vitamins C and E in them, along with lycopene, seem to slow down the processes that would eventually cause heart disease."

An old photo of my pantry - these days I prefer to freeze our bumper summer tomato harvest.

In short, a pantry full of tinned tomatoes and chickpeas and lentils symbolises domestic wisdom, happiness and prosperity. But this is something that is not within the sight of a woman fleeing to a refuge with just her kids and the clothes they're all wearing. They'd rather be having some tea and toast, and maybe something sweet, like chocolate biscuits, to bump up their spirits. In other words, they want the same things you want. I highly doubt that the average citizen of a highly advanced society is eating tinned chickpeas or lentils cooked in tinned tomatoes on a daily, let alone weekly basis. We all want variety.

When buying "food for the poor", we really need to think about what we ourselves like to eat rather than what we think poor people 'should' be eating. Better still, charities can tell you what they need because they know who they're supplying. It's even better to give them money (they are likely to make better deals with suppliers), so they can do the appropriate shopping for that tiny segment of society that is rarely visible to the majority. Especially now before Christmas, to make it a merry one, skip that bloody canned food. As the Greek saying goes:

Φάτε τώρα που το βρήκατε, γιατί αύριο έρχεται η φακή.

(Eat now that you have good food, because the lentils are coming tomorrow.)

More articles on Greek food banks and soup kitchens:
http://www.organicallycooked.com/2013/03/soup-kitchen.html
http://www.organicallycooked.com/2013/10/food-bank-community-grocery.html
http://www.organicallycooked.com/2016/04/the-social-kitchen-of-hania.html

All quotes come from the following links:
https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/11-12-2017/please-no-more-bloody-tinned-tomatoes/
https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018625266/jackie-clarke-no-more-tinned-tomatoes
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99767397/
https://thespinoff.co.nz/parenting/13-12-2017/no-charities-dont-want-your-inedible-food-items/
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11958543
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/12/charities-ask-kiwis-to-donate-more-than-second-hand-goods-or-tinned-vegetables.html
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/hamiltons-salvation-army-shocked-auckland-charity-turning-away-tinned-tomatoes
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99813458/we-want-tinned-tomatoes-hamiltons-salvation-army-says

https://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/99843749/comments-rejecting-tinned-tomatoes-illjudged
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/99909805/get-off-your-tinned-tomato-high-horse
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/opinion-analysis/99946985/hype-about-tinned-tomatoes-has-raised-the-debate-on-giving
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/oct/05/tinned-tomatoes-health-benefits-anti-cancer-strong-bones

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Quilted pouffe (Πουφ)

As Greece faces crisis afer crisis, I'm just patiently waiting for the tide to recede. There's too much happening on all fronts in this country, creating widely diverging opinions and extremism. In the interim, we have to face the facts and get on with life. Crete is getting ready to become host to many millions of people starting from this week: not refugees, as we were led to believe given the various (non-)agreements between Turkey and the EU, but tourists, as the high season kicks off with an early calendar Easter. Let's see where this will lead...

To pass away the time, I've been working on little creative sewing projects to while away the quiet hours, the calm before the storm, so to speak. I poured out a bag full of scrippy scraps of denim cuts and starting plotting them onto a sturdy piece of age-stained vintage 50s calico cotton mad in Greece, originally used as storage sacks.

In essence I had made new fabric from old fabric.

I liked the idea of not wasting anything, but I have gotten tired of small projects. I still like to keep my creative fabric art functional, meaning that a finished product must have a specific use, hence the idea for a pouffe, which I first saw on pinterest, So I became a bit more adventurous ...

... until I ran out of scraps and needed to 'create' more! The last piece of of fabric had a more traditional patchwork look.

I have plenty of mattressing remnants from my local mattreess maker (which reminds me: it's hotel preparation time - there are probably HEAPS of mattress remnants going to the recycling depot...), which I used to stuff the pouffe. I also made a 'handle' from the wasitline of an old pair of jeans to pull or carry it when moving it around the house.

 

And here is the final product, something useful that will be enjoyed by many people.

It still needs a bit more stuffing, but that can be easily solved by sewing one side seam with a zip - taken directly from an old pair of jeans!!! No fuss sewing a zip on it from scratch!

It sounds easy enough, to tear up old jeans in order to embark on a similar project, but it's not that simple. This project started with a quilt made from large denim squares from old jeans:

The resulting scraps were turned into smaller denim squares form another quilt:

The pouffe was the result of the scraps of the scraps of the scraps.

It takes a lot of creativity to be both sustainable AND functional!

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Youvarlakia soup (Γιουβαρλάκια σούπα)

Youvarlakia is Greece's version of a meatball soup, most commonly made with white sauce, although you will also see it made occasionally with tomato. The dish basically consists of meatballs boiled in a light water-based broth, with egg and lemon juice beaten into it once the meatballs are cooked. I make youvarlakia about once a month in the winter period. Since the kids have become avid vegetable eaters, I now add a lot of vegetables to the soup, together with the meatballs, and our youvarlakia soup turns into a very hearty and less meaty meal. My recent youvarlakia variation turned out to be the most popular version of the dish to date.

For the meatballs, you need:
1 kg minced beef (or pork, or a mixture of beef and pork)
1 large onion, finely grated
2-3 garlic cloves, finely grated
1/2 cup rice
a few springs of parsley, finely chopped
a few sprigs of mint, finely chopped
salt & pepper to taste
a little olive oil
some flour for dusting

For the soup, you need:
3 litres of water (or stock - I prefer water for a lighter soup)
50g butter (you can also use olive oil instead - I prefer butter because I don't use stock)
a few sprigs of dill, finely chopped
1/2 small cauliflower (or broccoli), broken into bite-size florets
1 large carrot, cut in small chunks
1 cup of peas
These are the vegetables I used in this version of the soup. You can use any vegetables that will keep their shape when cooked - I try to use only seasonal vegetables, especially if we grow them ourselves.

For the sauce, you need:
2 eggs
1/2 cup lemon juice

Mix all the ingredients for the meatballs (except the flour) together very well by kneading them. Make golf-ball sized balls, and roll them in flour. Set them aside while making the soup.

Boil all the ingredients for the soup together. When you get a rolling boil, add the meatballs, one by one, and continue to boil the soup until the liquid starts rolling again. It may need more water if the liquids have evaporated too quickly (you can make it as thick as you prefer). Turn down the heat to the minimum, place a lid on the pot and continue to cook the soup until it becomes creamy, for at least 60 minutes. Turn off the heat, take off the lid and allow the soup to settle for a quarter of an hour.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs and lemon juice together. Pour a tablespoon of the soup into the egg and lemon mixture and keep beating the sauce (otherwise the egg will 'cook', like scrambled eggs). Pour another tablespoon into the sauce and keep beating. Keep doing this until the bowl is nearly full. (Don't try to hurry this step - you will spoil the soup by cooking the egg.) Now pour the sauce slowly into the soup. Stir it in gently. The soup is now ready. Serve it hot.

Youvarlakia soup is hearty enough to be eaten on its own with some thick slices of toasted bread. If you like to add a bit more protein to it, try it with a thin slice of feta cheese on the side, or crumbled into the soup. This soup will congeal once it cools down, but when warmed up, it becomes runny again. It also tastes good the next day.

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Melomakarona (Μελομακάρονα)

What kind of Greek food blog is one that does not include a recipe for the traditional Greek Christmas shortbread known as melomakarona? An incomplete one for sure. As my sister is the melomakarona maker in this family, here is her recipe, which I made this year.

This recipe makes a lot of melomakarona - I halved it, and got this plate, as well as another half plate. It is a simple recipe, and an easy one to make in one afternoon. For modern eaters, this recipe is vegan (and can be made gluten-free by adding gluten free all purpose flour).

The olive oil, orange juice, honey and walnuts are all local products, all produced just 10-30 kilometres away from my home. Without being biased, these melomakarona are truly delicious: they taste like a whiff of Crete in every bite.

1 litre olive oil
1 ¾ kilos all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed (not from a packet/carton - the final product won't taste right)
some ground cinnamon  and cloves
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons semolina
Mix everything together, leaving the flour till last.

Bake at 180C till golden brown, about 30-40 minutes. When cool, dip lightly in syrup (recipe below):
1 cup honey
2 cups sugar
3 cups water
Boil everything together, till the syrup sets slightly (about 20 minutes on a rolling boil).

Either the biscuits must be hot and the syrup cold, or the biscuits must be cold and the syrup hot (I do the latter - it's easier to warm up the syrup after making the biscuits).

Dip the biscuits in the syrup and allow them to soak in the syrup for up to a minute, turning them over once. As you pull them out of the syrup, coat them in ground walnuts.

©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.

Staying in control (while others panic)

You've probably heard me say the same things before, about three years ago when Greece faced another Grexit crisis. We're experienced in these things now. 

"In central bank circles it was discussed why the Greek government had not yet introduced capital controls. The Governing Council and the Governing banking supervisors would feel better if there were capital controls to prevent bleeding of the banks." (Translated from this German link).

I'm no longer worried about when Greece runs out of money, as this is already a well established fact about Greece, a country so desperate to find money from anywhere it can, that it's practically begging (non)tax payers to pay their taxes, by allowing people with unpaid tax dues up to 31.12.2103 to pay just 50% of what they owe if they pay half what they owe up front (or: they can pay whatever they can, and the same amount will be forgiven, while the remainder can be paid in small amounts over a long period of time). As for those who paid all their tax dues on time, like myself, well, they can revel in the knowledge that they simply don't owe anything, it's that simple. (So if you are the 'paying' kind of person, you are the true loser; if you were a true believer of the ΔΕΝ ΠΛΗΡΩΝΩ movement, you  have just been vindicated.)

I wish Greece had introduced capital controls ages ago as it only seems sensible. (My husband says that the reason it hasn't is because we live in a very democratic country - there is no other explanation.) I no longer care if I run out of money - I just don't want to run out of food; it's time for me to stock up on pantry basics. Voting in a new government has resulted in people being irresponsible about how to handle money, and we often hear them blaming Germany for everything that went wrong in Greece. It's hard for me to like the new government when I am surrounded by spoilt-brat behaviour and misled rhetoric.

Our wood supply is protected from the
weather with all sorts of bricabrac.

As long as no one takes the food
out of our mouth, we shall never starve.

Let's take a moment to imagine that capital controls to stop people taking money out of the bank are finally put in place overnight, just before the upcoming three-day weekend celebrating Kathara Deftera (Clean Monday, the first day of Great Lent before Christian Orthodox Easter):

We buy onions
every summer
in braids which
last nearly all year.

Don't look at the brown
bits on the cauliflower.
Boiling water blanches
them.

I've got plenty of beans in the pantry, some sorry-looking (due to the weather) broccoli, cauliflower and spinach that needs to be picked, plenty of onions, garlic and spices for flavour, and enough pasta and rice for bulk. I'm running out of flour, which is very important for me as I make a pie every week. I've just stocked up on some protein (from the German discounter supermarket chain LIDL, who gives Greeks what they want: apart from cheap imported food, they also sell cheap made-in-Greece food), and I also remembered to buy some petfood - our dog and cat have to eat too! There's plenty of wood for the heater till this temporary freeze goes away. I may not be able to buy petrol for the car if I can't use my credit card, which means that I will have to work from home, or simply take time off work. I've been wanting to do that for a long time.

Work at home is the same as in the office.

But I'm definitely not stocking up on cash. I hate cash. I can't stand the idea of taking money out of the bank just to make myself vulnerable to burglary, attacks, etc, which has already happened to others: a couple was robbed of 60,000 euro in mainland Greece, and only last weekend an elderly couple was murdered in a remote village in Hania, all because they were known to be keeping large stashes of cash in their house.

Reduced and non-reduced chicken wings.

It's not a war with starvation, blood and bullets, but it's definitely a war, and I know I'm one of the innocent victims, along with many other ordinary people like myself. Take for example the Bulgarian man in the supermarket who saw me picking up the last two sticker-special packets of chicken wings. He asked me if there were any more with a 30% reduction sticker, and when we realised that there weren't, I gave him one of the packets, so we could share the savings, and when he wasn't watching, I picked up another packet of chicken wings at the full price. That's what I call solidarity. I could have made another early morning trip to the supermarket to see if there were any more discounted chicken wings, but who wants to fight through the last-minute shopping rush before Clean Monday?

Clean Monday?! Oh gawd, the shellfish. I may not feel the need to buy or eat it myself (the family doesn't call me Merkel for nothing), but the rest of the brood won't be too happy to hear that we will be eating beans again. Another shopping trip is in order after all, in order to contain the masses, and maintain an appearance of being in control. Now, where do I find cheap seafood and halva*?

*LIDL sells cheap halva and seafood, but we are used to higher quality in this line of goods, since we rarely buy them.

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Simbetherio - Mixed marriage stew (Συμπεθεριό)

The moment to rid ourselves of the aging zucchini plants came: the plants had overgrown leaves, the zucchini was sprouting but not growing, it was shrivelling up as soon as it sprouted.. Before I dug them out from the root, I snipped off the most tender part off the plant, which makes a tasty summer stew.

The meaning of 'simbetherio' comes from the relationship of the parents-in-law of the two members of a marriage; the families become related to each other through marriage (they are 'simbetheroi' to each other). The simbetherio dish uses the extended family members of various similar species, cooked in the same pot. The term is usually given to summer-autumn dishes, and not winter meal.

Simbetherio (συμπεθεριό) is the Cretan term for this dish, but it is also known as tourlou-tourlou (= mix-mix, from Turkish). It is really a stovetop briam, a Greek-style ratatouille. In my simbetherio, I used whatever vegetables had been grown in our garden: together with the zucchini tops, I added peppers, onions, tomatoes and eggplant. 

For seasonings, I added some salt, pepper, purslane leaves (known here as glistrida or antrakla) and two sprigs of fresh basil leaves. I could also have added vlita (amaranth) and some stifno (black nightshade), as both grow in our garden, but the pot was already full of sweeter greens and veges, so I left them out. 

Simbetherio is a really simple dish to prepare, and it reminds me of the end of summer, which we often look forward to in Crete, because it's always too hot at this time of year. It hasn't rained since early June, and we're completely parched here, especially since a drought has been declared in the region. 

The most frugal dishes I cook are often the tastiest, because the recipes are based on cheaply produced garden produce.

Well, if you  are having a record-breaking year for tourism in your country, and your hometwon just happens to be one of the most popular summer resort towns for domestic tourism, that means that more and more people need to have showers 2-3 times a day to cool themselves down in the blazing heat, more sheets and towels need to be washed, and more tomatoes need to be grown - and washed! - for making 'Greek' salad. 

This photo was used in the local press today to illustrate the problem of water shortages in Hania.

No wonder there is a drought right now, things will right themselves when the summer tourist season is over. There are talks right now of extending the tourist season by one month each end - ie, to include the whole of March and November - which is great news of course in economic terms, but just how prepared are we for this? Just for the record, there is plenty of water available in the region, but it was planned to be used in dire cases of water shortages. I personally don't classify this case as dire; this is simply a case of άρπα-κόλλα - it could have been prevented if there was any serious planning taking into consideration, given the early forecasting of the record-breaking tourist figures for this year.

Bonus photo: simbetherio, cooked by Ntounias last weekend.

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

Greek cuisine, Greek identity and the economic crisis: a crisis of taste

A dietitian friend of mine in Germany recently asked me about the relationship between Greek food and the economic crisis. Here is a seminar I presented last year about this very topic. Presenting it again this year has given me a chance to give it a reality check - yes, it still holds true. 

GREEK CUISINE, GREEK IDENTITY and the ECONOMIC CRISIS

Maria Verivaki

English teacher, Food blogger

Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania

ABSTRACT 
Greek cuisine is often associated with concepts such as hospitality, homeliness and tradition, all of which require certain sacrifices, in terms of time and money. It is also seen as an important and defining element of Greek identity. But the economic crisis has affected standard Greek values and the Greek identity is being reshaped as developments change the structure of Greek society. The traditional cuisine associated with Greece cannot remain untouched by this. What changes has Greek cuisine, as related to Greek identity, undergone due to the crisis?

The economic crisis brought this 'new' form of heating - and 'old' form of cooking - into my home.

This paper does not attempt to answer the question directly. Rather, introspective insights will yield partial answers to this issue, using personal experience and knowledge gleaned from various sources, mainly from the Greek national and international press coupled with personal experiences, with particular emphasis on the area of Western Crete, where the author lives and works. The question will remain open, as a recommendation for further research into the topic of Greek identity and how it relates to Greek cuisine.

INTRODUCTION
Greek cuisine is mired in the myths created about it by the nostalgic diaspora, history enthusiasts and sun-seeking tourists. Numerous books have been written about it, acquainting the whole world with the concept of Greek cuisine, while at the same time standardising Greek food in the minds of both those of Hellenic and non-Hellenic heritage. While there are many standard dishes instantly recognisable as Greek food, the basic ingredients and meals that are often ascribed as Greek and known to the non-Greek world represent only a limited range of the full gamut of Greek cuisine. What's more, what is prepared in the Greek home is rarely representative of what is cooked in the tavernas and restaurants for the tourist.

Greek food is glorified in pictures. Sometimes the setting is more important than the food. 

GREEK CUISINE 
The country of Greece is as varied as its cuisine. The north is known for its redolent pita, the south for its great variety of horta, and the islands for their regional specialties originating in their limited supply of ingredients. But what is often presented in restaurants in a country with a booming tourist industry associated with it is a variation of mainly summer specialty dishes such as yemista and horiatiki salata. In Crete, some regional specialties will be added, perhaps boureki and kalitsounia. In the north, these regional specialties will be replaced by the locality's specialties, maybe tirokafteri and some kind of pita. But all Greek eateries will unfailingly mention (for example) tzatziki and moussaka, and these dishes will be presented in such a way that one expects them to be commonly prepared in the average Greek home by the average Greek home cook.

Haniotiko boureki: a very regional dish from Hania

The truth is that Greek cuisine is made up of a regional range of different cuisines, in the same way that a number of regions make up the country. Many of the locally well-known dishes will not necessarily be well-known to Greeks outside the region concerned, nor will they even appear on a tourist restaurant menu. But these specialties are now appearing in high-end Greek restaurants, often in variable forms from those originally found in the home and non-tourist kitchens where they are still commonly prepared. One of the reasons for this is the economic crisis: as Greeks are rediscovering and reshaping their identity, they are digging up and uncovering more basic elements of their culinary history in an attempt to reach beyond the surface of the traditional identity that they have - often mistakenly - become synonymous with.

Bougatsa Iordanis: a local specialty of Hania, different to other forms of bougatsa in Greece.

The Greek diaspora has always played a major role in the global dissemination of Greek cuisine. The diaspora is made up of people of Hellenic origin who congregate in different places around the globe outside Greece. Their regional differences are not accentuated as they relate with each other abroad for the simple reason that they find themselves outside the country - there, they become Greeks, and so does their food. In the diaspora, they are no longer a Cretan, Athenian, Samioti, etc; they are Greek. Their shared Greek experiences are expressed in their shared Greek food.

Sometimes the only Greek element of Greek yoghurt sold abroad under this label is the design of the packaging.

The economic crisis has created a new Hellenic disapora wave - this in turn will have some influence in the dissemination of Greek cuisine and how it is being redefined in global terms, as expressed in the homes of those new immigrants and the food businesses that are operated by them. In the same way that the 1922 crisis in Smyrna reshaped Greek cuisine within the Greek borders, so too are the new Greek migrants likely to redefine Greek cuisine outside the country, in the food that they prepare in their home, the products they import, and the Greek restaurants they operate.

Before looking into Greek cuisine abroad, we need to understand what it is all about in the domestic environment: what Greek cuisine means in the urban/rural context, lifestyle choice, the concept of a Greek product and its promotion, shopping trends, the difference between eating at home and eating out, the influence of unemployment and soup kitchens, the resurgence of gardens, chicken coops and foraging and Greek television food programs.

THE URBAN/RURAL DIVIDE
One of the reasons for the varied range of cuisine that one will come across at any one moment all over Greece is the different landscape that Greeks live in. Mountains and coastlines yield different food in different quantities. This is in antithesis with the urban landscape, particularly that of a densely populated capital city like Athens, which is concreted and does not give people the opportunity to be self-sufficient to any degree. The local seasonal abundance which rural life depends on for its culinary creativity is to be found in the street markets (laiki) of urban Greece where producers and/or their products congregate from all over the country. Hence, urban Greeks conceivably have a greater range of products available to them at any one time compared to the rural Greek.

My home cooked summer meals often depend on what is in the garden. I obviously had access to cucumbers and vine leaves and herbs to make this meal. 

But in an economic crisis, where money is scarce, food choices become limited by what you can afford, which is especially true in a city. The rural Greek household, on the other hand, despite having always been much more limited in terms of the range of products found in the average rural kitchen, will not be greatly affected by an economic crisis. Rural Greek kitchens are supplemented not by a weekly laiki, but by the gardening season. In a crisis, this is hardly likely to change, as people continue to grow a good deal of their own produce, maybe even more than they used to before the crisis as a way of safeguarding their future.

The colours of my local laiki last weekend.

A Greek laiki shopping experience is not complete without one of those clunky wire baskets with wheels. Personally, I prefer the shopper.

Unlike the more technologically advanced nations, Greece has a relatively more balanced urban/rural population, at 60/40. This means that for every 1 person living in the city, there are approximately 2 people working in the countryside, which often involves work that has to do with food production. Compare this figure to the UK's urban/rural population, which stands at 80/20 - each person living in the countryside equates with 4 living in urban areas. In Greece there are more people working with food, compared to other European countries. This factor accentuates the relationship of the Greek people with their culinary heritage. Food is seen not just as a means of survival, but a form of expression, and a regional one at that, as each Greek region produces a variety of distinct products. 

My husband is a keen gardener. 

The different food available in the rural and urban context will naturally give rise to a different kind of cuisine. An urban cook looks for inspiration from the range of products in a store, while the rural cook will look into her garden and base meals around it. An urban cook will also be able to use prepared ingredients while the rural cook may be spending more time processing a product before preparing it for a meal. A possible influence of the economic crisis may be that the finished meal cooked in either kitchen - the rural or the urban - will not necessarily reflect what is traditionally labelled as Greek cuisine: the urban cook will prepare a meal according to her pocket, which may mean cutting corners (eg my pastitsio which contained leftover makaronada mince and much more pasta), whereas the rural cook may prepare a frugal meal using a wide variety of whatever is available in the garden with a less conventional mixture (eg my spanakopites which contain a variety of horta rather than mainly spinach, or adding orange in a salad, like it was added during the war as related to me by my mother-in-law).

LIFESTYLE CHOICE
The modern world has given people the choice to live however they like wherever they like. Whether you live in the city or the countryside, you can eat the same food. Supermarkets, refrigeration and the free market have given Greek people the opportunity to eat all kinds of food that even their parents may not have dreamed of eating in their youth. These days, most Greek people, wherever they live, are within reach of pre-cooked packaged beetroot available at fresh produce stalls, ready-to-cook refrigerated pizzas and a store (usually a supermarket) that sells Chinese noodles as a standard product. Soya bean meat substitutes are readily available for vegetarians, which is quite a different concept to fasting according to Greek tradition, as is gluten-free food, an unknown concept in Greece until only relatively recently.

My Greek guests like to be surprised by my international cooking. These Chinese dumplings were made using local ingredients, flavoured with Asian sauces.

The freedom to choose what we eat allows us to diverge from tradition and eat in a way that does not reflect our cultural background. Indeed, with the rise in travel, a more conscious attitude towards healthy food (meaning less meat, less fat and less fried food), and the wider availability of products among the range generally regarded as global cuisine has paved the way towards a move away from Greek cuisine. Freedom of choice has also helped working people immensely; when there is no one to do the cooking for you, you can choose between a packet of ready-to-cook spanakorizo or a pizza in the freezer section of the supermarket; pre-cut salads with less conventional leafy greens (eg red lettuce varieties or baby spinach) are now common (and many supermarkets sell imported salads of this sort); and if you don't have the time to make a spanakopita yourself, you can buy ready ones at a range of prices to suit your pocket. The same applies to a dinner party - these days not everyone cooks a traditional Greek meal for their guests (this is mainly done in villages), while having your party catered for, or cooking something less conventional is becoming all the more common.

The economic crisis influences our choices in our freedom to choose what to prepare, cook and eat, whether we are cooking for ourselves or for others. At my own dinner parties, I often prepare Asian specialties like spring rolls using Greek ingredients. At a recent dinner party I attended in Hania, given by a newly-wed couple, we were served ready-to-cook spanakotiropitakia as an hors d'oeuvre, a baked macaroni-bacon-cheese dish for mains, served with a 'fancy' green salad (lettuce with pomegranate and balsamic vinegar). Such meals are cheap/easy to produce, but not essentially 'Greek' in nature. This style of cooking points in the direction that Greeks are tending towards: global cuisine that does not cost too much time or money.

GREEK PRODUCTS
This leads us to a pressing issue in our times: what exactly do we mean when we talk about a Greek food product? Is it a product produced on Greek soil? Can it include a finished product made in Greece with imported ingredients? What about a product with a mixture of origins and/or ingredients? There are many ways to illustrate this concept. I will use three examples: Greek meat, Greek milk and Greek yoghurt.

MEAT: Greek meat is often regarded as meaning the meat from an animal born/raised/killed in Greece. But few people will read the fine-print on the label concerning the origin of the animal. Beef sold in Cretan supermarkets, for instance, is often born in France, where it was raised up to 5 months old, then it is brought into Greece where it continues to be raised, until it is finally slaughtered in Greece. The meat from such animals is sold as Greek meat. The recent horsemeat scandal has heightened awareness against imported meat - but Greek meat is rarely purely Greek anyway and it is more expensive than imported beef.

MILK: Milk has been a contentious economic sore point for many years, since well before the crisis, when a litre of milk was being sold at about the same price as a litre of petrol. After a long campaign (well before the crisis), the average price of a litre of milk decreased. But truly cheap milk in Greece is never of Greek origin; Greek milk consistently continues to be more expensive than imported milk, selling approximately at 1.5 times a higher price. During the crisis, people tend to buy cheaper products. The cheapest milk on the Greek supermarket shelves is consistently not produced in Greece.

Somewhere in the US...

YOGHURT: Greek yoghurt is a high point of discussion all over the world. What is Greek yoghurt? Is it yoghurt made in Greece? Is it yohgurt made with Greek milk? Is it a particular kind of yoghurt? And when can a yoghurt be labelled 'Greek'? We understand that the phrase 'Greek yoghurt' basically means 'strained yoghurt'. In Greece, the most popular brand of strained yoghurt is made with a mixture of milk imported from France and Germany. Labels bearing the phrase 'Greek yoghurt' appear all over the world - they rarely write 'strained yoghurt'; the closest they come to describing what they mean by Greek yoghurt is when they write 'Greek-style yoghurt'.

THE 'GREEK FOOD' CRAZE
The subject of Greek yoghurt leads to the issue of the Greek food craze abroad. Despite the bad reputation of the Greek economy in global terms, we find that Greek cuisine enjoys a record high degree of popularity. Greek food is being recognised in Western countries in ways that it was not considered in the past. This is possibly due to the perceived health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, its high reliance on cooking with olive oil and fresh vegetables, and the taste quality of export-value Greek food products. The economic crisis has partly fuelled this foreign interest because the main export products in Greece are to do with food.

Greeks often sell Greek products packed/prepared in a way that will appeal mainly to foreign buyers, not locals. 

In the scramble for market share, suddenly Greek food is is being exported in all sorts of forms for all sorts of prices. Farmed snails, olive oil in decorative bottle designs, truffles found in Greece, mastich crystals and mastich-flavoured drinks, among others, including some of the more well known products such as wine, honey, feta and olives, coupled with the 'organic' label, are being sold at the high end of the market. Some of these products are not being targetted towards the local market, eg farmed snails and olive oil in decorative bottles; they would be considered by most Greeks as over-priced as well as easily replaced by cheaper and more readily-available products. In terms of the economic crisis, what is the degree to which these enterprises benefited from it? Did they originate in the economic crisis, or were they a natural progression of the Greek food export market? Has food marketing in Greece changed to accommodate a new kind of post-crisis food market or is this Greek food craze a purely foreign export issue? These food-based questions all provide some kind of insight into the Greek identity.

EATING IN vs DINING OUT
Going out for a meal had always been the norm for many Greeks: taverna food was considered quite cheap in the pre-crisis days. But it is now widely reported in the media that Greeks don't eat out much, and a quick glance in the local tavernas will probably confirm that. Beyond the taverna though, we see the cafes full to the brim on most warm days. It's cheaper to go out to a cafe than a taverna, which explains why people choose the latter. So going out is still important in the crisis period in Greece, but the setting has changed. And so has the expenditure. Due to the change in the setting, no doubt the food has changed too.

Souvlaki is the most popular meal out these days - young people are seen crowding round the often very limited outdoor seating areas.

One of the most popular meals out these days is the souvlaki. Souvlaki stores have opened up at very quick rates in the last year or so. Since the economic crisis gripped the country, the price of souvlaki in all forms has gone down, which shows how far the crisis has penetrated: souvlaki is the most popular Greek fast food, and it was generally viewed as the cheapest. Souvlaki is more than just a meal. It makes you feel good, the equivalent of a family 'happy meal', eaten by all age groups, making an outing to a souvlatzidiko the perfect family mid-week jaunt. Going for out a souvlaki is a psychologically uplifting experience, and it is a very democratic meal - there are various choices available, all being sold for roughly the same price.

TV COOKERY PROGRAMS
Greek television is not without its food shows and they remain very popular. We see home cooks showing us how to cook cheaply, gourmet cooks making fancy foreign desserts, modern cooks using labelled ingredients (the infamous philadelphia cheese that goes into anything and everything, from pennes with sausage to stuffed chicken), and homely cooks doing something exciting in the kitchen on the morning shows of the private free-access channels.

If a host of different cooking shows were all playing at the same time on different channels, and you had only one television and no recording facilities, which one would you watch if you felt like watching a TV food show?

* A program that shows you how to cook a well-known traditional Greek dish
* A program that shows how to cook something unusual, not common or creative, eg melitzanopita
* A program that shows how to cook within the spectrum of international cuisine, eg globally well known sweets made by a famous Greek dessert chef
* A program showcasing frugal food, eg a supermarket-sponsored food show featuring easy-to-make meals that don't cost much
* Something showing traditional Greek regional dishes, eg the kind that home cooks in rural regions make, which don't often make it into the cookbooks

Melitzanopita (eggplant pie), made by myself. 

We can watch all these shows on Greek TV. So, how 'Greek' is the food they are cooking? Is it part of the Greek cuisine spectre, or is Greek cuisine veering towards global cuisine trends, where the traditional tried and tested is being replaced by modern global food? Do people cook like this at home, or are they sticking to traditional Greek cookery? Is it cheap to cook like this, or has the crisis affected us in terms of the nationality of the food we prepare at home? Is this an urban trend, or has it also infiltrated the Greek rural kitchen? Is it a special-use cuisine, or do people aspire to cook like this on a regular basis? using a particular brand-name food product, eg mass-produced cheese spread in a pizza?

All the above options are available to Greek TV viewers, and they are popular all over the country, regardless of the landscape.

COST
Price is the most important factor for most people, as exemplified by the Greek Potato Movement, a move to cut the middleman out of the food-buying chain and get products straight from the producer. Surveys have also shown the following trends in Greek consumers:

82% seek specials
80% compare prices
77% prefer Greek products over imports
74% use a shopping list
71% buy only what they need
70% buy the cheaper alternatives
93% have limited their 'eating out'
63% buy less meat
60% buy less fish
51% buy fewer sweets
48% buy less alcohol

UNEMPLOYMENT and SOUP KITCHENS
The consequences of unemployment have led to rapid detrimental effects in the home environment. People find themselves with not enough money to buy quality food. The fact that they are unemployed does not give them the luxury of preparing the slow-cooked traditional Greek meals that they may have been raised on. People are constantly on the move in such a way that they do not necessarily spend so much time at home, even if they are not employed. Suddenly, they find themselves in a new situation, one that has often been referred to as reverting to past habits.

This meal was served in a soup kitchen in Hania. 

There is the preponderance of the home garden, which has always been an effective way to save money. Convenience food is also being sought in discount supermarkets, as a way to keep the food budget of a household down. People are always on the lookout for cheap food sources.

Foraging has always been a popular activity in Greece, but it has taken on new proportions during the crisis: there is a certain amount of 'foraging' going on which is not always legal (people may be trespassing onto fields that are not theirs to harvest procuts). For those who live in urban environments, food parcels and various handouts by non-profit organisations are commonly organised. And we have probably all been witness to the sight of people searching in rubbish bins. These people are often looking for something useful in them, which usually means something to eat. Soup kitchens are now found even in places where food insecurity was never an issue in the past, together with community grocery stores and community gardens. Solidarity against hunger is being shown in various forms all over the country.

CONCLUSION
As Greeks, we all share a common concept of what constitutes Greek food, but we are Western Europeans at heart and our food and lifestyle choices reflect this. The economic crisis has westernised us even more. Despite having less money, we all still eat - we are not starving.

©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.