(Ceps and chestnuts)
Getting bored
on Lesvos? Not for a minute! Even now as the summer season finishes and tourist
villages like Molyvos and Petra are slowly being deserted, as the beaches are cleared
of the sunbeds and umbrellas, there is still so much to enjoy on the island.
And I’m not just speaking about the great weather, which is so nice that there’s
no day that you’d want to spend inside your home.
In
the autumn it’s the trees of Lesvos that attract people. Tourists switch from the
beach to the shadowy, wooded mountain slopes with the wide views over the
island and the locals (lots of them running shops or restaurants in the summer)
return to their fields and olive trees for the harvest. Although this year they
will not have too much work because the harvest is said to be pretty poor (see:
Waiting
for the rain).
Apart from
the olives, there are many more trees asking for attention - for example, the
pine trees that colour the heart of this green island. Lesvos has extended
pinewoods, especially around Mt Olympus and above Parakila in the west. Until the
late Sixties people went into the woods to harvest resin (see: When
the pine trees still had a face). Even though this was hard work, it made a
living for many villagers. Industrial progress however made resin uneconomical and
this industry died. Now the pinewoods only offer fertile ground for mushrooms.
Reminders
of the resin harvest were the iron cisterns nailed against the tree trunks
where the resin was gathered. Although the resin harvest died-out, today these
rusted cisterns are still the silent witnesses of that period when the villagers
camped out for days in the wood to collect the resin. However, driving through
the woods near Achladeri, we noticed that those rusted iron cisterns have been
replaced with brand new ones! Has there been new demands for Greek resin and has
some smart entrepreneur taken up the resin harvest?
That
same smart person might also start cultivating the mastic trees. The
neighbouring island of Chios is well known for the mastic (resin) of the Pistacia
lentiscus,
a bush or small tree from the same family as the pistachio tree (Anacardiacea
family).
It’s
not true that this tree can only be found on Chios: but it’s only on Chios that
they have been so long cultivated and where they produce a rich harvest. Were
you to cultivate these trees on Lesvos (there are, in fact, many around as for
example in Palios), this island also could start mastic production. But we’re
speaking about a project that would take years and years; the trees on Chios have
been cultivated for hundreds of years, and that is why they are so valuable
there.
Then
there are the fruit trees: after the olive, the walnut is the tree that gets
harvested the most, because not everyone collects the fruit of his almond,
quince or pomegranate tree (I must say, lots of them grow in gardens of
deserted holiday houses whose owners are far away). Driving around the island
in November I often see fruit just rotting away on the branches of trees or
lying on the ground.
Around
Agiasos, however, collecting sweet chestnuts still brings money in. The biggest
woods grow on the slopes of the Olympus mountain range, although everywhere on
the island you come across groups of these beautiful trees. They sometimes grow
on very steep slopes, making me wonder if this fruit gets wasted or if there’s
a person crazy enough to harvest there. When you go to Agiasos now each shop
sells the brown fruit and you may meet pick-up trucks full of people who have
been gathering big sacks of chestnuts. Sometimes there is such a deep layer of
chestnuts on the ground that I imagine you could just scoop them up from a car
driven slowly through the forest.
But
this may not be the case for long, because the chestnut trees of Agiasos are
ill. They are suffering from Cryphonectria parasitica, a mildew that has been
killing sweet chestnut trees all over the world. In the United States millions
of trees died and nowadays the sweet chestnut is no longer the number one tree
in the woods of America. A few years ago it was thought that the chestnut woods
on Lesvos and on Crete might escape this illness, but the mildew has managed to
travel over the oceans and is now threatening these sweet Lesvorian chestnuts.
Last
May I read an article about how the last mayor of Agiasos (Chrys Chatzipanagiotis)
lobbied the Greek government to obtain a vaccination program. He was
successful: this summer the trees were to be vaccinated. I am not sure if the
job has been done and if this vaccine will be successful, but at least
something has been attempted to save this (so rare on the Greek islands)
chestnut wood.
Last
week when I visited the colourful and scented chestnut wood, lots of the trees
were a sorry sight: bare, dying branches waving in vain amidst the yellow
coloured leaves of their still healthy neighbours. What a sad sight! It might be
that I was there just at the very beginning of the chestnut season, but the
ground was dotted with far less cupules than other years.
For
me, each year visiting the chestnut wood above Agiasos is the highlight of the
autumn. Between the bright coloured leaves you have breathtaking views over the
Gulf of Yera and the Gulf of Kalloni. I hope that in future years these slopes
will not start offering a wider view over all the island or that we can no
longer find chestnuts in the shops of Agiasos.
The
forests are also a unique habitat for mushrooms. My favourite mushrooms belong
to the boletus family, and are plentiful under the chestnut trees if you’re
there at the right moment. Even though the autumnal rains (I don’t count the
few casual showers we’ve already had) have not arrived yet, it has been moist
enough for the first mushrooms – such as the peppery Milkcap (Lactarius
piperatus) - to emerge from the ground, just lurking under the first layers of
fallen leaves. I could not believe my luck when I also found two ceps (Boletus
edulis).
It’s hard to find this emperor of all mushrooms, especially on this island.
Where will they be growing if the chestnut wood really disappears?
(with
thanks to Mary Staples)
©
Smitaki 2013
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