Letter To My Father . . . From Greece

“I could go on and on, unfolding a tale that would ‘harrow up thy soul . . . and make [thy thin hairs] stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine,’ but that would only draw more sadness and horrors to us. So instead, I will tell you about the Greece I saw this past weekend.”—Diana Farr Louis

Eating Well Is The Best Revenge

By Diana Farr Louis

ATHENS Greece—(Weekly Hubris)—(6/6/2016)—Dear Dad, I’ve been thinking about you lately, as your 124^th birthday comes round on the second of this month. You, with your classical education, loved Greece though you never managed to visit the country . . . but you were more than horrified when I chose to marry my much-married, “middle-aged roué,” as you called him back in 1965. You named me Diana, after the goddess, and used to exclaim, from time to time, “Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”

When I moved here (without my roué) in 1972, although Greece was ruled by a triumvirate of home-grown colonels, things were relatively quiet and prosperous, on the surface at least.

Now, almost half a century later, a troika of foreigners holds the reins, or rather purse strings, while our own governments—regardless of political persuasion—continue their ever more destructive course of clientism, corruption, and onerous taxation.

Over the past six years, we ordinary people have been strangled by an increasingly tight web of austerity measures imposed from within and without that have not been accompanied by any slashes in our notorious red tape or government expenditure, nor any meaningful reforms or incentives for investment.

The numbers of homeless and jobless soar. Even we who still have houses and cars think twice before we take a trip and almost all our income goes to pay for food, utilities, and insurance, not to mention the dreaded ENFIA real estate tax. There’s nothing left over for treats and, as for wine, we haven’t given that up yet but we now buy it in boxes, not bottles.

If you were still around, I would be moaning to you about pension cuts that have reduced our income by more than two-thirds and the latest legislation passed through parliament last month that allegedly consisted of 7,500 pages of unfathomable measures.

No one, not even the MPs, has any idea what they really say except that taxes will go up on everything—they’ve even been applied to electronic cigarettes, coffee, and wifi—and that Prime Minister Tsipras and his bizarre coalition of far leftists and almost fascists have reversed their promises on virtually every point in their platform of last year.

You might say politicians can be relied upon to lie, but this is too much. According to a recent poll, 87 percent of the Greek people disappove of the present administration, while even Tsipras himself admitted that he had deluded himself about the seriousness of our situation.

In Greek, this has led to a tragicomic play on words: Apati means deceit, deception. But Tsipras said he didn’t lie, he simply had “aftapates”—“was deluding himself.” Unfortunately, his delusions also deceived the Greek voters.

Adding to our own problems and dysfunctionality, Greece has become a dumping ground for refugees from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Our neighbors in Europe are turning their backs on them and on us, closing their borders with barbed wire: if Greece is a basket case, then better squeeze all those suspicious eggs into one basket.

I could go on and on, unfolding a tale that would “harrow up thy soul . . . and make [thy thin hairs] stand on end like quills upon the fretful porpentine,” but that would only draw more sadness and horrors to us. So, instead, I will tell you about the Greece I saw this past weekend.

Our local branch of the Mediterranean Garden Society organized a trip to nearby Evia, which you would have called Euboea. It’s the second largest island in Greece, but because it’s (virtually) joined at the hip at Chalkis, many of us tend to dismiss it as lacking insular character. Indeed, if you were parachuted into the northern half, you’d think you’d landed in Switzerland there are such dense forests, lush pastures, mountain streams with mini cataracts and pools, and riverbeds jammed with plane trees.

During our two days there, we would be taking short hikes in the woods and two brave men would even dare to plunge into an icy pool (more exciting a spectacle than hellebores and bluebells). One of our walks was cheerily sign-posted by an elementary school group, an encouraging twist in a country where kids are rarely released from their asphalt prisons.

But the first encounter (with another, man-made Greece) occurred when we entered our boutique hotel, charmingly named Opos Agapate, or As You Like It, a place faultlessly designed and cared for, from the wooden swings and garden furniture down to the Coco-mat mattresses and mosquito nets in our airy,  sound-proofed bedrooms. Run by ex-Athenians, Stergios and Lila Tsombanidis, it was an early summer’s dream capped by a perfect breakfast of home-made bread, cakes, preserves, and fruit plucked from their own trees.

Furthermore, it was but a few minutes’ walk to the long beach, for we were at the very top of Evia, at Pefki, near Cape Artemisia, where Greek ships defeated the Persians in 480 BC in a prelude to the final victory at Salamis. And, you will like this, Dad: the battle came soon after the Spartans’ stand at Thermopylai, not far away on the mainland, giving another boost to Greek morale.

Even at Artemisia’s pleasant beachfront, though, other, darker memories lurk. It seems that, until 1926, the village was called Kourbatsi, a Turkish word meaning “the lash,” for here the Ottomans maintained a torture center for punishing wayward subjects.

No trace of this exists except in our brochure and, perhaps, in stories, so we obliviously focused on the present, which included a bountiful lunch of a dozen dishes of classic Greek mezedes plus fried anchovies, skate with garlic sauce, and perfect grilled black-tail fish. Oink. All for 15 euros! With the pièce de resistance on the house: platters of local cherries floating among rapidly melting ice cubes.

After lunch and a much needed nap, we set off in a convoy to the highlight of our excursion, an organic walnut farm owned by an MGS member and her husband, Despina and Michael Moschos. These London-based Greeks from Chios made a radical, life-changing decision inspired by a visit to the south of France. The Perigord produces the world’s finest walnuts, so they thought of trying to cultivate them in northern Evia, even though they are not meant to thrive near the sea. The Moschoses had heard about some land for sale, cooled by winds from Mt Olympus, and so began their adventure in 2004.

Now, only 12 years later, the Karydies estate consists of 1,300 young walnut trees (and about one hundred old olives), planted as year-old saplings which in 2015 yielded 60 tons of nuts under the Artemision Georgiki label. A taste of these and you won’t want any others. Greece produces 1,200 tons itself but imports another 5,500 from the nearby Balkans. Their market price is 3 euros a kilo.

A walnut farm would not bring instant rewards, especially an organic one subject to unannounced visits by HACCP inspectors and daily monitoring for the presence of destructive pests, so we were impressed by the Moschoses’ vision and patience, and perhaps even more by their manager, Yianna Mouridi.

Yes, a woman runs the place. She was assisting her husband until he died prematurely, upon which Yianna begged not only to be allowed to continue but to expand. A blonde, feisty and obviously capable dynamo, she has been to the Perigord and oversees a team of about 15 village women to help her with the plowing, irrigating, picking, drying, and shelling. They also make a very nice “spoon sweet” from “unborn” walnuts about the size of olives, and two sorts of irresistible snacks of walnut halves coated with honey and sesame seeds or figs and rosemary. I think I emptied the tasting bowl.

As if this remarkable women’s kingdom were not inspiring enough, I discovered within our own group other women who were also contributing to Greece in creative ways. One long-time resident from Germany is teaching art to refugee children in Athens.  A food blogger known as Two-Minutes Angie gives a weekly cooking workshop at a public school in Athens in conjunction with the Municipality. With enrollment at about 80 percent immigrants and refugees, the free workshop is open to parents and teachers as well as children and helps to build community.

As Angie says, “Food is a common language. Each parent suggests one recipe and helps us cook it. The kids write it down in Greek, learn about the ingredients and the history and origins of the dish, and then we all sit down and eat it.”

What better way to get to break down barriers and create bonds?

Then there’s Angels of Joy, a foundation started in 2011 by another member, Irene Sturdza, addressed to cheering up hospital patients, mainly children, and seniors in old-age homes. Divided into small groups, they write skits, perform songs, and devise other activities to bring some happiness to the “inmates” at each institution once a week so that they have something to look forward to. That requires tremendous dedication, skill, and practice on the part of its team of volunteers. I was thrilled to learn about it.

Then I started thinking about the rest of us present—the woman who created the Animal Welfare Society in Athens in 1975, the one who led our Greek branch of the MGS for a decade at least, the Canadian archaeologist who has devoted his life to digging up the Greek past—and my wider circle of friends and acquaintances, who visit refugee camps on the islands, who went down to Piraeus every day this winter to greet the loaded ferries, who help out at the Salvation Army, at Caritas (a big soup kitchen in Athens) and, of course, through Boroume, which feeds some 6,000 people a day on good food that would otherwise be trashed.

Virtually everyone I know is doing something to help. It is sad that we have come to need so much, but this is the bright side of our Depression, and volunteers are stepping in where governments have failed.

. . . and perhaps this message will take the place of the perception in right-wing circles that Greeks are lazy tax evaders.

I know our plight would resonate with you, Dad. You watched so many friends leave Cuba in the early 1960s; watched their lives crumble when Castro took over. Your own company went bankrupt with them and you and Mom would have been on the streets were it not for the generosity of friends and colleagues (See: https://weeklyhubris.com/jam-session-an-homage-to-tate-lyle/).

I cannot predict our future here but, in the meantime, here in Greece, there is no other subject. Still we joke with each other in a black-humored way, we say we’re well when we’re not, and when finished with a discussion of the various facets of our fate, we invariably shrug our shoulders and close off with our favorite saying, “Ti na kanoume?” or “What can we do?”

As a British friend and regular visitor to Greece has remarked, “Every time I hear that woman’s name, Tina Kanoume, I know there is no hope.”

Recipe

Even so, you can still eat divinely in Greece and, as I mentioned, our breakfasts on Evia were sublime, so I begged Opos Agapate to give me the recipe for their carrot cake. I think even you on diets will like this one, as it has no butter or eggs, and it’s easier than, well, pie.

Opos Agapate Carrot Cake

Ingredients

3 cups grated carrots

1 medium apple, peeled and grated

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp cloves

3 cups all purpose flour

3 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

1 cup raisins

1 cup olive oil

I cup brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 tbsp grated orange peel

1 tsp baking soda diluted in

¾ cup lemon juice

confectioners’ sugar for dusting 

Preheat the oven to 180°C/375°F. Mix the grated carrots and apple in a bowl and sprinkle the cinnamon and cloves on top of them. In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder, salt, and raisins. Stir the olive oil, sugars, and orange peel with a wooden spoon and then add the lemon juice and soda. Stir well and gradually add the carrot-apple and the flour-raisins. The batter is firmer than that of most cakes, but don’t worry: the carrots and apples will produce quite a bit of liquid. Scrape the batter into a lightly oiled spring pan and smooth the top of it. Bake for about 1 hour or until the knife you slip into it comes out clean. Let rest in the pan for 10 minutes, turn it upside down onto a plate, and sprinkle with sugar or, if you want, frosting. I like mine plain.