Forty years ago, a typical woman from Greek rural area spent all day cleaning the house, preparing meals, baking, sewing, milking, making butter and cheese, raising poultry, rabbits, sheeps, goats, pigs, gathering olives, harvesting greens and fruits, cultivating small vegetable…
OF FAMINE & OF FEAST. AN APPLE BREAD & AN APPLE CAKE.
Until the 3rd decade of 20th century, shortages posed a continuing threat to many of the poorest areas in Greece. Things were getting worse during wars… In Graeco- Roman and Byzantine world famine was a weapon. Various theoritical works offered…
SARDINES BAKED IN SORREL LEAVES
ca 200 BC: ” The following wild vegetables should be boiled — beet, mallow, sorrel, nettle, orach, bulbs, truffles and mushrooms. (Diocles Carystius, Health, book I, C. 59) If you’ve ever been to Athens’ Varvakeios Central Market, you’ve seen them…
VASILOPITA, THE NEW YEAR’S PIE
Throughout Greece, breads and pies with a coin inside, have been established as a custom on the first day of the year, in the memory of the following event: In the 4th century, Cappadokia, a Byzantine province in Minor Asia, suffered…
DECEMBER, 2008
There is a small hole in my heart. Protests and clashes over shooting of 15 year old Alexis Grigoropoulos by a police officer continue unabated. Greek police run out of teargas and approached Germany and Israel for urgent supplies. Police…