Flavors of times past

Anna helps her mum

Family is not as it used to be and food on our table isn't either. In our globalized fusion kitchens we tend to experiment with tastes and flavors from all over the world. Greek cuisine is not an exception since the land itself has been the crossroads and the melting pot of different civilizations and cultures for thousands of years. Modern greek cooks cannot identify themselves with what was served on Plato's "Symposium" nor with the extravaganza of the byzantine times.

However, apart from the elaborated dishes that have ornated the tables of the mighty and rich, what actually remains in the collective subconscious is the simple and often poor food, served on the tables of the humble people, dictated by seasonal ingredients and more often than not by what was affordable or available by foraging.

The women of the house, since cooking was a chore totally assigned to them, had to improvise from what little provisions they had in their pantry and provide a meal to satisfy the hunger of a usually extended family. A household which had stored in its cellar flour, olive oil, cheese and wine, was considered to be well-off and the rest of the staple foods were provided by the kitchen garden for vegetables and herbs and the nearby fields or forest for greens and various nuts.

Areas near the sea were also blessed with an abundance of fish and seafood and the mountainous people relied on hunting, mostly birds and hares. Wild boars have never become extinct even though they were hunted fiercely because they damaged farmer's crops.

Selling fish

Farm animals were mostly raised for their products - milk, eggs, wool- and rarely consumed as meat,

A very popular traditional wedding song says " In my child's joy (=wedding), we slaughtered a rooster"! Imagine a feast, where the whole village was usually invited, with only one chicken as the centerpiece of the celebratory dinner!

This culture of self-sufficiency is gaining ground worldwide, especially in times of economic crisis such as these but I wouldn't imagine myself making an absolute 180⁰ u-turn and start doing everything from scratch. What I'd really like to do is to preserve those unfamiliar and unknown recipes, handed down from our grandmas, and maybe, just a little, taste the original flavors of a difficult but equally fascinating bygone time.

(The pictures for this post were taken from the alphabet book of my childhood)
unless they were very old or on festive days, such as Christmas or Easter. Even then they made the most of them and nothing was wasted.

Marinated Kalamata Olives

Marinated olives have always been a staple in Mediterranean diet. Plenty of olive trees, natural sea salt, excellent wine vinegar and an abundance of fresh and dried herbs, all contributed to this wonderful food. Nowadays, you cand find them in almost every supermarket around the world, but in my opinion nothing compares to homemade ones.
Every region, every house perhaps has its own preferred recipe. My mom used to make delicious marinated olives, however I never got to have her recipe, since I lost her early. So this year I decided to experiment, and make my own. After a lot of inquiries around helpful aunts and neighbours, plus an extensive research on the internet, I got so confused I didn't know if I wanted to try. Finally, I got to assemble this jigsaw puzzle recipe and it worked! They turned out delicious, just as my mom used to make them, far better than those of the supermarkets. Beginner's luck? Maybe, but why not give it a try?

Ingredients
- Fresh olives, washed in clean water
- Rock sea salt
- Red wine vinegar
- Olive oil
- Fresh/dried herbs, spices (optionally)
- Big plastic container
- Glass jars
- Patience!

Check every olive for spots from diseases and discard the bad ones. Wear a pair of rubber gloves (olive juice can stain your fingers for days) and use a small fork to puncture each olive in two or three spots around the skin. Dump them in a big container full of clean water. Change with clean water daily for about 15 days. Taste one olive. If it is still bitter, keep changing the water for 5 or more days. Otherwise go to phase two.
Put the olives into a big plastic container with a lid. Fill the container with enough water to cover the olives. Empty this water to a different container and weigh it. This is your liquid net weight and you must calculate the percentage of salt and vinegar according to this. That is 10% of the net weight must be your salt weight, 2/3 of the weight must be vinegar and 1/3 must be water.
For example, I used a small container for 2 kgr of olives. The liquid net weight was 1200 ml. So, I used 10% rock salt = 120 grms, 2/3 vinegar = 800 ml, and 1/3 water = 400 ml.
It's time to prepare the brine. Boil the water, add the salt, stir well and take off the heat. Add the vinegar and let it cool completely. Pour it into the container with the olives and on top add enough olive oil to form a layer of about 1cm over the surface of the brine. Put the lid on and let them marinate for about 20 days in a shady spot. Every 5 days or so, stir the olives with a wooden spoon. You can store them in the same container and remove every time only the quantity you need or you can put them in glass jars with herbs and spices (bay leaves, dill, thyme, peppercorns, lemon slices etc.). However, there must always be a thin layer of olive oil on the surface.

Good luck and Bon apetit! Kali Orexi!