Spring (Άνοιξη)

Spring has sprung
The sun is warm
Makes the winter
Look quite gone

That's what the first day of spring felt like yesterday.

 

Charles Dickens put it much better:
"It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade." (Great Expectations)

(Thanks to Cheryl for the quote)





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Horta (Χόρτα)

Wild leafy greens are eaten throughout the year in Greece. They are very popular during fasting periods. Here's an article I originally published through Suite101.

Horta have always been a significant part of Greek cuisine and continue to be a popular choice for a meal both in the Greek taverna and with the home cook. Amongst the wide range of vegetarian dishes in Greek cuisine, there is a particular group known as 'horta', from the Greek word χoρτα, meaning 'grass'. Both wild and domesticated leafy greens form an integral part of a Greek island taverna meal, found under the 'salads' label on the menu card. Horta were one of the staple survival foods in many parts of Greece in the years of famine during the Nazi occupation of the country in WW2.

Horta constitute both a side dish and a main meal Horta have always formed an integral part of the range of traditional Greek foods, and are fundamental to the Mediterranean diet whose origin lies in Crete. When a Greek cook prepares a meal of horta at home, they actually form the main part of a meal, not just an accompaniment to a meal, unlike when eating out at a Greek taverna, when horta will more likely be a side dish to other main course.

How are horta served at the Greek table?

When the home cook prepares horta for the main meal of the day, they will be boiled and served together with maybe some beans or zucchini, according to the season, all dressed in olive oil and lemon juice. Carbohydrates in the form of boiled potatoes accompany these leafy vegetables as a side dish, along with some cheese, a boiled egg, or maybe some small fish like sardines for protein.

Bread is essential with horta to mop up the remaining olive oil on the plate. Taken altogether, this combination of very simple foods forms a very balanced diet, which makes it easier to understand how the Greek people survived during harsher times when food was scarce.

Different varieties of horta for different seasons The temperate Greek climate allows horta to grow abundantly all over Greece. Apart from being grown in cultivated fields, they are also foraged in wild pasture lands. They are sold at street markets, in greengrocers, and in the supermarket. The variety of Greek horta differs according to the season, because different horta are available at different times of the year. A variety of amaranth, called vlita in Greek, grows from late spring to late summer.

In Cretan cuisine, a highly prized variety of horta of the Chicorium species, stamnagathi, used to be foraged only in the wild in the cooler seasons, but is now being cultivated successfully throughout the year. Although most leafy greens have now been domesticated, there are still some that are only found in the wild, like the ascrolimbus plant used in Cretan cuisine, with its thorny leaves and edible roots. Radiki (from both Taraxacum and Chicorium species) is also very popular. An added bonus of horta is that when they are foraged in the wild, they're often organic. They are harvested by rural experts who are able to distinguish between the varieties and know which ones are edible or not.

Preparation of horta

Because horta come straight from the ground, and often sit on the soil, they need meticulous cleaning. If foraged from the wild, they will also need sorting because different grasses grow together among the different species of horta. It's understandable why horta foraged in the wild fetch higher prices than cultivated varieties. Once they are cleaned, they are then boiled till the leaves have softened. The more tender the leaves, the less cooking time is needed. A change of water is while they are being cooked is recommended to remove any bitterness. When done, they are drained and served doused in olive oil, a sprinkling of lemon juice and salt to taste.

Funnily enough, in Greek cuisine, spinach isn't considered amongst the leafy greens that are served as salads in the same way as horta, even though it grows in plentiful supplies. Modern food trends show that spinach is now being used raw in salads, but it's traditionally turned into spanakopita and other filo pastry parcels. The horta species mentioned are hardly ever used in pies; there are other wild aromatic horta varieties that are used in this way in Greek cuisine.

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The way we are: The member of Parliament (Ο βουλευτής)

Naturally, a lot more happens on the open road than does in my small office. My cabbie husband tells me funny stories like this one every day.

"There he goes, there he goes," my colleague Zahos suddenly interrupted our conversation over trivialities, which we often engage in these days while we're on our shift. There's little else to do in a crisis-ridden economy. I was wiping down the windows of the car when I heard Zahos' muffled whispers. I turned around to see what he was looking at, but I didn't see anything of interest.

"There who goes?" I asked him. Without lifting a finger to point to anyone, without even turning his head, Zahos simply moved his eyes in the direction that he wanted me to look in. I followed them and saw a man walking quickly, head bowed low as if he were looking at the ground. It took me a while to register who he was.

"You know him, don't you?" Zahos asked me.

"It's X_________, isn't it?" Zahos nodded. I know X________ well enough to greet him, and in the past, in better days, he would often stop and chat to us as we were parked in the rank waiting for a fare. But today, I hardly recognised him. He wasn't walking like he used to. For a start, he did not keep his body upright, and he seemed to be trying to keep his face hidden by turning up his collars. He hurried up the road, where at one point he disappeared into the bakery.

"Tough time to be an MP, isn't it?" Zahos chuckled. I was smiling too, because it's not every day you see an MP on the road that doesn't want to be seen. In the past, in better days, their appearance was a welcome sight and generated a great amount of cheer with peopel rushing up to them to shake their hands. But not any more.

"He's afraid of being yoghurted," I said.

"Or tomatoed," replied Zahos.

"They're out of season now," I laughed.

"Good thing too, because tomatoes are expensive," said Zahos. "If it was summer, they'd be soft and mushy, which only causes problems to your clothes. Imagine getting struck by one now. It would be like being pelted by potatoes. Potatoes do the job better than tomatoes and yoghurt, and they're cheap enough now."

At that point, X________ came out of the bakery. He was holding a plastic bag in his hand, which he guarded furtively, keeping it close to his jacket. He had a worried look as he walked back in the direction from which he had emerged. His steps were quick, his eyes looked straight ahead. But he saw me and Zahos outside our cabs, and he knew he could not walk straight past us without at least acknowledging the presence of the people who had put him in office. Without turning to look at us, without raising his hand to wave, he gave a quick nod in our direction and continued walking to safety. In the past, in better days, he would have waved and smiled, and then stopped to talk to us.  But those days are quite definitely over.

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Heat and eat (Το έτοιμο)

I used to like cleaning my house. But these days, it never seems clean, no matter how often I clean it. The weekend is the only time most people have to spare for putting their house in order. Just lately, with the amount of work we put into collecting firewood and food preparation, coupled with the very bad weather and some illnesses due to the cold, the housework became low priority. It has now taken on insurmountable proportions.

Then there's the war (aka the economic crisis) that affects everyone's life, not just financially, but socially and psychologically. Sometimes, I simply cannot be bothered doing the basic housework that I used to take pride in. That includes cooking.

 

Rotisserie chicken, gigandes, Greek peaches - serves four, costs ~10 euro. The chicken and beans can be heated together in the oven (or microwave), for a more home-cooked look.

 

This is about the most expensive meal I have 'cooked' during a week-day.

On days like these, there's always the supermarket heat-and-eat shelves. You can still keep your meal very Greek and non-junk related. It will still look and taste like a Greek meal. The added bonus: you free up your time. Nowadays, we all want to have free time to enjoy the modern world we live in. Housework will have to wait until spring sets in for good.

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Learning English through cooking (Μαθήματα Αγγλικών μέσω μαγειρικής)

The Greek economic crisis may have had a massive effect on people's income, but it still hasn't dealt a deathblow here in Crete in people's spending habits in private education for their children. Greeks still send their kids to afternoon language classes, to learn mainly English. Because I'm a native speaker of English and an English teacher myself, I felt it ethically wrong to send mine to such lessons when I knew I could be doing the job myself. Not only that, but all Greek children have English lessons at state school, at least twice per week. Some even have English lessons in the afternoon state school (like mine), which is optional, mainly used by children with working parents. Sending them to a private language school on top of the lessons they get at a state school (no matter how bad they are, as some Greek parents believe) is surely a mismanagement of resources, not to mention short-sightedness on the part of both parents and teachers. It's another good example of the highly unsustainable Greek system of getting things done.

A lot has been written about how parents should not take on the role of the teacher, but I find such discussions highly theoretical, and in modern times, they miss the point. Education is changing. No longer is it a case of  "open your books, turn to page X, start reading, now answer the questions", etc. You can do such work through the internet. Teaching is much more dynamic now than it ever used to be, and all because we live in the internet world where we do not need teachers all the time to tell us things that we (thought we) didn't know. Even at the research institute where I work, I no longer use pen and paper; all my students' homework is conducted online, including essays and exercises. I'm still working on testing them online internally in this way; where there's a will, there will eventually be a way.

The village school in the background

Unfortunately, not all children have the same opportunities. The biggest difference is not the country we live in, but the possibilities available in the different cities, towns and villages of a country. There is a distinctly rural identity in my children's school which, if developed positively, could encourage children to be more creative within their own environment. State teachers generally use the prescribed school books, using traditional methodology, and they teach according to national standards. All very well, but the truth is that most of the children in a village school are not being prepared for the global connected world. This is not necessarily the teachers' fault; most of the parents have a limited educational background and their contact with the outside world is generally non-existent.

Apparently, we've been promised a better educational system. But at this early stage in Greece's new revolution, it is too difficult to try to get a state teacher to change (most often) her ways, because the education system in Greece had a lot of cracks in it well before that, most teachers have not studied/been abroad and they do not have an all-round education. They themselves have been brought up within exactly the same academically-inclined system (and it worked for them).

Rather than change the Greek state school teachers, I simply try to change the messages that my children may be picking up from a school system which does not encourage children to nurture their critical thinking skills. There is little in the way of applied teaching. In this world, where the pace of life is very fast, it's easy to fall behind technology-wise, especially when you can't afford it. I get my children to apply their collective knowledge in multi-task purpose-set assignments. It's much more challenging for their young flexible minds than a worksheet for homework (I'll leave that for the state school teachers). To learn English effectively with their mother as their teacher, I need to make sure that they are listening, speaking, reading and writing as much as possible, exclusively in English. And there is always the internet, the best tool for learning anything when used in the right way.

Here's my checklist:
Listening: from me, English DVDs (no subtitles).

Speaking: with me, English-speaking friends, tourists.
Reading: reading material aimed at children their age (via Amazon orders, or electronic format), and internet material (eg games targeting children's development, exclusively in English); never give them information they can find on the internet!
Writing: diary writing (every day); never spell words for them - they have to use a dictionary!
Grammar: that's a really hard one - they need rote learning exercises for that. The only other way to do this is by getting them to start a blog where spelling/grammar errors will be shown up automatically by work processing programmes. (Watch this space.)

Occasionally, I try to find English-language instructions for them to follow. My particular favorite is through recipes: they get fed at the same time. They still need supervision in the kitchen because of my fear of their using knives and playing with fire at such as early age. But they kill two birds with the one stone in this way.

Teamwork

Here's a carbonara recipe I adapted for them, which they find easy to follow. The changes I made to the recipe have also been clarified for them, eg:
- "Why do you use more oil than the recipe says, mum?" "Because we're Cretan."
- "Can we still make this if we don;t have pancetta?" "Yes, we have other similar local ingredients."
- "Can you really make this recipe using fewer eggs?" "Of course. You just did."

Don't forget that kids like numbered steps. 

To make a Greek carbonara, you need:
250g spaghettini
some olive oil
a few slices of Cretan bacon (known as apaki), about 3 per person (12 pieces)
2 garlic cloves (they like to hear the sound of the papery peel crushing against the pressure of the knife)
2 eggs
1 packet of cream (make sure it says '100% Greek' on the packet - FAGE produces it)
half a cup of grated cheese
salt and pepper

1. Put the spaghetti in a large pot with water and let it boil for 10 minutes.
2. Heat the oil in a small pot over medium heat. Add the bacon pieces and crushed garlic. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring every now and then.
3. While the bacon and spaghetti are cooking, beat the eggs in a bowl. Add the cream, cheese, salt and pepper, and mix everything well. Don't forget to watch the bacon and pasta!
4. When the spaghetti is cooked, switch off the element and drain it very well in a colander. Then put it back into the same pot.
5. When the bacon is ready, switch off the element. Pour the bacon into the spaghetti and mix it in well. Then add the egg mixture and mix that in well too.
6. Serve the spaghetti hot.

English is a very important language in the world so I'm thankful I know it myself and can pass it on to my children. Although I learnt foreign languages at school, it was at a time when the world was very white: we were learning French and German in New Zealand, along with Latin. All very useful for making an interesting person out of you, but not so useful in preparing you to enter the New Zealand job market, not even in those days. I now can't imagine a world where Chinese or Arabic isn't being learnt. I've bought some material for my children to start learning Chinese. Now all I need is to learn it myself...

 ©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.