Special Occasions

Sunday dinner always included meat, pork in the winter and kid, lamb or veal during the rest of the year. The most celebrated dish was veal with quince and plums, a food with a refined, slightly sour flavour. Everyday homemade meals were more frugal, with legumes, vegetables, 'grivadi' fish with onions, or soup, or even chicken with tomato sauce or potatoes or'petoura' (egg noodles), which together with 'trachana' (frumenty) were the main pasta of the local cuisine. The meal, however, always included delicious appetizers, 'gavopsara' (fried pickled eggplant), sausages with leeks, fried or grilled 'batsio' cheese, 'stegnes' (dried) tomatoes, 'tsigarides' (type of pork fat), garlic caviar, meatballs in brine with 'batsio' cheese and more, which accompanied the required "introductory" arrack ('tsipouro') and, after that, the dry wine.

The traditional festive Christmas meal was based on pork -from the pig slaughtered at that time of year, which was later cured so as to provide meat all winter long. The pork meat was cooked with leek, celery or cabbage and it was used to make 'sarmades' (pork-stuffed cabbage leaves), sausages, 'tiganies' (stir-fries), and 'tsigarides'. At Easter, a kid goat, raised on mulberry leaves and corn, was slaughtered and roasted in the oven with fresh scallions. Lamb was roasted on the spit on the Second day of Easter only, and celebrations were organized at the property of each family.