“Glories That Are Still Greek, II: A Weekend In The Peloponnesos”

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

by Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS, Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—ATHENS, Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—“Trapeza” means “bank” in Greek, but this story is not about finance. Trapeza is also a village above the north coast of the Peloponnesos, which takes its name from the plateau, another meaning of the word, higher still above it.

The place appears in no tourist guide. Its history goes back no further than the late 19^th century, it boasts no monuments or grand mansions, not even a crooked, picturesque alleyway, and certainly no shops. In fact, most of its houses are swallowed up by foliage: bushy olive groves, lemon trees stooped under the weight of yellow fruit, apricot, fig, mulberry, pomegranate trees—each leaf a different shade of green—speared by the occasional dark cypress.

Balm to the eye and spirit they were to someone from already desiccated, tawny Attica, not to mention cement-girt, protest-clogged Athens. But, even more soothing were the views. Up to a reddish-gold cliffside, down to white beaches lining the shore, the grey-blue Gulf of Corinth, and beyond to row upon row of slightly darker mountains. The colors changed with the sun and mist, as hypnotic as breaking waves or a flickering fire.

We’d gone to Trapeza with the Mediterranean Garden Society (www.mediterraneangardensociety.org) in pursuit of flora, planted and wild. But first our host, a well-known “green” architect, showed us before and after slides of his energy-capturing houses, and one or two shots of his wife’s water-wise garden, in preparation for close inspection the next day. They had fallen in love with the spot five minutes into a visit to friends back in 1977. And from the way they both talked about and treated the land you could tell that it continued to delight and inspire them.

But man cannot live on views alone, and Trapeza has other beguiling features. Not least of which are its two tavernes. In keeping with Greece’s often Anatolian traditions, they’re located side by side at the edge of the village. This is clever, because each gets to vet the other’s clientele and, besides, no local could afford to be caught playing favorites.

Although one was billed as the more sophisticated, there did not seem to be much difference between them. Who could say which had the most cheerful, efficient service, the more drinkable wine (tavernes are more often known these days for dull if not awful chateau cardboard), the more interesting menu?

In the Greek countryside, menus are recited rather than read. This means you have to be all ears, ready to pluck your preferred dishes from the list rattling from the waiter’s lips (and before his spiel leaves you too confused to choose anything but the most familiar). It also means price cannot dictate your order, a tricky ploy that sometimes makes the bill a blow.

But we had nothing to worry about here. And because we had a couple of non-Greek-speakers in our midst, the menus were repeated slowly in English, too. Our only problem: to choose—between wild greens pie or vegetable tart, moussaka or stuffed eggplant, chick pea stew or chick pea patties, baby lamb chops or baby veal steaks, grilled sea bass or rabbit ragout. An impossible task, so we ordered the works. Lucullan portions, epicurean tastes and pauper’s prices—averaging 10 to 15 euros a head—unheard of anywhere near Athens.

For me, the best came last, and on the house at taverna No 2. Greeks, like Italians, habitually eat ice cream and sticky pastries at odd times of day but rarely at tavernes. Something simple may be offered_—for that bit of sweet that makes a meal complete_— but it rarely strays from the predictable: sliced apples sprinkled with cinnamon, figs or apricots if there’s a tree nearby, or stodgy squares of halva—easily resisted baked semolina pudding.

But not this Saturday. Instead, the waiter arrived with plates piled high with diples. They’re nothing more than sheets of deep-fried pastry dough, a poor people’s dessert found all over the Mediterranean. But, done properly, they’re ethereal as butterfly wings, flaky and light; not at all greasy. Still warm and sprinkled with honey syrup and toasted sesame seeds, they forced me to have “just one more” an embarrassing number of times.

But the real “icing on the cake” took a different form. We returned to our host couple’s courtyard and sat on walls and benches under a spreading mulberry tree. The lights on the coast below twinkled like a second firmament, a gentle breeze rustled the mulberry leaves, and our expert gardener revealed another talent. For a magical hour or so, she serenaded us with piano works by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin and others. Time and cares hung suspended in some other world, while this one seemed perfection itself.

The weekend held other treats: a ramble up on the plateau past vineyards, wheat fields and spiny wild artichokes to a ruined 11^th-century Byzantine monastery, where enterprising plants had turned its crumbling arches, steps and wall crevices into a Zen rock garden; visits to admire a friend’s yellow roses and her “confused” half-lemon/half-tangerine tree and to her neighbor’s typically village hodgepodge of veg, chickens and flowers. There, decorative plants, from trumpeting amaryllis to geraniums, flourished in a row of old feta and oil tins, while spinach, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, etc., etc., sprawled in fertile chaos over every inch of back yard.

Going home, we detoured into the mountains above Akrata, coiling up past olive groves, past hillsides yellow with sweet-smelling broom, into the fir zone. There, a small lake shone like a turquoise set among emeralds, with jade reflections. A walk round it disclosed ruby orchids, bluebells, maidenhair ferns and even dogwood.

Were we still in Greece or lifted to England or New England?

A huge flock of Pan’s goats camping fearlessly in the middle of our road back confirmed that we hadn’t left.

We stopped for lunch at an unpromisingly empty taverna so new it hadn’t been baptized yet. The owner was dismissive. He claimed to have only meatballs and “makaronia.” But it was late and so we sat down. The food started coming: salads, minty keftedes (meatballs), lamb with oil and oregano, “the most delicious spaghetti and meat sauce ever,” crisp fried potatoes . . .  and a glamorous, spotless loo.

Greece remains full of surprises and reminders that the best things in life are free, or at least affordable.