ForewordThe foods you will find in this book are the ones I like to cook every day or on special occasions, traditional and contemporary dishes that I love to eat. I collected many of them on summer vacations and special trips, others were given to me by great island cooks, and quite a few were handed down to me from my family, originally from the islands of the Cyclades.I learned to cook from my mother, my grandmother and my aunt. Even before going to school, I remember shelling peas in the large kitchen of my grandfathers old house, which had a wood-burning cooking stove with a large hood over it. I was too short to reach the sink and had to stand on a stool in order to rinse and trim the wild greens or wash the dishes. I would help my aunt roll bitter orange peels and thread them like a necklace when she made her rolled bitter-orange preserves. My mother taught me how to prepare the artichokes that overran our garden. My younger sister and I always helped shape the Christmas honey cookies. We learned how to remove the stones from cherries using a hairpin-there were no special instruments for that then-and we looked on as my mother scaled and gutted all the many kinds of fish my father brought from the port of Piraeus, where he worked. Watching my grandfather slaughter a hen with a small ax was traumatic, and we would cover our eyes as the hen flapped, headless, around the yard. But the dark-fleshed, chewy meat we cooked in stews or soups was so much more flavorful than that of the pallid, sickly looking chicken we eat today. Both my mothers and fathers families trace their roots to the islands: My father comes from Andros, my mother from Kea. I grew up on the outskirts of Athens, beside a large garden next to my mothers familys house. Nikitas Patiniotis, my grandfather from Kea, was a handsome and remarkable man. Calm, loving and compassionate, he often went as far as to buy the worst, almost rotten vegetables from the greengrocer who passed each day with his mule. This made my grandmother furious.He is a poor man, Anna, and if we dont buy them, who will? I remember him saying to her apologetically. My grandfather taught me all about the different wild greens -how and when to collect them. He spoke to me about all the plants of the garden, relating the story of the fragrant bay, once a beautiful woman. He identified the various insects for me, explaining how they lived and what they ate, insisting that there are no bad and good creatures but that each fulfills a purpose.When I was fourteen, we left our house in the country and went to live in a flat in the center of Athens. Ever since, I have longed to return to the country. Now that we have purchased a house on the island of Kea, I feel I have come full circle. Traveling from island to island, reading old books and kitchen ledgers, researching history and customs and building friendships with island cooks have made me proud of my origins. This book is not an encyclopedia of Greek island Excerpted from The Foods of the Greek Islands: Cooking and Culture at the Crossroads of the Mediterranean by Aglaia Kremezi All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
