School meals (Σχολικά γεύματα)

Yesterday I saw something absolutely revolting. It's a strong opinion, and probably most people who witnessed this event wouldn't have found it remarkable enough to comment on. Maybe they're comfortable with it, and accept it as a part of normal daily life, so they're willing to take it for granted. Maybe I'm just over-sensitive when I see an overweight child holding a packet of crisps at 8.10am running around hyperactively in the playground; why should I care what that primary school child was eating, anyway, since it's not my child. Then, after I dropped off my son, the school bus pulled in. Off hopped about 25 children; a couple were carrying shop-bought puff-pastry butter-laden cheese pies, and I wondered if this is what they eat on an everyday basis for breakfast. Is it really normal to buy breakfast from a mini-market when you live in a rural village surrounded by olive groves and orange orchards where sheep are seen grazing in the fields? Was there really no time for the children to have a warmed up glass of milk in the morning before they left the house for school? What happened to the Mediterranean diet in that village?

This sight prompted me to write (for the second time around) about school meals - the debate rages: ban junk food, remove vending machines from schools, provide school meals free of charge, incorporate a breakfast program, give away free milk; the arguments raised seem infinite. The greatest problem, it seems, is that the parents need to be educated about how to feed their children in a healthy way, and that's what can't be solved easily.

You can ban junk food from being sold in school canteens and vending machines, but kids will still bring it in their school bags; you can provide free food for children, but it'll probably be cheap to produce, therefore, it will be low quality (ie, junk food); schools can provide breakfast for their students, which supports the view that parents don't need to be responsible for doing this themselves; the government can give away free milk, but not all children will drink it anyway, and in these politically correct times, who's going to force children to do something they don't want to do?

In a New Zealand study: "Only one in 10 school lunch boxes contains food that meets nutritional guidelines for children, new research has found. And bad news for parents who do make the effort to provide healthy food is that the study found 80 per cent of the food thrown into school rubbish bins is the sandwiches, fruit and yoghurt children should be eating."

In an Australian study: "68% of children had fruit in their lunchboxes, however, over 90% of children had energy-dense, micronutrient-poor snacks ('junk food')."

In Britain, people are willing to treat obesity in children as an issue of governmental concern. In Greece at this time when the state cannot subdue the social unrest it is facing, it can't take on the responsibility of ensuring children are fed properly; parents need to be reminded of their duty to raise their children in a healthy way. The only solution is for children to be taught to eat in a healthy way from their home environment. It's quite shocking, when you drop off your children at school, to see a fat child eating chips when the bell hasn't even rung for the first class of the day; it's just as gross to see another (overweight) child eating bought breakfast. How did these primary school children get access to this junk food? Their caregivers/parents must have bought it for them.

Some all-day schools in Greece offer a morning snack and a cooked meal (free of charge) for the children at lunchtime. This is often the case in large urban centres where mothers are more likely to work. Judging from my sister's experience of such a school, the food offered is typical Greek cuisine, freshly cooked and healthy: yemista, fakes, stewed peas in tomato sauce, oven-cooked fish with potatoes. The teachers tick a box next to the child's name indicating how much of the meal the child ate. This is a really good idea in the case of let's say, 'unpopular' food: did a fussy child at least try it, or did it simply refuse to eat it? That's the good thing about these meals: if they don't want to eat what is offered, there is nothing else - take it or leave it, the best way to start learning good eating habits. There shouldn't be any substitute for fussy children.

Here in Crete, only private schools offer a cooked meal for pupils. Most children will go home to a freshly cooked meal for lunch. I defy anyone who comes to Hania to walk along any road at about 2pm, and not be overpowered by the Mediterranean aromas exuding from nearly every kitchen. We usually send our kids to school with a morning snack; if they attend an all-day program (like my daughter), we have to prepare a lunch for them. So it's our fault if the food we provide for our children is healthy or not. One good thing about my own children's schools is that no food is provided. There is no school canteen, either. Therefore, whatever they bring to school with them rests solely on the parents. A refrigerator and microwave (in the primary school) or conventional oven (in the kindergarten) are available, which means that parents don't need to worry about their children's meals going off, or that they will eat them cold. Another spin-off effect of not having access to canteen food is that children do not get teased about bringing a packed lunch to school - if they didn't bring one, there'd be no other food until they left the school grounds. The introductory welcome message to the parents actually stipulated this: "φροντίσετε για το φαγητό των παιδιών σας", which basically means "you have the responsibility to provide food for your child".

I'd love to peek into other children's lunch boxes, but that's difficult; it would be like prying. But I really am curious to see what other people are feeding their children. Are they making a conscious effort to provide them with healthy food? Or do they make ham-and-cheese rolls for them on a daily basis, without a thought as to the cholesterol that they pack into a lunch box on a daily basis or the wrong message being instilled in children about what constitutes a healthy lunch or snack?

Christine had a piece of home-made plain cake for her morning break, since I had a fresh one made; otherwise she'd have a banana or apple - there really is no need for a pre-schooler to eat any more, since she had also had a decent cereal breakfast two hours earlier. Her lunch goes into a metal one-layer tiffin tin, because the school has a conventional oven to heat it up, and she eats straight out of it with her own spoon (forks are not allowed, as they could be turned into dangerous weapons, and the children bring their own towel, which I wash once a week). I usually fill her tiffin tin with the previous day's leftover lunch, which consisted of pasta cooked with soya mince, which of course I passed off as spag bog to everyone, since I cook it in the same way, and it looks very very similar!

Aristotle doesn't have all-day school; he finishes school at 12.30. While Christine is eating from her tiffin tin, Aristotle is having a midday snack in a bento-style lunch box which I picked up from my last visit to New Zealand from a 1-euro shop, known there as the 2-(NZ)-dollar shops. Bento boxes suit his personality; he likes mathematics, he is intrigued by symmetry. He gets a thrill from seeing a tidy box filled with different colours, all fitting neatly intot he compartments. Today, his contains a mandarin from our own tree in the village, a leftover cheese-and-spinach pasty from last night's evening meal and four paximadia made into dakos. After having his bento lunch, he does his school homework, and then we have the main meal of the day altogether when Dad comes home after work, and Christine come home from school, some time beteen 3-3:30pm. This is why I don't give him his main meal earlier; it just wouldn't make sense if we didn't eat the family meal as a family.

And with so much talk of home-made school lunches, take a look at what some people are happy to stuff into their children's plastic lunch boxes:

• lunchinabox: beautifully presented, but it seems too much for the pre-schooler as the photo claims it is for; as for the bits of food that are cut away to make it appealing, I would find it a hassle turning it into another meal, but at least she does have some ideas about how to turn it into something edible. What about this high-fat carbohydrate-packed lunch? Once again, too much food, with the aim of leaving no empty space in the bento lunchbox for aesthetic reasons.
  
• veganlunchbox: another attempt to present food aesthetically and pack as much as one can in a well-ordered bento, but this mother readily admits that it's been more for her pleasure rather than her son's.

KidsHealth presents some very basic but important guidelines to encourage parents and children about what to keep in mind, whether they eat a packed or bought lunch at school, whereas Nora, a school dinner lady who worked with Jamie Oliver, the famous English chef that campaigned against junk food and low-quality school meals in British schools, gives some really good ideas about how to keep food in schools healthy and presentable.

To sum up, it depends on the home environment as to what attitude a child develops concerning food. Anything can be eaten as long as it's in moderation, but good eating habits always start from the home.

©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."

Squid kapama (Καλαμαράκια καπαμά)

When I was young, I was very lucky to have access to fresh fish, as it was in my parents' line of business. My father would bring home fresh seafood every now and then when he returned from his daily shopping at the wholesale fish market. We were privileged to be able to eat fresh lobster, crayfish and squid, which my mum usually cooked in a tomato sauce. We hardly ever ate it fried at home in this sense. My mother also bought canned California squid in brine, which she would turn into a salad dressed Mediterranean style: on opening the tin, she would pour out the brine, wash the squid and pour olive oil and lemon juice over them. We'd have them (the PORTOLA brand) as an accompaniment to a bean dish.

Great Lent is a time to indulge in seafood, something we don't do very often in our house because, apart from the price of fresh seafood, they are also high in cholesterol. Here's another way of preparing tinned California squid (otherwise known in Greece as 'calamari') that is often enjoyed in Crete, which is available very cheaply here (2 euro per can).

You need:
1/4 cup olive oil
5 medium onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
3 tins of baby California squid, drained and rinsed (I'm feeding a lot of people at the moment - and some of them don't have many teeth left!)
400g of pureed tomatoes (tinned ones do fine)
salt and pepper
a handful of chopped fresh parsley

Heat the oil and saute the onions and garlic till the onions are transparent. Add the calamari, and stir it in, to coat all the squid with oil. Add the tomatoes, salt and pepper and enough water to cover the squid above 1cm. Cover the pot and let the calamari cook until the onion is tender. Add a handful of chopped parsley towards the end of cooking time. It's very simple to prepare, and very Mediterranean.

This dish can also be made with fresh squid: for a more elaborate meal, stew fresh (or freshly frozen) baby kalamari (or cuttlefish chopped in large pieces) in the same sauce, along with chopped pieces of fennel bulb. Ripe treated green olives are also added at the end of cooking time (although I wouldn't say I prefer this). This stew is often served with fried potatoes, but it's also fantastic (and healthier) served on a bed of plain rice and a lettuce salad to accompany it.

©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.

MORE SEAFOOD RECIPES:
Bakaliaros - bakaliaraki
Octopus stew
Mussels sauce
Psarosoupa
Shrimp in lemon
Squid fried
Taramasalata

Curried Greek pancetta (Μπατζέτα με κάρυ)

It's BBQ day today - porkchops, sausages, chicken and pancetta pork cuts, which are not strictly pancetta, but the cuts of meat resemble strips of this Italian cured meat, and have adopted their name. We cook them as any Greek would do: marinated in a lemon, salt, pepper and oregano mixture, BBQed till well done (no pink meat for the Greek, thank you), all on a charcoal grill. It's good value meat, but it can get a little boring (unless you're a Greek, and you'll never get bored of eating the same food over and over).

I thought I'd try something different with a few of the pancetta cuts. I love working with different spices, but I hate the word 'curry'. It reminds me of mass-produced packaged ground spice mixtures. When using foreign spices, there is always the problem of combining the wrong spices, something that wouldn't be compatible in the cuisine of the culture that uses them regularly. For example, in a Greek kitchen, it is rare to use turmeric and ginger. To understand what they go well with, I decided to try something that sounded genuine to a particular region. I have come across an Indian recipe from Kerala which marinates lamb chops in a mixture of spices common to curries before cooking. This is not much different to what we do, except that the spices are Mediterranean (as stated above). The recipe is repeated below for convenience (with the slight changes that I made to adapt it to my kitchen):


To marinate the meat of your choice, you need:
1/4 cup olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
salt to taste


Mix the dry spices and salt together. Heat olive oil in a heavy pan. Turn off the heat. Add the garlic followed by the powdered ingredients. When it cools, add lemon juice. Marinate the meat in this mixture for at least an hour. Grill the meat till it is done to your liking.

It made a nice change to the regular Sunday BBQ. We had it with a tomato salad, some fried potatoes, and a few lovely cold beers. If I were making this again, I would definitely combine some fresh minced ginger into the spice mixture to give it a more genuine 'curry' flavour. This meal would have been digested even better if our son hadn't hit his head on a bathroom tile and split it open, just as soon as we had finished licking the last bone, washed down with a few beers. With alcohol on our breath and our clothes smelling of charcoal meat, we rushed him to hospital. Thankfully, he only needed two stitches. All is well.

©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 restaurants in the town market (Τα μαγειρία στην Αγορά των Χανίων)

Where do you eat in Greece? A taverna, you might think is the obvious choice. Not quite. A taverna is a place where freshly grilled meat (what is commonly referred to της ώρας) is barbecued, usually on a charcoal grill. If that's what you you're looking for, then look for a souvlaki joint. Think of it as a close relation of a steakhouse. If you want to find well-cooked food that resembles home cooking, you need to look elsewhere.

The best place to eat in Greece is in one of those old-fashioned places where the food is on display in a transparent heated case, each different dish in its own large baking tin (tapsi). In this way, the customer can see what has been cooked on that day. This is called a mageirio (μαγειρίο), or maybe an oinomageirio (οινομαγειρίο), meaning a place where food and wine are served. Don't expect to find steak and chips: that's for a taverna, not a mageirio. The food is all cooked in the traditional manner, with an emphasis on home-cooking and an abundance of olive oil. It's also the place where you will find a traditional Greek breakfast soup that many early risers and heavy labourers will want (and need) to ea, also enjoyed by weekend revellers who'd been drinking all night and need a remedy for their stomach: patsas - tripe soup.

These places still exist, and there is no fear of their disappearance yet. The best ones in our town are in the Agora, the central town market, with a few other good ones spread around the central bus depot: their location is always to be in a central area where people are bound to linger. No point having a mageirio based in the middle of a high street; the customers will still be shopping, and will only sit down when they finish their shopping - and that's where the mageirio is located. They are usually quite reasonably priced. A food tour of the town of Chania will include these diners. They are only open during the day, even though the Agora is open during normal trading hours. It is an enclosed area, rather like an Arabian souk, but shaped in the form of a cross (which is visible only from the upper stories of the hotels across the road from it). People of all ages and and income levels come here, as the food is not very expensive, served in an informal environment and an incessant buzzing of chatter and hawkers' cries: "Ola freska, ola freska!" And you never know who you might come across in the Agora, as it is a meeting point for the locals, a place to be photographed, along with the tourists who buy packaged spices and Greek made-in-china souvenirs.

The Agora in Hania, as in all Greek towns is also the place to find fresh products, especially regional specialities and locally produced goods. There are stalls for every need: butcheries, fishmongers, bakeries, fruit and vegetables, dairy produce, local products, souvenirs and presents. Everyone will find something they want in the Agora.

Α visit to Chania, whether for business or pleasure, will almost certainly lead you to the Agora. Just look at who I found walking outside the Agora today: an old man dressed in traditional Cretan pants and headgear (probably from a faraway village, he came down by bus to do his weekly shop at the Agora), a gypsy selling embroidered linen, a woman selling daffodils. They were all found walking within a few metres from each other, across from the Agora. After a short glimpse, they would have disappeared into the muddle of traffic and pedestrians.

Greek food has been wholly misunderstood. It's not about fine dining, or nouvelle cuisine. It's not based on appetisers, mains and desserts, even though the tourist menus use these headings - that's simply an internationally recognised method to present a list of foods. It's not a cuisine where you will mix fish with meat, or fruit with protein. Real Greek food is not what you see in a taverna. If Greeks were eating grilled meat on a daily basis, they'd have been decimated ages ago. At a mageirio, you can find everything you'd expect a Greek mother to be cooking for the family on a daily basis, with the full range being offered.

Here is a selection of some good solid Greek cuisine that was on offer at the Agora of Hania today: okra (bamies, lady's fingers), egg and lemon stew, gardoumia, yemista, snails, seafood, yiouvetsi, gigandes; just the kinds of things I cook on a regular basis.

Many old Greek black and white movies are focussed around such diners. They are usually comedies; whenever someone laughs or looks cheery, there's bound to be some food to go with the atmosphere. I've based the following 'filmscript' on a similar dialogue that I once heard in an old Greek black and white comedy, whose stars are all long gone now.

A man enters the local neighbourhood mageirio, He is dressed in a dark suit, with a white collar and tie. He's short and rotund, but clean and tidy. He's a little bald and has a well-trimmed moustache. He takes a table in a rushed state and exclaims to the skinny waiter wearing a striped apron that goes all the way down to his shins:

"What have you got that's ready? I'm not very hungry but I'm in a bit of a hurry. Just something to nibble on. Have you got any gigandes?"

"Gigandes? No problem, coming right up, sir."

"One serving of gigandes, and throw in a couple of porkchops with that, thanks."

"Porkchops? I thought you said you weren't very hungry!"

"My good man, I'm not very hungry, but I can't eat just a bowl of fasolada on its own, can I? And don't forget to bring me a good Greek salad, something with lots of leafy greens."

"A salad too, sir?"

"Yes, yes, with plenty of feta cheese and olive oil, just enough to dunk a whole loaf of bread in."

"You want a whole loaf of bread?"

"To go with the gigandes and the salad, man, of course! I just want a quick bite to eat. You may as well add a couple of fresh snapper fillets with a pan of fried potatoes."

"Fresh snapper fillets?"

"Of course I want them fresh, what are you thinking, man?!"

"Well, the fishmonger hasn't delivered yet."

"Then how long do I have to wait? I've already told you, I'm in a bit of a hurry!"

"I'll see what I can do. You ought to know that we've just cooked some tripe in egg-and-lemon sauce, if you're interested."

"If I'm interested? Well, of course I'm interested! And don't just stand there, bring me a bowl of tripe. Didn't I tell you I'm in a hurry?

"Certainly, sir. Will that be all?"

"All? Of course that's all, I'm not very hungry, I only want a snack. And don't forget to bring me a carafe of house wine. But hurry, my good man, I'm rushed for time!"

©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.

MORE RESTAURANT REVIEWS:
Anemomilos
Akrogiali
Agora
Paleohora cuisine
London cuisine

Fennel pies - marathopites (Μαραθόπιτες)

Fennel pies (μαραθόπιτες - marathopites, μαραθόπιτα in the singular) are probably special to the region of Crete where I live, Hania. If you visit the village of Fournes Chania (on your way to Omalos, and the Samaria Gorge), you can eat at the Bouganvilia, a local restaurant that serves these pies. I always associate fennel pie with Fournes, because this is the first restaurant my husband took me out to when we first met. It doesn't surprise me that the the Bouganvilia makes so many of these, because fennel bushes abound in the orange and olive fields in the area. I also find that the best fennel pie makers are from areas of Hania that are close to low-lying fields, not seaside or mountainous villages, which says something about the origins of fennel pies.

Why fennel (the leaves of the Greek fennel bush, that is, not the fennel bulb, also known as finocchio) was chosen to make this pie stumps me; fennel has a very strong taste that can overpower any meal that contains this highly aromatic herb. You either like it, or you don't like it when you have to face it on its own. Although fennel pies are not made solely with fennel greens, the leafy plant makes up 50% of the wild greens included in it. Fennel pies are made from the most basic ingredients - wild plants, olive oil and flour-and-water pastry. The way they are made is most unusual. The pastry is rolled out by hand, the filling is stuffed into the dough, and the end result is a seamless filled pancake, which makes you wonder how the filling got into it in the first place (a little like how a ship got into a boat). They resemble the most primitive pie that anyone could have ever conceived, before ovens and baking tins were invented.

Recently I went out for a walk with an aunt of mine who was picking fennel to make dolmades. She reminded me of how I once made delicious fennel pies, and I suddenly remembered that I hadn't made them in absolutely ages. What usually scares me about pie-making is the dough: I can never get the quantities quite right for the perfect pastry. Most Greek pastry/dough recipes tell you how much flour you need, and then tell you to use as much water as necessary to make a particular kind of dough; others tell you how much water you need, and let you play around with the dough. The phrase Greek cooks use is "όσο αλεύρι σηκώσει." These kinds of recipes are not for me. I want exactitude. Fennel pies cannot be made in the traditional way with bought pastry (that's the lazy, modern way which will be described at the end). It is the same dough that is used to make cheese and honey pies (sfakianes pites - Σφακιανές πίτες). This will be the closest that I come to making my own pastry.

As mentioned above, fennel pies are very distinctive to Crete, and especially Hania. The recipes on the internet come from this area. They use the same technique, but the pies produced look quite different from each other. explorecrete makes a pastry dough with a strong liquor produced wholly in Crete, called raki (tsikoudia) The pies come in the 'boat-in-a-ship' form. Elias Mamalakis mentions leaves from garlic plants in the filling, which is something my aunt also told me to use when we were talking about how to make marathopites. It's a coincidence that we have some garlic in the garden (planted by the famous mother-in-law); it stands out with its long stalks, looking very much like cultivated grass. You can't mix it up with fresh spring onion, which has shorter dark-green stalks growing altogether in a tuft, whereas garlic grows on one stalk with alternate leaves. But Elias Mamalakis' pies are what I call the 'lazy method' of making marathopites: they involve using two thin pastry sheets with some filling in between, which are then sealed with the tines of a fork. Both pies are equally delicious and authentic. If making pastry sounds all too much for you, just buy some pastry rounds and make the pies using the lazy method.

For the pastry, you need:
½ kilo of strong or all-purpose flour
1 shot glass of olive oil
1 shot glass raki (if you can't get hold of this, try vodka or gin; if you prefer to make a non-alcoholic version of this pastry, omit it altogether)
some water
some salt
Make a well in the bowl with the flour and pour the oil and alcohol into it. Add the salt, and mix everything with your hands. Add water slowly enough to allow you to gauge the amount needed, and keep kneading it into the dough to make a compact soft pastry. Snap off bits of pastry and shape them into small balls - bigger than a golf ball, smaller than a tennis ball; that would be about as large as a small mandarin. Put the pastry aside until you are ready to make the pies. Cover the pastry balls with a cloth so that they don't dry out.

For the filling, you need:
a mixture of leafy greens (spinach, mint, parsley, spring onion) or wild horta, all finely chopped
as much fennel as you used of leafy greens (this is purely up to you; the more you use, the more fennelly your pies will smell and taste, the more authentic your pies will be)
a few fresh green leaves from garlic plants, finely chopped
a glass of oil
salt and pepper to taste
a pinch of flour
The filling is really quite simple to prepare. Make sure all the greens are clean and free of grit. Drain them well by pressing them into a towel so that most moisture is absorbed into it. Mix the greens with the oil, salt and pepper. Then toss in the flour. This is to keep the mixture compact and slightly flattened.

Take a ball of pastry. Using your hands, flatten it out into the shape of a little round saucer. Make it as thin as you can without tearing the pastry. Take a large tablespoon of filling and place it on the pastry round. Wrap the pastry around the filling, so that it forms the shape of one of those little silk pouches that rich tradesmen used to carry their gold coins in (think fairy tales, medieval castles and princely suitors - all that's missing is the gold thread used to tie them up).

Then flatten the little pouch and spread it out again, using your hands, into a thick disc, kind of like a small, fat cooked pancake. This step is tricky because again you don't want the pastry to break. That's why the greens should not be too damp, and the pastry should be made with 'strong' flour, which is widely sold in supermarkets, as well as all-purpose flour and 'soft' flour, which is good for making cakes and biscuits. (Personally, I have been buying organic flour for quite a while, and I love working with it.) This mixture will give you about 15 little pastries, but this is never exact; it all depends on how much mixture you make, and how big you make the pastry balls.

Cook the pies individually with a tablespoon of olive oil for each one, turning them over to get them crispy golden. You can cook them in a bigger pan, but you will use more oil.

If you think fennel isn't the herb of choice to your liking, you can use all sorts of other wild horta greens and herbs that are commonly used in Cretan cooking: parsley, mint and spinach are the more common ones. These pies can be made with the herbs and greens of your choice. They are equally delicious. They remind me of my absolute favorite lenten food my mother would make for all fasting periods, when we lived in New Zealand. Fennel pies also make a great accompaniment to a good soup, akin to a spicy herb bread. And look what my lucky children are having for their morning school break today.

©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.

MORE WILD GREENS RECIPES:
Kalitsounia fried
Kalitsounia in the oven
Wild asparagus
Hortopita (spanakopita)
Horta in winter
Horta in summer
Sorrel
Swiss chard (silverbeet)
Eggs with mustard greens
Mountain tea

PASTRY RECIPES:
Kalitsounia fried
Prasopita
Kalitsounia in the oven
Marathopites
Hortopita (spanakopita)
Tiropitakia
Sfakianes pites
Summer kalitsounia
Spiral pie