Kalanta-singing, Hogmanay Traditions, More Derivations and Artistic Attempts.

You’ll be glad to hear my symptoms have almost retreated, so no more nasty poems - I promise.   

The last day of 2013 was busy with preparations to celebrate the turn of the year. I tend to go into a manic clean-up phase so that the new year arrives to find our homestead spick, span, spruce and gleaming.

 A welcome break from chores : our neighbours, Maria and Marina, come to sing the Kalanta. While the Christmas songs, much like the carols, focus mainly on the lowly birth and express festive greetings, the New Year Kalanta can vary from place to place. They usually mention Aghios Vasilis, Saint Basil, whose name-day is celebrated on January 1^st and it is traditionally he who brings the children gifts on New Year’s Eve. The content common to all is the wish that the new year bring health and happiness to the residents of the house being visited. Despite a missing front-tooth and the balloon being a poor substitute for the traditional triangle, the girls sang us the Kalanta with gusto, charm and a great degree of cuteness. 

In return Kalanta singers receive the traditional gift of coins and sweets and of those one of the most popular is the traditional  melomakarona , or ‘honey cookies’ as the Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook describes them. Like shortbread in the Scottish Highlands, this is a delicious sweet which around Christmas and New Year is to be found in every household as a welcoming treat for visitors. 

The story of its apparent derivation is interesting: one component is meli – honey which, along with orange juice, helps to give these cookies their rich, luscious taste.  (The other ingredients are usually butter, sugar, oil, flour and grated lemon rind, with chopped walnuts for a final smothering - a marvellous melange!) The makarona, however uncovers a more complex explication. One suggestion is that it comes from the Greek of the Middle-Ages, makaronia, a food based on a flour dough which was prepared to honour the deceased, the makaritis.

 Whether our present-day sweet resembled its earlier namesake in appearance or shared similar ingredients has been lost in both culinary and linguistic mists. It is all hypothesis, but fascinating, nonetheless. There are only a few on the plate below and I have to ‘fess up:  we had already eaten most of them!

So here are the melomakarona along with home-made shortbread – a great cultural amalgam, right?- and some liqueurs made from our very own produce: mint and pomegranate.

                                                         

Recently our Hogmanay habit has been to have neighbours over for a Reveillant. Just before midnight, Ioannis sings for his supper by going outside while we switch off all the lights to send the old year off. His first task is to smash the dried pomegranate thereby conferring on us health and prosperity. Apparently the greater the ensuing mess, the more seeds spattered over my balcony tiles, the richer the blessing- and Ioannis really lobbed that thing.

 Next he lights the candle to symbolically bring in the ‘wee bairn’ of the year and we will then switch the lights back on and wish each other the very best. In Scotland the first-foot traditionally brings sweets, something alcoholic and a piece of coal or wood – thus symbolically ensuring the household will have food, drink and warmth throughout the year. The candle serves the warmth requirement, but Ioannis, from Serres, also follows his own family tradition and brings us a nice smooth stone. I understand this is to wish that the walls of your house remain stout and true. To me this seems to echo the final stanza of the Christmas Kalanta which says: 

 In this house where we’ve come

May no stone crack

And may the householder

 Live to a ripe old age.

Needless to say, our first- foot, having assiduously followed those poly-ethnic traditions, is the first to sample the treats pictured above.

 This year I have added charcoal as a ‘combustible alternative’ – more artistic than a lump of coal and relevant for me as in autumn I began attending art classes, a treat I’ve been promising myself for a while.  

 Being a beginner is always full of fun and frustration; add messy into the mix and that’s about the size of me with drawing or painting  materials. One technique we’ve been practising is to black out the entire sheet of paper with charcoal and ‘draw’ your subject by removing the colour with a putty rubber.  Below is an early attempt at representing a classical Greek profile. My initial effort looked much too effeminate – the hair didn’t help. So I changed the nose and chin to give a stronger, more pronounced profile. The outcome resembled the nasty puppet Mr Punch; his Anatolian near-equivalent, shadow–theatre puppet, Karakiozis; or even a wicked witch, without the chin-hair. This current version is slightly improved after softening said features a little. Recently a cousin saw it and asked if it was Alexander the Great. Eleni, I love you for your perceptiveness, imagination and ….kindness!  

 But my charcoal drawing is just a tad too monotone an image to end on, so here is a cheerier image: our Christmas cactus got its timing perfect this year and was a blaze of glorious blooms all through the festive season.

Maria K, thank you for joining us and welcome to our merry band of followers.

 May 2014 bring you all everything you could wish for. 

Winter Solstice, Pathetic Politicians, Greek derivation and a Sonnet to Sinusitis.

The Winter Solstice, or for those of you in the Southern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice, occurred on Saturday 21^st December at 19.11, Lamia time, to be precise. I guess Lamia was nominated as being an approximate geographic centre of Greece.  At any rate, from now on we can take heart – our days are gradually beginning to lengthen.  

 This posting you’ll be glad to hear, has no travel tittle-tattle; we’ll have a break from breaks.

 First, our news. H is a canny customer and decided paying road tax for two cars was too much, so he surrendered to the tax office the registration plates of one car, effectively taking it off the road. Many have taken the same steps recently to save money.  Imagine, then, our surprise on hearing that Michael Liapis, a well-known politician of the Karamanlis dynasty, had been apprehended for: failing to halt at a stop sign, driving without insurance, and for having false number plates.  Now you would expect such a person to behave with more dignity – but the real irony is that he was Minister of Transport, no less, from 2004 to 2007! He recently declared an annual income of 109, 000 euros, so I guess he could afford the 1,300 euro road tax.  But the fact that he had his trial delayed while he went off on a luxury holiday to Asia was definitely a case of ……now what is that word the Greeks have for it ? ….ah, yes : hubris.

 By the way, another politician, Aleka Papriga, declared an income of 70, 612 euros, but a bank credit of 50 euros. Now I realize that Communists are not greatly into property and wealth, and Aleka has only this year given up her position as General Secretary of the Communist Party, a position she held since 1991. But doesn’t that sound as if either she’s having us on or is an exceptionally poor financial manager?

Next topic: derivations. I’ve always been interested in those terms we use in English which derive from Greek but where the senses generated in the two languages have diverged over time. H is equally interested in things linguistic and these are his findings. Today’s word is sycophant, adj.: a servile flatterer (the more usual sense in English) or a common informer (this one being more in line with what the Greek word conveys) – i.e. a snitch with an agenda!

 The derivation that is suggested is as follows:  In the ancient times, trading rights were carefully restricted and protected. This was true for trading in figs, an important Attican crop. Greeks have apparently always been ready to bend and stretch rules, so under-the-counter fig-trade did take place. The sycophant, then, was the one who rumbled an illicit fig-merchant, whether his claim was substantiated or not.

Finally, as you may know, I pen the odd poem from time to time – whenever something bothers me or touches me, that is, when something gets me or gets to me.

 For the past two weeks, rather than saying I have had sinusitis, I can say that it definitely held me in its relentless grip.  A life-long sufferer – a consultant once told me it was a question of bad design and poor choice of parents – I have not been through such a bad, prolonged bout before. My illness coincided with a period of test preparation I was doing with an ear, nose and throat surgeon. Try saying her specialization – otorhinolaryngology - when suffering from nasal congestion!

So it was inevitable that an opus was produced – it’s not for the faint-hearted and probably best read before ingesting copious quantities of Christmas fare! Anyway, since it is, as it were, right up your street, Aleka, this poem I dedicate to you!

A Sonnet to Sinusitis

The first foreboding symptom is when your throat begins to burn

 Then, like Charlie’s Chocolate Factory, the mucus machines begin to turn

 But when the sinus sluice-gates get inflamed and become plugged

That’s when you know that virus has finally got you slugged.

However you wish to describe them:

Enraged, inflamed or engulfed

Your sinuses front, maxillary and sphenoid

Are well and truly stuffed

You blow your nose with vigour,

Causing cavities to squeak

As the gunge spreads out to fill the space

Left by sputum vented through mouth and beak

It’s  thick, claggy and viscous

And may even be the colour of bile

  But mostly it’s diaphanous

 And absolutely vile.

And when this discharge, effluent, gob descends

 As it does from every cranny and recess,

It is, of course, essential to have

 Hankies within easy access.

You hack and cough to clear your pharynx

Then the virus decides to attack your larynx

 With control no longer over pitch rise and fall

 Your rasping sounds like an obscene phone-call.

So, have a happy festive time –

Avoid the twerking Miley Cyrus-

But most of all make it very clear

You want no virulent virus

 Have fun, drink lots of eggnog and punch

 And have a well-earned rest

And of all these great gifts you receive

Your health will be the best!

                     We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Joyous New Year !

Bad Tourism, Bracelets, Bears and Booze

Autumn in Greece is a lovely season when the sun transforms itself  from white-hot to a much more comfortable,mellow yellow. H and I took ourselves off to a sea-side resort in the south-west, to Prevesa Beach Hotel. We lucked out as we were right next to the stairwell and so our ‘room’ was actually a suite : we had a nicely decorated room and bathroom ….. and a lovely spacious sitting room as well – no complaints from us! 

     

 

  

                      

I remember years ago, while I was orally examining an IELTS candidate from Halkidiki, being surprised to hear her talk about ‘bad tourists’.  How could foreign visitors bringing cash into Greece possibly be bad? She was referring to those who came on pre-paid all-in package tours and who, to her mind, were bad since their cash was channeled almost exclusively into the host hotel rather than spread out across the other catering or retail outlets in the area. Seems to me if the hotel management has shown the initiative and made the effort to offer such packages and attract such tourists in the first place, then they are entitled to as much of that income pie as they wish!  

  Anyway, in her eyes we were there as ‘bad tourists’ – the minute we checked in at reception we were presented with red plastic bracelets to indicate we were guests there on full board.

 At the Pizza Hut in Kuwait, I used to suppose some of the locals could be up for Guinness Book of Records entry for how much food they could pack into the single, smallish bowls each customer could fill from the salad bar. And there was a real art involved in stashing as much in there as you could:

The trick was to fill the base with any ‘loose’ ingredients – rice, kidney beans, sweetcorn,beetroot, etc.. Round the sides of the bowl you next constructed a ‘wall’ of carrot, celery or cucumber slices or batons to hold content nicely in place. This you then fill with potato salad, tsatziki, taramas, etc. -   a nice         sticky layer into which the rest of your selected food could then be wedged – ingenious, huh ? 

 At Prevesa Beach Hotel, piled-high plates were greatly in evidence at breakfast, lunch and dinner  as guests  took full advantage of the generous buffet on offer for every meal. And between meals in the pool areas and in the lounges there were snacks and drinks available as well as an endless supply of ice-cream.  At times watching what some greedy gutsies were downing was tantamount to undergoing   food-aversion therapy.

Despite the fact that  the chefs  were catering for so many people, the quality of food was really good. Being a Brit, I am always keen to sample a cooked breakfast, so each lunchtime I resolved to have only a salad. But each buffet invariably held something to tempt me: memorable were the rabbit stew and the spinach and artichokes with cheese and a creamy bechamel topping – delicious ! Just as well we had the sea and swimming pools  astone’s throw from our room so we could attempt to work off some of these calories by swimming or walking in the beautiful grounds and surrounds.  

 

 

     The sign on the employees’ sitting room door did not, I think, express the fact that management saw personnel as inanimate objects – at any rate, as you can see above, they were a cheery bunch, ever ready to be of service.  My only complaint was that on two occasions  I eagerly went to the basement gym ready to participate in Pilates and traditional Greek dance as advertised, but nothing came of them. They said there was no interest in them, but a little bit of  promotion could well have done the trick. I am an avid brochure reader, but most people were unaware these activities were on offer. 

 

  On our last evening we had sundowners on the terrace overlooking the sea, and learned that management had  a treat in store for us : instead of the usual dinner buffet, they had laid on a barbecue. We had some excellent and plenteous (as ever!) roasted meats, salads and sweets . Thank goodness they had organised  live music as well so we took advantage of that and got some post-prandial exercise into the bargain.

 

                      

Although it was way past her bedtime, this little mite below was having the time of her life, Dad-dancing. She went on for ages, bobbing up and down in time to the music, with her chubby cheeks creased in a wonderful smile.  Actually, proud papa looked as if he was having a pretty good time too. 

 

                    

So sated, in every sense of the word, we left the hotel, travelling north through a warren of tunnels hewn through the mountains. This one is over four kilometres long – a definite feat of engineering but not for those with serious claustrophobia. 

         On the road, we see my favourite sign warning drivers that they are driving through the natural habitat of the bear ( a tunnel constructed just to protect them)  – so what is that symbol of a graceful gazelle doing there ? !

 We by-pass Ioannina and head for Metzovo, a picturesque mountain village. When you see how some of the village houses appear to hover over the crevasse below, you realize that this place is not for those who suffer from vertigo to make their home. I shudder to think how one gets about on these roads during the inevitable winter freeze.

                              

 

                                      

  

                     

 Our goal there is to visit the Katogi Averoff winery surrounded by beautiful houses in the traditional style, nestling in mountains which are part of the Pindos range.   A son of Metzovon, Evangelos Averoff was a well-known politician. Initially, in an effort to boost the finances of his home area,   in the late 1950s, he brought the first Cabernet Sauvignon grapes to Greece. Breaking new ground, both literally and metaphorically, he blended these grapes with traditional Greek strains to produce his famous Katogi red.  We may have arrived in shorts and T-s but we are here to stock up our cellar with winter reds. A particular favourite of H’s is Ktima Averoff, a rich red of mainly Cabernet Sauvignon grapes.  The sales-lady suggests we try a new blend, Augustos, which uses some grapes from the Peloponnese area. 

 

         Who are we to argue?   We’re planning to have a warming winter – cheers !