MY BIG FAT NOISY GREEK MEAL

By CINDA CHAVICH

(SAIDONA, GREECE) - It’s a fact of life that the things we love most aren’t always that good for us.

Speed, danger, decadence, passion – always makes the most memorable experiences  - and it’s for all of those reasons that I will never forget one of the best meals I ever had high up in the mountains of Greece.

There were six of us in the group – Canadians who had the good fortune to be invited into a small family home for dinner. Tonight we would dine in the Mani, among descendents of those legendary Greeks patriots who fiercely fought invaders from their mountain hideaways over thousands of years of war.

It was already late when Sotiris Klampatséas arrived to ferry us to his home in Saidõna. As we wound our way higher and higher along the narrow roads that we had traveled earlier in the day, I imagined the views we might have seen if the sun hadn’t long set. This was a scenic strip of the southern Peloponnese, the bulge of mainland south of Athens shot with rocky mountain peaks and lush olive groves, steeply terraced down to the sea

Sotiris’s house was one of a small cluster of homes that hugged the cliffside. We climbed a steep stairway  and self-consciously piled into the crowded living room where Vaso, Sotiris’s wife, ushered us into her modest home. A fire was burning in the hearth and the aromas of a home cooked feast hung heavily the air.

The main room was dominated by a large dining table, filled with platters of Greek appetizers or meze. Their own fruity olive oil figured in every dish – marinated olives, fat slabs of feta cheese, chunks of pickled eggplant, and purple rounds of smoky grilled octopus, heavily drizzled in golden oil.

In the kitchen Vaso, her newphew and a couple of elderly aunts were bustling around, mixing garlic and grated cucumbers into big bowls of tangy yogurt as thick and rich as soft butter, rolling thin sheets of homemade filo dough and baking big pans of their famous gigantes beans.

We craned to see what was going on in the kitchen but first we needed to partake of some hospitality. Sotiris poured a highly alcoholic concoction – tsipouro or the Greek version of grappa. Our interpreter struggled to translate the broken bits of conversation but soon we were all eating and laughing – Ricardo, the young Quebecker in our crowd, mimicking our host with hearty toasts of TSI-POUR-O! and eliciting gales of giggles from our hosts.

The ice was definitely broken by the time we all toddled into the kitchen to take our turns with the agingaunts, rolling filo and frying honey-drenched pastries in pans of golden olive oil.

This was a humble home, but one filled with the joys of sharing food and drink. Next to the hearth, sat a small wooden barrel which Sotiris used to fill carafes with his own homemade wine, a light red which was now flowing freely.

As the evening progressed, more people piled to the crowded space and the little room bulged at the seams. Sotiris’s mother, a fragile-looking widow in black, was settled into a comfortable chair to enjoy the party. A nephew sat in the corner strumming traditional songs on the bouzouki while another stood on a chair, recording the festivities on video.

When someone asked Sotiris about the tiny birds he was grilling over the open fire he tried to explain that he had bagged them himself in the nearby hills. They were snipe – we finally deduced – a small and difficult bird to hunt. Sotiris proudly served them, crisp and charred from the fire, then left the room to retrieve his shotgun to make his point crystal clear.

In these tight confines – with people, drink and every opportunity for misunderstanding – our Canadian clan cringed at the sight of the shotgun. Our interpreter explained that Greeks love to shoot – not only as hunters but to punctuate the happy mood at important occasions like this. At weddings, for instance, they often discharge their firearms into the air, creating a boisterous racket to mark the day.

When Sotiris urged the men in our group out to the balcony to fire off a few rounds, the women protested. But our young French-Canadian compatriot, was immediately on his feet and out the door. A moment later heard the gun discharge, the thunderous report shaking the tiny house and knocking Ricardo backwards through the doorway. Ron stepped up to take his turn but his wife protested loudly, and the gun was again safely stowed. But I began to understand the concept – this special night was now forever marked in our memories.

We continued our merriment and feasting – avgolemono soup, beans baked with tomatoes and fragrant dill, crisp potatoes roasted in olive oil, yellow squash fritters flavored with wild mint. In all, we counted 23 dishes.

Vaso and Sotiris joined hands and raised their arms. They sang together and danced, slowly stepping and twirling in a postage stamp of space at the centre of the room. All evening the music continued, the family danced, the wine flowed and the Canadians thought they had died and gone to Greek heaven.

When someone asked about the tradition of breaking plates (one most of us have only seen in Greek restaurants), Vaso hustled into her kitchen and grabbed a stack of plain white crockery from the cupboard. She immediately tossed a side plate onto the ceramic tile floor. It shattered loudly, amid laughter and cheering from everyone in the room, and soon there were shards china crunching underfoot everywhere, further punctuating our amazing evening of wild abandonment.

When the cell phone rang and we were admonished for being late for our coach ride home, we had to say hasty good-byes. Vaso pressed bunches of aromatic mountain tea into our hands as we crossed her threshhold into the starry night.

Today when I reach for it in my own kitchen, the sweet smell brings back our brush with decadence and danger, and what was truly a meal to remember.

©Cinda Chavich

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