As the mass slaughtering of Easter lamb reaches its peak this week for Greek Easter (April 15), not just vegetarians but even meat-loving Americans and northern Europeans express shock at the site of whole, head-on carcasses of young animals spit-roasted over charcoal fire. They are even more appalled seeing the animal's entrails – the liver, lung, and sweetbreads – meticulously threaded and enclosed in the cowl fatwrapped tightly with the intestines in order to make kokoretsi, the most sought after Greek Easter delicacy.

slideshow  Slide Show: Making Kokoretsi

Perhaps there should have been an editor’s note or parental advisory rating at the beginning of this piece, given the somewhat graphic nature of the material, but I hope you’ve made it this far and will continue a bit further. Some might find these Easter rituals barbaric, but they are also deeply engrained in our culture as the central rite of one of, if not the most important, celebration of the year. 

The few tourists visiting the Acropolis on a Monday morning, late February or early May are surprised to see a steady flow of people, young and old, walking up towards Philopappou Hill, across from the Parthenon. 

Braving the chill and occasional light rain, these locals seemed to head to a common destination for an outdoor lunch, carrying not just bags brimming with food but also multi-colored kites.

When, in the fifties, Ansel Keys and his colleagues studied the eating habits, the state of health, and life expectancy of various peoples in seven countries, they decided that the inhabitants of Crete were faring best of all. Paximadia (barley rusks) in those days were the staple food of the Cretans.

But when their traditional eating habits became the model for the now famed Mediterranean diet, the barley biscuits were translated into "whole wheat bread" for the unaccustomed and refined Northern Europeans and Americans. Barley flour has now completely disappeared from the shelves of the supermarkets in the big cities, and one can only find it in health food stores or at wholesale distributors of animal fodder. But οn Kea as οn other islands we can get a pound or two from the local bakeries which still bake the traditional hard and dark paximadia. 

Askolymbri, the crunchy roots of the common golden thistle (Scolymus hispanicus,  or Spanish oyster thistle) braised with lamb and finished with an airy avgolemono (egg and lemon sauce), was probably one of the most unusual and rare delicacies we sampled during this year's marvelous Worlds of Flavor Conference at Greystone, in Napa.

Chef Yiannis Tsivourakis from Crete, representing the local organization that promotes the products, healthy traditional diet, and sustainable development of the island, decided to cook this foraged and peculiar plant from Crete. The praise was unanimous, but the common golden thistle was certainly uncommon to most participants – it is hardly known, let alone available, anywhere else in Greece, and certainly not in the US or anyplace else in the world.

This year’s olive oil from our trees is emerald green, quite peppery, and very aromatic!

We pressed it early with the help of our October KEArtisanal guests. As it trickled from the olive press, still warm and hazy, it tasted heavenly on slices of fresh bread, just out of the oven for the occasion.

Olive oil

slideshow  Slide Show: Green, Fruity, Peppery…

We did not have a large production. Olive trees tend to have a good yield every second year, villagers say. Often pruned as they are harvested, olive trees need time for the new shoots to grow and fill with fruit. We drastically pruned our trees last year, as they had grown large and heavy. We were not expecting to gather many olives, but having purchased our home olive press the year before, we were more than eager to use it again, and share the joy with our guests.

The sight of an old man lazily pulling his donkey on the beach is not as common these days as it used to be.  With his obedient donkey and some weathered baskets, the old man brings the bathers a few treasures, the man’s frugal summer crop: freshly cracked almonds, and perfectly ripe figs! Chubby green, reddish or purple, usually small and far from picture-perfect, these figs are deliciously sweet and fragrant!

The fig is the final fruit of our summer, abundant yet very short lived, and like everything precious well worth the wait.  Visitors from the north of Europe are impressed with the sinuous shape of the Mediterranean fig trees, which to us are the most common and natural sight.  They usually grow wild, dotting and shaping the rocky hills, often near the sea, the drier the better. 

Unfortunately the late May Kea Artisanal group didn’t have the chance to taste our tomatoes. We had a prolonged spring with lots of rain, so until mid-June our tomatoes were tiny and green. Some of them, especially the Black Tula, were not quite ready even for our late June visitors, and the Yellow Pear, which we planted later, have no ripe fruits yet. We love our tomatoes, grown naturally, just with manure.

Tomatos

slideshow  Slide Show: TOMATOES revisited!

Manure is a scarce commodity on Kea, and everyone in our neighborhood is well informed of our purchase moves, keeping track of when we bought and from whom --as one neighbor wisely puts it “you can’t hide from God or from your neighbor.” This year, we had to import a huge truckload from the mainland.

The cooking, long meals, wine, weather, settings, adventures around the island were stellar. But what made our time with you stand out was the true hospitality that both of you exude,” wrote Beth—a guest in our late June program-- in a warm and enthusiastic note she sent far from Kea, back in her South Carolina home.

Wine tasting - Kea Artisanal

slideshow  Slide Show: Keartisanal Summer 2011

Renee, another participant, amazed us with the royal treatment on her blog, where she devoted not just one but four wonderfully detailed presentations to our activities.

The eighth stage of drunkenness according to the ancient comic poet Eubulus “is the policeman’s, the ninth belongs to vomiting, and the tenth to madness and hurling of furniture,” the very stately professor, Oswyn Murray, informed the lecture hall in his brilliant paper at the closing plenary session of this year’s Oxford Symposium on Food and Cookery.

Oxford

slideshow  Slide Show: CELEBRATING in Oxford!

During the mostly sunny weekend gathering of 230 scholars and food-lovers from England, the US, and all over the world a fair amount of wine—from Italy, Spain, Germany and Greece— was consumed, but of course participants never approached even the fourth stage of inebriation that “belongs to insults,” but there were hints of the fifth “that [belongs] to uproar.”

Every year in April, well before Easter, Costas starts the long process of searching and ordering the cheeses that will be included in the Kea Artisanal cheese-tastings. He calls up shepherds and artisanal producers from various Aegean islands and Crete, but also people in the north of Mainland Greece.

Cheese

 

slideshow  Slide Show: Gathering Cheeses

After discussing the year’s production, he orders a variety of cheeses, hard and soft. Then we impatiently wait for the Styrofoam boxes that arrive by messenger from Naxos, Tinos, Macedonia, and Crete. After an initial tasting, we decide which ones will be included in the 12-15 samples we serve each year on our cheese-tasting board.

SLOW Fish Genoa 2011

From fishwitches, sandwiches made with bread from Triora--the Ligurian village famous for its Medieval witches—to jellied cubes of green tea with strawberries and head-on prawns, this year’s Slow Fish international gathering had it all: a multi ethnic sea fare complete with wines to taste and enjoy, but also plenty of food for thought regarding the grim future of fishing as we know it.

Slow Fish

slideshow  Slide Show: SLOW Fish Genoa 2011

The biennial Genoa Slow Fish is a manageable fair, not overwhelming as the Salone del Gusto, he alternating huge biennial Slow Food Torino gathering. Its message was very clear: ‘If we want to continue eating fish tomorrow, we must take action today.”

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