Tag: tradition

Easter at a distance

Quarantine Culinary Connections Through Cultural Expressions

Easter is a thing. In Greece it’s a big thing. I can’t describe it in any other way; but as the most important religious holiday of the year. Christmas has nothing on Easter. Christmas is an American construct, Greek Easter is a religious and pagan ritual. Most Greeks just stick to the copious food and wine of the obligatory break to the 40 day long lent, that follows the days of distance from meat (aka Apokries) between February and April. Easter is a time of celebration and rejoicing following a time of renewal, rest, and (νηστεία- lent) that certainly dates back to the ancient Hellenic rituals cleaning before the coming of spring. It is a culmination of a journey from one pagan/christian holiday to another.

Easter is a huge thing in the Greek community of any major American City. Among Greeks Easter or Pascha is a unifier. We all celebrate it in small and big ways. I’ve never intentionally set foot in a church, I’m not religious and I’m largely a vegetarian and hardly drink but like so many others absolutely love Easter. Greek Easter is defined by three things meat wine and red eggs; plus a dash of spirit (yes the holy one). During this time of quarantine and self isolation, I wanted to find a way to bring the tradition of Easter Sunday lunch which turns into dinner, story telling, music playing and drinking into this time of quarantine and isolation. This year has been incredibly different, difficult and eye opening.

Easter is a time of gathering. Not just to “receive the holy light”, not only to gather in a church and listen to the midnight sermon, not just to eat the thick, hot aromatic leek, liver and entrails soup (served at the stroke of midnight on Sunday, but to be together with dear friends and lovers, family and people you care about. It’s about community, conversation, deep embraces and kisses on the cheek with the slight aftertaste of wine, salt and lamb grease. Easter is about flavors, music, and a promise of a bountiful summer. This year despite that aching feeling of isolation and lack of human interaction; didn’t feel any different. These things can still be shared, despite the distance.

I woke up this past Sunday morning with a strange joy I’ve not felt in a long time, because of Easter. Yes I the atheist vegetarian needed, wanted this connection with ritual, tradition and belief, plus lamb and potatoes in the oven (aka Αρνί με πατάτες στο φούρνο). This dish is synonymous, in its many different renditions with traditional Easter Day fare. Lamb on a spit or in the oven if you live in a city, is Easter on a plate. This time of quarantine has given me a chance to explore things that I’ve needed and wanted to understand better for myself, through the lens of forced separation from my community.

before

Easter is about family. The one you are born into and the one that you acquire along the way. We gather and share in this tradition, with those we love and cherish the most.

Easter is inclusive. Regardless of religion or belief, people gather to be together and share food and copious wine (I must stress this) with anyone who wants to be included.

after

Easter is about being close, about sharing stories into the late afternoon, before you take one last swig of wine, watching the sun quickly vanish into the horizon. While savoring the last morsel of potato covered in lamb grease that you will probably heat up again next week, you lick your fingers and taste just one last rush of thyme, rosemary and garlic; you promise yourself that next year, your embraces will linger a little longer, your stories will be that much more rich and the tradition regardless of our belief is there to bring us just a little closer.

Χρόνια πολλά….

More tomorrow from the quarantine diaries.

Day 3. – The deep unhappiness of being a Greek

How to explain a complex culture to those who only want to see its post card version.

One of the things I could never quite grasp is the degree of separation between living, growing up and being an Athenian Greek, and the idea of what Greeks are to the majority of the American public. Most will only get to see Greece in the summer, on a all catered vacation or on a cruise, but for me and for most of my fellow countrymen and women, we are inexplicably burdened with the idea others have of us and the deep everyday sadness of being a Greek. To most we are a tourist destination, broken down into easy to digest pieces, for those not really interested in getting the see the full picture of what it means to live in, love, leave, long to return to, and navigate this crazy wonderful and deeply infuriating land. One thing is for certain, we’re far more than just a destination wedding, all expenses paid vacation spot. We are not just Greek Yogurt and Feta and breaking plates and sunsets off a glitzy resort hotel. We don’t use Windex and we don’t all live next to our families. These are stereotypes I’ve often had to fight against and have had some pretty crazy discussions over. Seeing a caricature version of our culture for entertainment; being the only thing most Americans can think to ask me about when I speak to them about Greece really drives me bonkers. I loath My Big Fat Greek Wedding (there I said it)

Being born and raised in Greece, and having grown up in the United States for most of my teenage years; I have been given a unique perspective, and license to sit on the outside looking in. When I was in my 20’s I returned to Athens, determined to reclaim my “Greekness”, because one thing Greeks have always been touchy about is how Greek you really are. I never wanted to feel like an outsider even thought in retrospect I’ve always been one. Instead of being stigmatized by it, I chose to use this outsider status to my advantage, because being on the outside looking in, gave me a competitive advantage to speak about my country through the eyes of a Greek who loves America and an American who will always and forever be in love with every morsel of Greece.

The burden we carry can never be understood by anyone other than a fellow Greek, or in the case of many expat Americans I grew up with (first and foremost my mother) a philhellene. Moving to Greece as a foreigner takes commitment, and a touch of crazy. Who the hell would want to leave their highly organized public service, guaranteed pensions, proper public transport, and clean roads to come life in Athens? Most of the foreign born Greeks I know would never tolerate such a madhouse, but the Americans, Germans, British, Egyptians, Nigerians, Turks, Albanians, French, Italians, Iranians, Lebanese, Israelis I know gave their whole heart to Greece, and quite simply fell in love forever. We know, they know, we don’t have to explain. This deeply routed pain of separation that we feel and the inexplicable frustration with the politics, the ingrained “backwardness”, the disorganization, the instability; that will never change, and quite frankly is something we can’t do without. We are bipolar. Anarchists and anti establishment, at heart with a longing for everything to work just like it does in Europe or the States, and all those countries where Greeks immigrated to from the beginning of time till now. We are also deeply proud, deeply wounded by our identity because it is the same thing that pushes us away and the exact same feeling, like a magnetic force calls us back, no matter how many years we’ve been away.

We crave discord and passion and messiness because life is messy and disorganized. Nothing can be too perfect, because perfect is simply not real. The mainframe of every Greek comes with a fatal flaw, an Achilles heal if you will. Every Greek is equal parts ashamed and equal parts fanatical about our heritage and our nationality. I for one hate the idea of Greek transplants recreating a life outside of Greece that can in no way be as authentic or real, and at the same time dream of the smell of the sea shore near the Saronic Golf and the view from the Temple of Poseidon on a moonlit night. But those things are not in your every day guidebooks and travel blogs because tourists aren’t interested in them. My secret Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, Thessaloniki, Crete, Naxos, Paros, Folegandros, Astypalaia, Chios, Mytilene, Serres, Konitsa, Meteora, Gavdos, Rodos, Chania, Rethymno, Hydra, Spetses, Patmos and the list goes on is in the everyday and uneventful but most importantly in the feeling that when you stop and listen, those places have something to tell you, a unique and heartbreaking story.

To be continued…

Un-Conventional Traditions

How food, culture and traditions carry us into un-conventional interpretations.  

Traditions are what bring us and keep us together. They shape who we are and how we view the world. We adopt them without question and often times without fully understanding what they might mean to us. Traditions are more often than not bound to history, cultural connections and familial ritual. How do we appropriate traditions to our modern life? Do we mold them to our non traditional lives and reconnect with them in new ways or do we embrace their old world wisdom and try to re discover them for ourselves?

Long ago when trying to discover my own personal identity as a Greek-American, I had a plethora of traditions to draw from. Most were passed down to me from my Greek grandmother Eleni and my great grand mother Angela, and another from my American grandmother Pauline and her English, German family. Mixing Sauerkraut with Dolma and Eggplant Salad with traditional home made macaroni and cheese was quite the site in my Greek upbringing. Believing in the evil eye and cleansing your energy which is deeply ingrained in Ancient Classical Greek pagan traditions, with the idea of faith in a higher power and spiritual traditions connected to working hard and getting ahead by your own bootstraps was like playing a tug of spiritual/ belief war. I wanted to understand all of these traditions for myself and embrace them on my own terms

How do we transform traditions and make them our own.

For the first time in my dual Greek/American life while living and cooking in both countries for many years, I made a traditional new year’s day cake/pie called Vasilopita (Βασιλόπιτα). In Greece, cutting the Vasilopita marks a traditional start to the new year. Some households choose to make one, either from an old family recipe, or from the many variations that you can find online. Based on any given region of Greece you might find yourself in; the recipe differs greatly but the general idea is a cake that’s sweet, tender, dunk-able in coffee, and always must have a lucky coin. Each version of this “pie” is carefully embellished, to show the uniqueness and the personal touch of each household. In recent years, and throughout my childhood and adulthood, it’s become more prevalent to order them from one of Athens’ more famous bakeries and avoid the hassle and many hours of preparation. This year I got over my trepidation of making a cake from scratch and consulted my old grandmother’s Tselemedes (cook book) along with some recipes online to make my own home made version.

The result, not only surprised me but gave a much deeper meaning to sharing and creating this tradition for myself. My grandmother never taught me how to make this particular recipe but for all intents and purposes it came out beautifully. A labor of love, mixed in with nostalgia, tradition, personal traditions and a lot of humor. See video link below.

Vasilopita Cutting 2019

I’m not religious in any way and don’t adhere to or subscribe to the Greek Orthodox church I was baptized in, but for whatever reason – inexplicably so, I rejoiced in cutting each piece and sharing it with my friends and loved ones. In the end, each tradition has its roots in uniting people and rituals; be it bringing in the new year, turning 15, becoming an adult, graduating, creating a household, and sharing a meal with those you love. Personal traditions paired with those passed down to us; make for incredible insight into how much closer and connected we are than we think. From Vasilopita in Greece to King Cake in New Orleans, to Rosca de Reyes in Mexico, to Panettone in Italy, and Galette des Rois in France, our personal traditions find a global connection.

P.S We all get the coin in the end.