Greece – Food – Part 1.
July 25th 2005
Since food was really one of the largest elements on the entire trip, as social glue at the communal supper, rewards on work breaks when out fieldwalking, treats at the end of the day, etc., it is fitting that food is the subject of the first of my articles on my trip to Greece. It’s long, I had a lot to say, so here is Part 1 of 3. – Kate
When James told Sach and I that our thoughts would soon turn to food, including exhaustive discussions about what one would like to be eating at that very moment; significant discourse about favourite meals; and large tangential rhapsodies about food in general, I was skeptical. Very skeptical in fact.
Mind you, the threads of that conversation began while we were still in London and Athens, lingering over pleasing and satisfying meals. The full reality hadn’t sunk in yet, as we were still wrapped up in exuberance over actually going on the trip after waiting for so long to find out. I think I fully entered the moment the night Olly began waxing effusively about Beef Wellington with a Duxelle of Mushrooms and Shallots as we desultorily picked at the horiatiki at Myronas’ taverna. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Sach and James enjoy food a lot. I felt like a gustatory neophyte upon first meeting up with them. I was not feeling well the first couple days into the voyage, and to me, it seemed as though we ate all the time. No sooner had the last sip and nibble been consumed, crumbs brushed away, wrappers discarded, than it was time to eat again. I always thought I had a relatively normal appetite, but I was humbled by these two (and amazed at how they both can stay so thin). I suspect that we must have two different coping mechanisms when traveling. My appetite shuts right down when I am tired, and I suspect that their metabolic forge must crank up a notch in order to compensate for the tired feeling. Either that or a tapeworm.
That being said, I think I gave a credible effort on my part at the vast array of foods I consumed during my time away. The only way to conceptualise the food situation during my trip is to compartmentalise it. The reason for this will become clear.
The way I think about food falls into: Breakfast, Lunch, Supper at Myronas’, Treats, Travelling Food, and finally, Kythera/Athens.
Breakfasts
Breakfasts on site were strangely satisfying, even though they were often rushed and a bit haphazard. I would get up around 5:30am, and by 6am, we would start setting out the breakfast things. Ever hopeful, the hotel cats would begin to slink from their various foxholes and cluster around the table at the first signs of life.
Breakfasts generally comprised some kind of base, a spread, and a topping. The bases we had to choose from were paksomathia and bread. Paksomathia (I have no idea how this is spelled) is a local delicacy from Kithera, and it consists of dry slices of bread that have been toasted and soaked in olive oil. They are very crisp and have a rich, full, oily flavour that is ineffably satisfying. They also don’t go stale, which is a blessing. We also had fresh loaves of bread, which come in on the ferry. A nightly ritual at Myronas’ after supper was buying bread for the next day.
Unfortunately, the bread was often frozen or a bit stale by the time it passed through the local economic system to us, and as such I pretty much would concentrate on the paksomathia for breakfast and save the bread for lunch.
On top of the bread I would put a large spoonful of Greek yogourt. This was wonderful. Rich, thick consistency, creamy, milder in taste than yogourt found in Canada. On top of the yogourt I would then put some kind of topping. We had apricot jam, strawberry jam, and honey for toppings. My favourite combination was paksomathia, yogourt and strawberry jam, although the honey was really nice as well. Sometimes there would also be fresh fruit like nectarines or peaches. Most of us horded these like gold and saved them for breaks and lunches.
A bit after I would get up in the morning, Sach would have coffee started in the War Room, and I usually would beg a cup then. I don’t normally drink coffee, but I did drink a fair amount on this trip. Some days I felt like a bit of a slow starter, and the caffeine helped!
Lunch
Before I talk about lunches in general, I want to relate my first field lunch experience. I was on a team of 3 men and another woman, and we spent the morning covering a fairly large number of tracts. By the time lunch rolled around, we were all pretty hungry. The lunch things were duly unpacked and…there’s nothing like sitting on a rock in full sun after 5 hours of hot work, leaning back against a rusty fence and gnawing on a dry crust of bread to make one second-guess a month long trip (Exaggerated for literary effect, for it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was kind of grim).
Things consumed on Kate’s very first field lunch on Antikythera:
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We really didn’t have enough food that day. Rations were increased, and things did get better, although foraging for lunch materials became a bit of a prized skill. Being asked to assemble lunch meant you had the confidence of your team that you would not only get the bare minimum, but you would trade, barter, borrow and beg to supplement the rations as well. I was asked to Quartermaster a couple times, and I knew I had gotten the formula right when one day I had BOTH tins of food left over, as everyone was too full to eat them. Happy day for the team I was with next!
Lunches usually consisted of a selection of items from this main grouping, with my taste rating beside them:
Tinned beans in tomato sauce (Good, although most people hated these.)
Tinned beans in dilled tomato sauce (Good, hated slightly less by everyone else.)
Tinned moussaka (Good if you thought of it as Food Product That Happens To Be In A Can And Is Almost But Not Entirely Completely Unlike Moussaka. Sach and I were the only two who really ate this.)
Tinned dolmathas (Good! Some were minty, some not. Bright green oil left in tin is good on bread.)
Tinned sardines in tomato sauce (Good! No one else liked these much.)
Tinned pork meat (Did not try. Very dubious mechanically separated meat with a picture of a smiling cartoon pig. Aaron ate a whole tin of it by himself.)
Tinned squid in ‘natural brine’ (Or, as Katie said, “the juices that they died in.”) (Did not try.)
Tinned luncheon meat (Did not try. Regent’s Brand, with “Hot Dutch Girl” on label.)
Tinned tuna (Good. The oil packed stuff was much better than water packed. It all becomes about the oil.)
Tinned mackerel (Did not try.)
Boiled eggs (Best Lunch Ever!)
Unnatural Bologna (This was a large tube of luncheon meat with big chunks of white fat. I swore I would never touch this. I don’t know what crack I was on but I actually ate a large chunk of this one day. It was warm, and had large quantities of oil seeping out of it. I don’t know why I ate it, but I am trying to block the memory. It was gristly and…what was I talking about?)
Luncheon Tube “Ham” (I swore I would never eat this and I kept that vow.)
Dry Salami (Pretty good. The peppery one was the best.)
Feta cheese (Good!)
Edam cheese (Appeared once as a treat. I didn’t have any.)
Gouda cheese (Appeared once as a treat. Good!)
Bread (Mainstay. Good for dipping in tins, and acting like a trencher.)
Paksomathia (Good!)
Tomato (Good!)
Cucumber (Good!)
Nectarines (Good!)
Peaches (Good!)
Lunch would usually be 2 tins, cheese, meat of some kind, bread, paksomathia, a tomato, part of a cucumber and a few nectarines or peaches. James and I embarked on a bit of a social experiment with the lunch tins, as we would send odd or less delectable items out with preferred items and then we’d see if the odd items would come back. The tinned luncheon meat went out 4 times before Aaron’s team finally ate it. Conclusions reached at the end of the research trials seem to indicate a significant correlation between the number of choices presented and the preferential selection of foodstuff.
| “The Hot Dutch Girl luncheon meat was pretty good.” — Aaron. |
Best Lunch Ever. One night, James stayed up very late boiling eggs on a little camp stove (which had the dodgiest gas cannister ever, and we had to build a wind shield of P-trap boxes from the construction debris) and the next day’s lunch was the best ever. Sitting in shade, on a non-pointy rock, and eating a boiled egg while there was a breeze blowing from the sea was one of the most sublime experiences I have ever had. I think I had begun to succumb to the Dream of Food even then.
Part 2 continues with ‘Supper at Myronas’ and Treats’.