On New Year’s Eve or after the festive lunch on the first day of the year, the father of the family cuts into a rich and aromatic cake, which has the year written in almonds on top and a lucky coin secreted inside. Each family member gets a piece, starting with the older ones, and whoever gets the symbolic coin is rewarded with a gift of money and starts the year with an advantage.

There are two basic kinds of Greek vassilopita, as this sweet is called: In my home we baked the Brandy & Orange Cake, a sumptuous westernized sweet with plenty of eggs and butter –a luxury in the old days. Other people baked vassiolopita politiki (from Istanbul) a yeasted, brioche-like sweet bread scented with orange zest and mahlep. The yeasted bread is probably closer to the older Greek traditions that have been kept alive by the so-called prosfyges (refugees), the Greeks who used to live in modern-day Turkey and were displaced from their homes in 1922, in accordance with the international agreements that followed the defeat in the Greco-Turkish war. Many bakeries throughout the country sell yeasted vassilopita, which can be baked in considerably large pans in the professional ovens. Offices, factories and all sorts of clubs and professional organizations order, and ceremoniously cut and distribute vassilopita to their employees or members, often rewarding the person who finds the lucky coin with a generous bonus. (more…)

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Smoked Water, Rice, and a… Sea of Salts

By the time I reached the British stand, to taste and smell the much-discussed ‘smoked water’ from Wales, only one jar remained. The producer wouldn’t open it for me, he only posed for a picture holding it. He told me they make it by passing slow-burning oak branches over the water tank and he suggested I get his similarly smoked salt which had the same aroma. Needless to say that besides the Welsh salts, there were plenty of other flavored, aromatic and spicy salts from all corners of the world–from Iceland to Morocco.

Oval — the 20,000sqm arena built for the Speed Skating competitions of the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics– housed stands from Asia, Africa, Australia and Europe, while the various larger regional Italian booths spread over the vast industrial buildings. (more…)

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FOOD rocks: The Grown Up Movement… Returned to the Youth!

Though I have been to many Slow Food events in years past, there was a decidedly youthful edge to this year’s proceedings, and that is a welcome bit of irony. For a movement that is committed to preserving the traditions of the past, this was a year in which I found myself embracing the guidance and energy of youth – youth that looks to my generation and the generations before me for guidance, inspiration, and tradition. My three-day wanderings at this year’s event was marked by enthusiastic and determined young people from all over the world at the Agnelli auditorium, in the Lingotto Congress Center. “EAT the future you want,” was the slogan greeting the participants of the Slow Food Youth Network who slowly gathered to the vast amphitheater, long after the meeting was scheduled to start.

But simply arriving at the event was its own, Slow challenge. Although I have been to previous fairs inLingotto – the huge former Fiat plant turned exhibition and conference center, shopping mall, and hotel— the enormous area covered by the stands and events of the 2012 joint Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre fair proved a labyrinth. I started to despair as smiling young hosts sent me first to the Oval, then to the wrong side of the very long building that housed the auditorium. After circling the grounds in vain for about thirty minutes, I angrily confronted yet another embarrassed host who had no idea where the Agnelli auditorium was. By then I was joined by several young men and women looking for the same hall. ‘Chill out,” a tall French guy reprimanded me, “we will find it eventually…” And indeed we located the hall and had plenty of time to chat with friends before the proceedings began. After all this was a Slow event for visitors who came here to enjoy glorious food from the four corners of the planet, learn more from each-others’ traditions, get passionate, and spread the word about “good, clean and fair food!” (more…)

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After a very hot summer and a worryingly dry and warm fall, the few olives on our trees looked small, wrinkled and thirsty. They were not ready to be harvested and pressed in October, when we had scheduled our olive-dedicated class, so we had to cancel it. Mid-November the olives finally plumped up, after some much-anticipated rains, but it was too late and we couldn’t have scheduled a class, as there is always the danger that ferries won’t cross to Kea. Winds and storms are not rare this time of the year, and we cannot risk leaving visitors stranded either across, on the mainland, or on the island, missing their flights…

One day was enough for the few olives our trees produced this year. Stathi, Ela, Polyxeni and Joseph worked the whole day on Friday, beating the branches so that the fruit would fall on the nets. Men usually do the beating, sometimes even climbing into the trees and ‘combing’ the branches with the special comb to get the olives. (more…)

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September 14 is the day the Greek Orthodox Church celebrates the discovery of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. According to Greek religious myths, fragrant basil was the plant growing around the Holy Cross, a sign that allowed Saints Constantine and Helen to distinguish Jesus’ cross from among the many others in the area. To commemorate the event, women bring pots of aromatic small-leafed basil plants that they have grown with much care all through the summer to the church on the eve of the holiday.

_{In church, sprigs of basil on a basket with the gold-decorated ceremonial cross.}

Athanasia, my late mother in law, nurtured all summer her tiny-leafed basil –our traditional variety— irrigating it twice every day, and carefully clipping the early blossoms. She managed to shape her plant into a perfect, large sphere, which she proudly offered to the church on September 14. Thinking about her and her beautiful potted basil –which we never managed to recreate– I went to the church this morning expecting to find many similarly well-cared pots. But there was not even one pot! Just sprigs of basil on the basket with the gold-decorated ceremonial cross. Women bended and kissed the cross, helping themselves to a sprig of basil, which, being blessed, is believed to possess secret powers; among them the ability to make the bread rise… (more…)

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