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.

Culinary Tradition of Greece

Greece is a small country. For thousands of years we have been living at the threshold of Europe and all that time we’ve had many “visitors”. Some came to stay, others just took what they needed and went through. But they all left their mark on this land, our culture and most of all our culinary tradition.

From the Minoan Crete with the big cellars laden with olive oil and wine to Homer’s Ithaca where flocks of sheep roaming the island, providing meat for sacrifices and kings or dairy products for the common people.

From Golden Age Athens where the audience of Greek dramas and comedies not only watched for hours but also ate onions, garlic and dry figs which they didn’t hesitate to throw at the actors if they didn’t like the play! The port of Piraeus was laden with goods from all over the Mediterranean and the Athenian symposiums married good food and wine along with philosophy.

With Alexander the Great, Greek cooks travelled around half the known world of that era. They taught some secrets of their trade but they learned many more from the people of Egypt, Persia and India.

It is said that when in Rome, do as the Romans do, however, the Romans did as their Greek (enslaved) teachers and cooks did. They transformed the Athenian symposiums into imperial feasts where the extravagance of the ingredients competed with the ingenuity of the presentation.

Following the Romans, the cooks of the Byzantine Empire managed to marry the western cooking tradition to the contemporary demands of Christianity, providing exquisite imperial dinners even during the long periods of Fast.

Later the Ottoman cooks adjusted the byzantine dishes to their palate, also introducing their favorite ingredients, such as rice or eggplants.

But what about the common people? They kept on cooking with the few ingredients they could grow in their garden, hunt, fish or gather around their coastal or mountainous villages. Thus the diversity of Greek cuisine, according to the raw materials of every region.

However poor the land, there never was a richest table than that of the poor folk. At the capable hands of long generations of mothers and grandmothers, some flour, a little milk or cheese, some oil,  were transformed into heavenly delicacies. A few garlic cloves, an onion, some wild herbs or vine leaves. A lemon, an egg but always a glass of wine to accompany them.

Meat was for festive days. Chicken on Sundays and special dishes with lamb or pork for Christmas or Easter, baptisms, weddings or funerals.

We celebrate life with feasts and wink to death with farewell dinners just as we did in Homer’s days. We raise our cups and drink to love, joy or sorrow. That’s the Greek way of life (“Εὑ ζῆν” = Ef zin), the good life!