The Harvest, the Hearth, and the Heart of Karpathos

Every little thing round us these days claims to be about “authenticity,” “taste,” and “custom,” however, as a rule, what’s being described doesn’t stay as much as these phrases. Nonetheless, I do know one lady who actually embodies these values. She wears conventional native garb, talks and tells jokes in an historic Doric dialect, bakes all day utilizing age-old recipes from her village, and serves her homeland, household, and tradition with a knowledge and a love which can be each easy and uncommon at the moment.

It was harvest season, and the panorama was golden with wheat. There was an odd mild to the sky – darkish clouds and a shiny solar battled to see which might prevail. From afar, I may see the gleam of the ladies’s sickles as they lower the stalks. Kalliopi would seize a tuft of wheat and, earlier than I may even see it lower, she had already moved on to the following after which the following. Her robust arms labored swiftly, combating towards the wind, which made the duty much more tough, but she pressed on tirelessly for hours. She wore the kavai (a conventional outer garment) with its “wings” tucked into her belt, revealing a protracted embroidered shirt beneath, stivania (tall leather-based boots) on her toes, and a scarf tied round her head. She was a tall, younger, slender dark-haired lady from Olympos. I couldn’t get sufficient of photographing the scene: an individual in concord with nature, a part of it. She had sown the land, and it was rewarding her in return.

Because the solar rose increased over the fields of Avlona, a complete meal was laid out – kousoumades (rusks), cheese, olives, artichokes in oil, herb pies and figs – all home made. Her mom, her grandfather, her sister-in-law Mangafoula, and her youngsters, together with Maria, her eldest daughter, had been all there… There was simple dialog, banter and laughter beneath the grapevines. By afternoon, they had been again within the fields with their sickles in hand. Her family referred to as out jokes to 1 one other to go the time whereas the youngsters performed on the threshing flooring.

Twenty Years Later

These occasions came about twenty years in the past in Avlona, an space of farmland close to Olympos in northern Karpathos, on a plateau overlooking the ocean. This yr, I’ve returned to this beloved place, now with my daughter, to reconnect with the folks, see the locations, and observe the adjustments. One factor that actually hasn’t modified is the flavors – they’re nonetheless precisely the identical!

Kalliopi nonetheless wears the standard costume of her area and bakes day by day in her wood-fired oven, which stands on a spot overlooking the windmills and the ocean. She by no means alters the recipes handed right down to her by her mom. The one distinction now’s that she bakes to feed dozens of individuals. It’s the regular stream of tourists that led to the creation of “Kalliopi’s Bakery,” the place folks should buy native delicacies and, in fact, bread; virtually each family in Olympos has its personal wood-fired oven. Kalliopi rises at daybreak to knead the dough and collect greens from her backyard to make herb pies, sourdough bread, sesame biscuits and tourtes (native cheese pies). Her kousoumades – scrumptious rusks created from barley, wheat and white flour, with a mix of some spices – are famend. A pal from Crete, a real gourmand, as soon as tasted them and mentioned, “These aren’t simply rusks, my pricey; they’re communion wafers!”

Within the mornings, I watch her carrying athimaria (massive branches) to fill and light-weight the oven. That is but another excuse why her merchandise have such a novel taste – even the oven smoke is imbued with the presence of the rugged panorama. She then begins kneading the dough, rolling out the pastry for the herb pies, and chopping the vlita (wild greens), the tomatoes and the onions, unhurriedly, with care and devotion. Beside her now are Maria and Sophia, her daughters and worthy assistants. Maria has a expertise for conventional savory recipes, whereas Sophia excels at sweets, making truffles, kataifi and baklava. Her baklava, made with out extreme syrup, would impress even the most effective pastry cooks within the nation.

Native Recipes

I met Kalliopi when her youngsters had been younger. She was baking in the identical wood-fired oven she makes use of at the moment, and every little thing that got here out of her skillful arms was unmatched. She made the biggest and most scrumptious artos (sacramental bread loaves) within the village – the identical ones she baked this yr for the Feast of the Virgin Mary on August 15 – utilizing ten spices, together with freshly floor mastic, black sesame, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander, and topping the loaf with complete cumin seeds. I recall telling her that her creations needs to be offered in delicatessens. This was within the mid-Nineties, and I do not forget that it was the primary time I’d seen so many spices utilized in Greek cooking. Since most traditions in Olympos date again to historic Greece, I noticed that spices had been, actually, an integral a part of Greek delicacies in antiquity.

One style I’ll always remember is that of the “tourtes with oxyalo” that Kalliopi’s mom used to make – small miracles, scorching from the wooden oven, full of mushy recent cheese and sprinkled with sesame seeds. To make the cheese, they might take recent goat’s milk and pour it right into a clay pot with a gap on the backside. Because the milk thickened and soured, the water content material would drain out from it. Day-after-day, they might add extra milk, and the water would drain, forsaking a thickened, bitter combination referred to as oxyalo. They might pressure this by means of a material bag for an additional day or two to make it even thicker. Then they might make some dough utilizing all-purpose flour and olive oil, and including mastic for taste. They might roll out a sq. piece, place the oxyalo inside, together with fennel, sugar, and cinnamon, fold up the 4 corners of the dough, and brush the pies with egg earlier than sprinkling them with sesame seeds. Baked within the wood-fired oven, these cheese pies had been unforgettably tasty!

Dwelling Like a Native

Avlona, the island’s breadbasket (it fed all of Karpathos throughout the lean years of WWII), is the proper place to remain. It’s authenticity at its purest; you sleep on a settee beneath rows of ornamental plates and get up to the crowing of a rooster. There’s breakfast on the veranda with delicacies from the bakery: scrumptious bread or kousoumades with honey and Cretan graviera, and cheese pies (referred to as tourtes) made with anthotyro, a recent cheese. To drink, there’s kinomalea (native sage) tea blended with some rosemary you will discover rising wild within the Papa Minas space. The herbs listed here are flavorful and, as analysis has proven, wealthy in useful properties.

One morning there, I watched Michalis Lentakis and his spouse Anna threshing just a little additional down. They had been taking turns utilizing the dihali (a protracted wood fork-like instrument), tossing the grain excessive into the air to separate it from the chaff. “Making flour is tough work,” Michalis shouted to me. “Now in August, now we have to clear the sphere. Within the fall, we’ll sow it; in June, we’ll harvest it, and take it to the mill. We solely make complete wheat flour.”

That afternoon, to go together with my espresso, Kalliopi gave me one of many koulouria, or cookies, she had made that morning; it was mushy but crispy, and sprinkled with black cumin. The style, so particular, captured the distinctive essence of Olympos! Her creations carry the flavors of the fields, the mountains, the cliffs, and even the thick mist, which the locals name bonenti…