"Spoon Sweets" (Γλυκά του κουταλιού)

Ah, spoon sweets. Not only are they fun to say, they're also numbing to eat. And they're everywhere:


A touch overwhelming? You should try eating them. Or rather, you should try eating one because that's approximately all your tooth enamel can withstand. OK, to be fair: The existential point of spoon sweets is that they are so sweet, you need but one to satiate that ever-gnawing need for something sugary that afflicts most, if not all, of the Greek populace. Remember, this is the same country where people can eat an entire piece of baklava, layer upon layer of syrupy sweetness, without a single wince. And let's not forget the cream-filled pies, the glistening halvahs, and the condensed milk drinks. In the land of insanely drippingly sugary creations, the spoon sweet is king. And to eat one is to experience a small ceremony of sorts. The shimmering thing is brought to you on a special spoon sweet dish, swimming in spoon sweet goo, to be eaten with a tiny spoon sweet spoon, the whole affair accompanied and followed by the obligatory glass of water:


Is it not perfection?

But all of this skirts the issue, I realize. The burning question being, "What the hell is it?" And that's where the true magic of the spoon sweet manifests itself. From what we can tell, just about any fruit or vegetable can be transformed into a spoon sweet. Figs? Check. Whole tiny lemons? Check. Zucchinis? Check. Watermelon rinds? Naturally.


And the recipe for metamorphosis is simple: Boil said object, cut or processed into bite-size pieces (the "spoon" part), in enough sugar (the "sweet" part) to render it preserved. There are, of course, variations on the theme: toss in some spice (clove, for instance, or nutmeg or cinnamon), stuff the sentenced plant ovary with an almond, etc. But you get the idea.


In the humble opinion of the Horiatiki editorial board, the best spoon sweets are those made of fruits and vegetables which naturally contain some tartness or sourness to offset the sugary onslaught. We enjoyed a very tasty sour cherry spoon sweet, for example, and offer rhubarb as a potential candidate. Another way to give the otherwise one-dimensional spoon sweet some depth of character is to spice it heavily, as Mama Pliakoni does with her absolutely edible almond-stuffed firiki (tiny apple) and peach creations.

But now for a prize-motivated Horiatiki Interactive CyberQuiz. Whosoever answers the following two questions correctly via our sophisticated Post a Message Option will win a jar of sickening spoon sweet gobs of his or her very own, to be hand-delivered by a member of our staff or a proud representative of the United States Postal Service upon our return. Sharpen your #2 pencils. [And take heart: In the absence of a correct answer, the most entertaining one will suffice.]

Question 1

Take the name of the fruit or vegetable shown here in spoon sweet form and rearrange the letters to spell a number in a Romance language. Add seven, and tell us how that country's southeastern EU neighbors would say the resultant sum in their national language.


Question 2

The fruit or vegetable shown here in "green" spoon sweet form is likely one you've never thought of ingesting before at this particular stage in its development. Imagining the alphabet as a circle, shift the letters of the first syllable forward 4 places and the letters of the second syllable backward 2 places. Rearrange the resulting letters to spell something precious – where are such things found?


Yum. Me.

Carpe Weekend; or, Posing with Columns

This is the post you've all been waiting for. We know you've been wondering: "How can any self-respecting person be in Greece for more than six weeks and not have the gumption to visit even one lousy archaeological site? Heroes and classics and philosophy and wars and whatnot!" Well, wonder no more. Just sit back and enjoy the splendors of the past as they come alive on your screen via The Internet. Just imagine, in a mere two days, these two people (the protagonists):

crammed inside one rented Fiat Panda [incidentally, this spunky little 2004 Car of the Year also comes in diesel 4x4 models, is Nikos' dream car (eat your heart out), and indeed has all the power, speed, and fuel efficiency of a real live panda bear]:

covered 1,013 kilometers, surviving on little more than one half-eaten package of Tostada biscuits:

and took in all of this…

Vergina (Βεργίνα)

The small town of Vergina, overlooking the rolling agricultural plains of south central Macedonia, achieved international fame in 1977 as the site of the ancient city of Aegae, the most important archaeological site excavated in Greece in recent years. The capital of the Macedonians until the 5th century BC, Aegae was the place where Alexander the Great was proclaimed King of the Macedonians (336 BC) once his (also great) father Philip II was laid to rest after being assassinated there during the wedding of his daughter. While there are ruins of the expansive palace:

the real jewel of Vergina is the Royal Tombs. The ancient Macedonians had a penchant for creating elaborate underground tombs, solid stone buildings that they then buried. The resultant large man-made mounds are found scattered all over this region of Greece, but their function backfired somewhat. Rather than sealing the dead off from the world of the living forever, these mounds (with their small forests on top) became tell-tale signs to would-be tomb raiders that riches were there for the plucking. Consequently, archaeologists generally find to their chagrin that tombs were visited before them by people with very different intentions. Fortunately, the magnificent tomb of Philip II escaped such a fate because it was buried BELOW other smaller tombs (nice decoys), leaving modern ruin-hounds with much to gawk at.

The museum and excavation site are first-rate. Four adjacent tombs (including Philip's) were excavated, a museum was built connecting them, and the whole thing was then re-buried just as before:

You'll have to take my word for this since non-flashy photography was difficult in the dark subterrain, but the items on display were fantastic. Found in the tombs, incredibly well-preserved, were cryselephantine couches, suits of armor, glorious gold crowns of delicate oak leaves and acorns (a few very slightly melted-looking acorns attest to the fact that Philip's crown was on his head as his body was consumed in the grand funeral pyre), gold larnaxes, silver banquet sets, innumerable cups and pitchers and flasks ("the dead are always thirsty"), on and on. Very impressive.

Pella (Πελλά)

The next Panda stop was ancient Pella, the birthplace of Alexander the Great and the capital of the Macedonians during both his and Philip's rules as king (even by their time, Aegae had lost its capital significance, functioning mainly as the royal burial site and place for theater…and assassinations). Pella grew into a massive city, built on the Hippodamean system of urban design, a regular grid of perpendicular streets with sophisticated water and sewage systems; but today it's mainly known for its wonderfully preserved mosaic floors, some maintained in situ while others are displayed tastefully in the small museum. These mosaics are composed simply of variously colored stones (pebbles, in some cases); think of the possibilities with future bathroom projects [Roberto: take note]!

Who needs tiles, right?

Watch out, column pose!

Before we hop back in the Panda to the next site, please appreciate the art of the mass production of ceramics, 4th century BC Macedonian style [Roberto, this is for you auch]:

And a final image from the apex of the Hellenistic age (no Naj, we didn't ask):

Edessa (Έδεσσα)

Before the discovery of Vergina, this small mountain town was thought to be the ancient city of Aegae. Stripped of that honor, it is now known (and visited) for its many waterfalls. Edessa certainly has water.

Little concrete canals run all over town, fountains are everywhere, waterfalls, little bridges, even a water museum. If Yestermorrow (www.yestermorrow.org) were to build a town, something not unlike the old town of Edessa might be the result.

Also there to serve the needs of the (almost exclusively Greek) visitors to Edessa is the line of souvenir shops selling every kind of kitchy absurdity, from 2 foot tall clay busts of Sitting Bull to 24 square foot Kurt Cobain suicide tapestries to fur rugs like the one below, apparently made out of some sort of mutant hump-backed polyfox:

"No!" the dangling faux fox family cries, "Please don't go!"

I'm sorry, little ones, but we have more to see elsewhere. [On a side note, Edessa had some of the best crispy pork gyros we've had thus far.]

Delphi (Δελφοί)

If you're like us, when you think of Delphi, you think of pilgrims from all across the ancient world consulting the famous oracle in search of answers to life's questions, political, personal, economic, or otherwise. You think of great kings seeking permission for war, of women desperate for children, men looking for direction. You imagine virgin priestesses of Apollo (Pythia) being drugged and lowered into foul sulfurous chasms, their hysterical rantings being calmly interpreted by high priests, translated into fine and cryptic verses, sufficiently vague to maintain validity in the face of any outcome. Delphi was the omphalos (the naval) of the ancient world, the place where the two eagles that Zeus released from opposite ends of the earth finally met. For over one thousand years, it was the spiritual center of ancient Greece, finally falling into decline once the Romans invaded.

The museum there is a beautiful facility full of artifacts from the ancient site. As difficult as it is to do, the exhibits effectively give you a sense of the reality of this extinguished world, a sense that is deepened by a walk through the extensive ruins outside. Perched high in the foothills of sacred Mount Parnassos, overlooking an endless sea of olive trees, with the real sea beyond, Delphi retains a mystical feel. Seems like a fine candidate for the center of the world.

The Sacred Way (the entrance into the sacred city):

One of the things that struck us most was the idea of how utterly crazy this place must have been in its heyday. Crowded with pilgrims, merchants, priests. Buildings plastered in loud colors, statues and monuments scattered pell-mell everywhere you looked. Trinkets and offerings, animals being sacrificed, music and performances. It seems like the place, though sacred, was a free-for-all in many respects, no one really in charge, a fantastic show, sort of a spiritual Las Vegas or Disneyland. And in such a location. Looking down on the theater, the Temple of Apollo, and the valley beyond:

Heads up! Column pose by the famous Tholos in the sanctuary of Athena Pronaia:

And the same sanctuary from above:

Before moving on, we thought you might enjoy playing one of our favorite games: Spot the Woman with the Inappropriate Shoes for Walking on Uneven Stone Paths (SWISWUSP)!

This sighting was particularly enjoyable as, just moments before, the right heel snapped off and was hanging by a thread. Fashion is king here, and everyone has a ManCrutch just for times like these.

Monastery of Saint Luke (Μονή Οσίου Λουκά)

Don't worry, last stop. If you're this tired reading it, just think how we feel. As a transition from the ancient world to the modern, we ended our weekend with a visit to the Monastery of Saint Luke, a stunning Byzantine church with some of Greece's finest mosaic frescoes out in the middle of nowhere, overlooking a valley of its own.

We were drawn initially to the place because we read that the bones of Saint Luke were held there. Saint Luke! But it turns out that the Luke in question is not the one from the Gospels but rather a local hermit. This took a little active searching to clear up; for while the monastery makes no direct claim on the bones of the Gospel writer (which would boost business, no doubt), it must be said that it also makes no real effort to dispel that idea. In any case, the setting was lovely and we even acquired a few plastic bottles of the local monk-made wine to sip on the terrace beneath an amazing old tree:

Life is difficult.

Tsipouradika (ΤΣΙΠΟΥΡΑΔΙΚΑ)

On Sunday afternoons between 1 and 4 and almost any other evening after 9:30, you are likely to find a good percentage of the Volos population at one of the nearly 150 tsipouradika that line the sea port or snuggle in narrow neighborhood streets all over the city. To be Volosian is to dine and drink at tsipouradika, restaurants that serve small bottles of distilled grape liquor known as tsipouro accompanied by little mezedes (appetizers) of seafood for about 3 euros a round (1 bottle + 1 mezedes).

The process is easy: sit down at a table, ideally one overlooking the sea (and preferably in the fresh air, far away from smokers – alas, a near impossibility), and a waiter will come, clip a paper cover on your table and ask, almost imperceptibly as the answer is already supposed: “Tsipouro?”

If your answer is an affirmative “Ne” (and it almost always is), he’ll return shortly with a bottle of water, a tiny steel bucket of ice and even tinier steel tongs, and small bottles of tsipouro (1 for each in your party) each accompanied by a different mezede. The optimal strategy is to go with a big group of people and drink as many rounds as you can without falling over so that you get to sample all of the mezedes the tsipouradiko has to offer: grilled octopus, baked anchovies, cheese stuffed squid, crab croquettes, sauteed mussels, fried calamari, broiled fish liver…and other surprising things that are very often delicious or at least interesting.

Tsipouro, like ouzo, is a strong, clear liquor that turns white when water or ice is added because the aniseed used for flavoring forms microscopic crystals when contacts water. However, if you order your tsipouro choris glycaniso (without anise) as Iago has learned to do, you can add as many ice cubes as you like and your drink, if not your head, will remain clear.

Not being a particularly large person or one who is fond of strong alcohol, I have a hard time pulling my weight at the tsipouradika and as a result we often end up with too much tsipouro and not quite enough mezedes. That being said, we've learned that pushing the limits of mezedes diversity and quantity should not be our object; for after copius research, we've found that there tends to be a non-linear relationship between mezede quality and the number of tsipouro rounds you order (see Lowe et. al, 2006).

In a group of 3 or 4 people, the first round is often tasty but basic and leaves you wanting more, your tastebuds primed. The second tends to be more adventurous, while quality peaks in the third. After the third round, the quality of the mezedes declines markedly, owing, we hypothesize, to the reduced capacity of the consumer to be discriminating.

Good food, good drink, great company, and lingering conversation. The tsipouradika exemplify the Volos life.

Ya mas!

An Overview of our Work (Part 3: Olives)

Torturing Fruit for the Greater Good











OLIVES

SAT verbal analogy challenge (time limit: 50 minutes):

1. Corn : Americans :: ? : Greeks
A. Mythology
B. Nescafe and cigarettes
C. Olives
D. 1-MCP
E. All of the above, and then some

If you completely filled in the bubble beside "olives" with your #2 pencil, congratulations. If not, there there. Either way, take solace in the fact that your intellectual potential has been accurately measured by experts.
Anyway, given the importance of olives and olive oil to the Greek economy and diet, it's no surprise that many of the grad students in our lab work with this marvelous crop. For our part, we've been helping with a multi-national EU project designed to determine the effects of deficit irrigation on fruit quality and safety. Water resources available for agriculture are diminishing worldwide, so finding water-frugal methods for producing high quality fruits (and vegetables) of all kinds is critical. As it turns out, past research indicates that deficit irrigation may actually boost the quality of some horticultural crops in terms of taste and nutrition. As plants become stressed, they often increase the production of phenolic compounds (powerful antioxidants) and sugars, resulting in a more healthful and tastier product. We’re helping with this olive research by taking soil samples:

…harvesting:

…and conducting numerous quality and nutrition studies in the lab like the ones mentioned in previous posts. At this point in Greece, much of the farm labor, including olive harvesting, is performed by migrant farm workers from Albania (Mexico : USA :: ? : Greece). But even though the groves can be peaceful and beautiful places to work:

(that's Volos in the background), I don't know if I'd recommend it as an occupation, given the going rate of about $4/hour. Our work crew has been great, though:

Maybe 30 Euros a day isn't that bad after all.

Emergency TBSS Post

Moshigirl, we found you a baby sister in the cobbledy-stone village of Makranitsa in the Pelion mountains:

We haven't been able to capture her yet, but we're trying. When we do, her name will be Milopita (apple pie), of course.

An Overview of our Work (Part 2: Kiwis)

Torturing Fruit for the Greater Good








KIWIS


On a family kiwi farm near the small town of Naossa in Macedonia (about three hours north of Volos and a stunning mountainous area renowned for its high-quality fruit), a farmer in the 1980's planted kiwi seeds and selected plants he liked. Though not undertaken in any particularly scientific manner, and in spite of the fact that such an approach has very little probability of leading to significant improvements, the guy may have gotten extremely lucky. The result of his informal breeding effort is a new variety grown only in that area (and in quite small quantity thus far, though interest is growing) and known as Tsechelides, after the man who found it. By all appearances, the new variety is a miracle. The plants produce enormous quantities of fruit:


And the fruits are astonishingly uniform, well-shaped, and HUGE. Here is one next to the leading commercial variety, Hayward:

Even though Hayward is the current leader, it's a small fruit by comparison and lacks uniformity. So anyway, sure, Tsechelides looks good; but how does it compare in all the other quality characteristics? That's where we come in. Side by side with Hayward, we're running Tsechelides fruit through a battery of postharvest quality tests to see how it measures up. The tests are essentially the same as those mentioned before for apples:

but the motivation is different. Whereas for apples we're optimizing postharvest handling practices, here we're doing a simple variety evaluation. How acidic is it? How sweet? How firm? How does it hold up under storage? Interested as some of us are in plant breeding and the development of new commercially-acceptable cultivars (ahem!), this is an interesting venture. And the active cooperation between the grower, the university, and industry (read: large fruit handlers/exporters interested in growing the Tsechclides market share) has been inspiring.

Ghavros (ΓΑΥΡΟΣ)

Although technically these fish are anchovies, I prefer to use the term “tiny fishes” because my unpleasant pre-Greece association with these creatures consists of pizza, Ceasar salad and tins of smoked, salty, smelly stuff. Here in Greece, however, I have found fresh tiny fishes to be a ubiquitous and inexpensive staple. They are prepared in any number of delicious ways: baked with lemon and olive oil, made into a pie, or (my personal favorite) fried. If prepared correctly, these tiny fried fishes make a tasty (and perhaps healthier) substitute for chicken strips.

Ingredients:
½ kilo very fresh very tiny fishes (their eyes should be clear - not cloudy - and gills red)
small pile of flour (with pepper and spices if you like)
olive oil
salt to taste

Cover bottom of large frying pan with ¼ inch of olive oil and heat until very hot. Contrary to popular notion in the U.S., Greeks contend that olive oil holds up extremely well under high temperatures (up to about 180ºC or 375ºF) and is, in fact, a great and healthy medium for frying. We’ll go with that.

One by one, coat each tiny fishy in flour and drop into the hot oil. Flip once so that both sides brown evenly. Remove to a paper towel-lined plate to absorb excess oil and repeat process until all tiny fish are fried. If oil turns very dark due to stray browned flour pieces, you might want to replace it. We were able to get through our ½ kilo with just one dose of oil, though the last couple of tiny fish batches came out pretty dark. Salt to taste.

As for eating, you can pop the whole crispy delicious tiny fish body into your mouth - most people here do. But the heads can be bitter, so you can pluck them off easily just above the gills if you like. The crunchy tails are especially scrumptious.

For a hearty meal, serve with boiled greens dressed in lemon and olive oil, fresh bread, olives, wine, and a pomegranate for dessert.

An Overview of our Work (Part 1: Apples)

Torturing Fruit for the Greater Good

Lest you think otherwise, let us assure you that being in Greece is not all good food, beautiful places, and hanging out with new friends. No. We log many a hour working with Dr. George Nanos, either: A) Torturing fruit in his horticultural postharvest laboratory at the University of Thessaly, or B) Collecting fruit for laboratory or (when we can't wait) on-site torture from farms and packing houses around the region. No fruits escape our wrath save those not in season; though thanks to postharvest technologies like controlled atmosphere storage and ripening inhibitors, we can make fruit suffer many months after they are picked. A glimpse of what we do:






APPLES

Given the time of year, we've been working with apples quite a bit. In one experiment, we're helping masters degree student Alexandros investigate the effect of various treatments (hot water baths and exposure to the ripening inhibitor 1-MCP) on apple bruising. The procedure is simple enough: Alexandros mercilessly drops defenseless apples (some straight from the field, others dunked in hot water for a few minutes, others exposed to 1-MCP), one by one, from a given height (30 cm) onto a countertop (that's him in the background):

and then we measure all sorts of apple properties to see the effect. The thing I'm holding above is a colorimeter; with it, we zap apples before and after bruising to measure the extent of discoloration. We then butcher the poor things in various ways to get at other aspects:

As you can see, we stab them with a penetrometer to see how firm they are, we gouge out their bruises to measure their dimensions, we cut out slices for juicing (needed for acidity, soluble solids, and phenolics – a.k.a. antioxidants -- measurements), and even more slices for conductivity. All this takes 8-10 hours for one round, and we're becoming pros at it. Before moving on, here's a shot of how we expose apples to 1-MCP:

Just put them in a plastic bag, open up a bottle with the chemical, and then tape the thing shut for 3 hours. Simple.

In another experiment, we're investigating the efficacy of several different treatments for the prevention of superficial scald (essentially, undesirable discoloration) in apples held in storage for long periods of time. The treatments include the current standard drenching with DPH (diphenylamine), a hot water bath with 1/3 the standard concentration of DPH, and a simple hot water bath. As you might guess, this experiment is motivated by a quest for lower-dosage or chemical-free controls for scald and is, in fact, part of a larger study that is also monitoring DPH residue on apples and DPH presence in the packing-house environment. We're pretty much the grunt labor for this one, dunking hundreds of apples in hot water baths for later measurement (after two months in storage). Putting golden delicious in the murky hot DPH solution:

And pulling them out (ding! they're done!):

All this joy brought to you by your friendly neighborhood fruit mangler: