Page 16 - Winter2009

Letters

products and mountain game, such as Ikaria to dwindle? Domestic and for- songs and poems, where, for example,
wild boar in the mainland, lots of rab- eign emigration has been a constant a father urges his son not to become a
bits traditionally cooked with onions in drain. The unpredictable availability revolutionary and risk losing his chances
wine flavored with bay leaves, and an and expense of transportation, as well at the enviable local status of a sheep
occasional, “dorkada,” a small antelope as the allure of economic opportunity and goat owner. There is no popular folk
in northern Greece, or a wild goat or and modern amenities in the mainland song extolling the social status of a skill-
kri-kri on Crete. and abroad played an important role. ful fisherman or a productive producer
Seaside villages had more poultry Local recreation and social interaction of tomatoes and beans. It is clear that
roaming freely in their backyards and on the island was mostly limited to the nutrition based on foods of animal origin
plenty of wild fowl. They trapped whole numerous communal, open-air feasts was the most desirable one, and those
flocks of quail with big fishing nets linked to various religious holidays, who could afford it were usually the best
spread on the ground or anchored on tree when the consumption of sheep and looking and most envied individuals.
trunks; they caught smaller birds with goat meat cooked in public areas and It is also worth reminding research-
home-made adhesive pads or xoverges, accompanied by the strong local wine ers that Greece had rampant tuberculo-
tied to tree branches, and used individu- was the usual fare, supplemented by sis infection rates in the first half of the
al snares, called thilies, and shotguns for game, mostly from flocks of migratory 20th century. The victims included some
the large number of wild geese moving birds. As to fish, however, it was the prominent members of the Communist
south from the Balkan peninsula and traditional fare in funeral wakes. It still Party, who were internally exiled by
Asia Minor towards the big islands like is in many parts of Greece. Meat was dictators and royalists to “desert island”
Cyprus and Crete and to North Africa. for festive occasions. detention camps, including Ikaria in the
In many islands and some mainland One wonders whether Ikaria resi- 1930s to late 1950s. Some of them are
residential areas, people also raised dents and the mainland physicians they known to have denounced their ideol-
flocks of pigeons and still do, not only rarely visited ever imagined there would ogy and their comrades in exchange for
for communications and competitions, come a day when an atrocious, so-called hospitalization in state-operated sanato-
but also for food. Much of the folk “correct Mediterranean Diet” would be ria for tubercular patients, which were
architecture of many Aegean islands invented abroad and falsely attributed built and operated only on mountain
traditionally includes highly decora- to islanders. areas—not by the seaside where a more
tive multiple pigeon pens on top of As to the documented, predomi- affordable diet of grains, vegetables and
residences. Old Greek cookbooks have nantly leftist political leanings of the is- fish was available.
various recipes for cooking these deli- land’s residents, they are, to some extent, In the days before antibiotics the
cacies in wine and olive oil, thyme or connected with internal social issues. only cure for the dreaded disease was
oregano, or even salting them for year- They include the common resentment restful confinement, large quantities of
round consumption, just like fish. Most of seafood catchers and eaters against locally produced fresh, full-fat milk, and
of the salt was washed off with lemon meat eaters, perceived as social injustice lots of fresh meat and eggs. . . not low-
juice or vinegar before eating. The salt because of the highly envied socio-eco- fat, low-cholesterol “Mediterranean”
used, of course, was not processed, and nomic status of livestock owners and foods.
it contained the normal amount of mag- consumers versus the “proletariat” sta- George Voryas
nesium and other minerals of sea-water, tus of fishermen. Meat, particularly red Alexandria, Virginia
so it did not affect blood-pressure as meat, was a status symbol, an indication
precipitously as modern, “free-running” of financial success and prominence. A KOMBUCHA STORY
industrial salt. The importance of these percep- While picking up my weekly milk
What caused the population of tions is reflected in centuries-old folk order from my farmer I mentioned that
14 Wise Traditions WINTER 2009