Photo from
the internet: Solar cooking at CantinaWest
While you can see snow glistening on one of the
mountain peaks in Turkey and temperatures on Lesvos have dived, the sun is
still trying to keep the frost out of the earth. But last night I put on my
warmest clothes and sat outside to see the stars falling. Well, in fact it was
not stars falling last night, but space debris, coming from the meteor Geminides.
When I had lost track of the number of flares crossing the sky, I went back to
my warm bed, not waiting for the highlight of this meteor shower, because it
really was much too cold to stay outside.
And while I was sitting under those twinkling lights I
thought that this sky is a world that could never be lost, even though so many
stars or debris are falling out of it. And I do hope the same for beautiful
Greece. I mean the Hellenic people have already existed for thousands of years.
Now they are living through a black spot in their history: a crisis touching so
many Greeks in their hearts and in their wallets. In Holland they complain that
the Dutch are reining in their spending, here in Greece the people do not even have
money to spend.
To economize is the big thing these days
for everybody. Shops in Mytilini are barely decorated for Christmas and it is
hard to find any luxury items in the food stores (or were they already sold
out?). Here the wood stove does its best to keep the house warm. This way, I
too I economize on gas, electricity and on fuel, which cost this year has risen
by 50 %. Lots of people have already bought a woodstove and I am sure illegal
logging will increase this winter. People have rediscovered using olive pits to
heat, like they did in earlier times. They are now delivered as an alternative
and cheaper fuel for central heating. They also sell olive pits compressed in
blocks for wood burners and olive pits can be turned into a bio fuel for cars.
Let’s hope that a smart Greek is buying all the olive pits at all the olive
presses here on the island and starts a business with it. As far as I know at the
moment there is only one business on the island selling these olive pits for
the central heating and he sold out his merchandise pretty quickly.
A woodstove is a nice way to economize. Apart
from it giving warmth, you can use it to warm up food; preparing food when you
have a woodstove with an oven, you can bake bread, pizzas and cakes at any time
of the day.
But there are more ways to economize while
cooking. In the poor, warm third world countries (and Greece is on its way to
re-enter this category) there is experimentation with solar cooking. With
mirrors or silver plated panes the warmth of the sun is directed to a central
place where you can place a cooker. Just imagine a satellite dish, plated with
tinfoil, directed to the sun. In the middle an iron frame keeps a boiling pot
and in it you cook. The solar cooking box does the same,
but seems to me more practical: a box with mirror sides and the cooking pot is
placed at the inside.
In the winter it may be that solar cooking
is not possible. Imagine you plan a dinner and there is no sun for the whole
day. Then you have to use an open fire, or the hot ashes in a
firepit. The drums of old washing machines are easily turned into a fire pit or
outside stove: just put an oven grid over the opening and there you can put your
cooking pans. But make sure that this pan is fire resisting!
One of the eldest pans used to cook on an
open fire was called a Dutch
oven. These are heavy iron cast pans that could last
for generations, made in Holland. In the nineteenth century they were indispensable
and popular amongst the pioneers going to America in search of a new life.
People living in the city can’t always
make an open fire, nor use a wood stove. But even without fire or sun it is
possible to economize while cooking. The hay
box is a box or basket where you place a pan
with food in the middle, fill it up with hay and or woollen blankets and the
food gets done because the hay and/or blankets will keep the warmth. In Holland
they developed a modern hay box, a large upside down tea-cozy, which is a joy
to have in the kitchen and is called a hay-madam.
This week I didn’t manage to experiment
with young thistles, nor with mushrooms but I have some other Christmas menus
which are composed of dishes from my cookbook Almost Greek. I am not sure if you can prepare them all in the above mentioned
cooking fashions, because I imagine that these alternative ways of cooking need
some practice. But there are enough ideas to set yourself to work. The
vegetarian menu I gave in last week’s column Rain, mushrooms and a Christmas menu. Here are a meat and fish menu for Christmas.
Almost Greek meat menu for Christmas
Starter:
Fig-livermousse
+
Chestnut
bread rolls
In between:
Peach in
champagne
Main
course:
Rabit with
mushroom sauce
+
Vegetables
with pesto
+
Potato
pancakes with herbs
Dessert:
Mud from
Heaven with figs
Finishing
dinner with:
Quince
liqueur
Almost
Greek fish menu for Christmas
Starter:
Spinach
omelettes with shellfish ragout
In between:
Kir-pommegranate
Main
course:
Pasta with
asparagus-shrimp sauce
+
Carrot
salad with almonds
+
Broad Bean
Dip Sauce
+
Olive bread
Dessert:
Red jelly
pudding
Finishing
with:
Fresh
apricot bonbons
+
Orange
liqueur
(the recipe
of orange liqueur is not in the book)
- The cookbook Almost Greek is available through the website Smitaki (in Dutch, English and German), in the shop 1912 (Lisa) in Molyvos (Lesvos, Greece), at the bookstore ΜΟΥΤΑΦΗΣ at Ermou 11 in Mytilini (in English), the book can be paged through at Cafe Joke at Omirou 13, Athens and the Dutch edition is for sale in different book-and cookshops in Holland.
(with thanks to Mary Staples)
@ Smitaki 2012
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