 Four red mullets were the stars of this meal, with sardines, salad, and a half kilo of white wine playing strong supporting roles. “I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder,” said travel writer Bill Bryson, “than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.” Few countries offer more golden opportunities for feeling utterly ignorant than Greece. The written language alone makes you feel like a toddler, staring at random shapes of letters that seem to be dancing before your eyes. The wonderment goes up exponentially when you take an overnight ferry from the mainland to arrive on a distant island shortly after dawn and before coffee. "Τώρα φθάνουμε στη Λέσβο,” announced the loudspeaker. We are arriving in Lesbos. Rich and I grabbed our bags and headed down the gangplank to the port city of Mytilene. The air was sweet and balmy, the light luminous. Was I thinking of Aristotle, Sappho, and all the brilliant minds who’d passed this way before me? Nope, I was seeking coffee. Fortunately, as the Greeks are as deeply attached to their καφές as the most passionate Starbucks addict, it took less than a minute to find a café.  I could never decide which feature of the Lesbos cafés I liked best: the free cookies served with every coffee or the comforting presence of snoozing dogs. When the caffeine enabled me to gather my wits sufficiently, I asked, “How far is the hotel?” “About a half hour’s walk.” It was closer to 45 minutes, with the last bit uphill followed by three sets of stairs. But it was a wonderful walk, along the vast curve of the harbor where fishing boats bobbed, whistling young men pushed carts of supplies, ancient Vespas puttered by, women readied tables at wharf-side restaurants, and old men sat nursing thick ceramic mugs and hand-rolled cigarettes. Just about every café seemed to have an old dog sleeping at the threshold. The buildings were a jumble of styles: Mediterranean, old stone, Western European, ornamental Byzantine, and of course, a few boxy, 1960s-style concrete buildings because hey, this is the real world. Our hotel was a converted 1916 mansion, and I was charmed to discover we were in a tower room, one that was perfectly round, like something in a fairy tale. We deposited our bags and set out to explore the town. We soon found ourselves on Ermou Street, which was much like Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley — a blast-from-the-past jumble of fishmongers, cobblers, confectioners, and shops selling old books, Kodak film, DVDs, and “curiosities.” Presiding over one end of the street was the magnificent church of Saint Therapon the Wonderworker, a 7th century Palestinian refugee who had such a knack for curing the sick that his miracles are still much in demand today. At the other end of Ermou Street was the old harbor and some fish restaurants; lunch instantly moved to the top of our agenda. We settled at a wooden table covered with a blue checked cloth and studied the menu. Grilled sardines, we decided, and at the waiter’s urging, a fish I’d never tried before: red mullet. Less romantically known by its common name — the bottom-feeding goatfish — red mullet is a tender, tasty fish that in ancient times rose to an extraordinary trendiness among wealthy Romans. Top specimens were sold for their weight in silver, kept in ponds, and caressed by their owner, who would brag to friends about teaching the fish to come to the sound of his voice. (Having owned goldfish, I can tell you that most fish will come to signals associated with food, so this doesn’t imply special brilliance on the part of red mullets. Or their owners.) Great thinkers of the day — Seneca, Pliny, Cicero —discoursed on the red mullet’s charms, and artists were commissioned to include their image in mosaics. But for us, they were simply lunch. The recipe is ridiculously simple: dust the red mullet with flour and salt, fry in oil, serve with lemon.  A Roman mosaic of a red mullet. Photo by Antike Bildmosaiken. It’s possible that the island’s most famous resident — the poet Sappho — wrote odes to the red mullet, but we’ll likely never know, as nearly all her work has been lost since her death around 570 BC. Sappho was born to a wealthy Lesbos family and her talent took the ancient world by storm. Many of her poems speak eloquently of love and desire between women, which naturally led to assumptions about Sappho’s own sexuality, giving rise to the term lesbian. This has driven some conservative residents of Lesbos absolutely bonkers, especially with the rise of the LGBTQ movement in the 20th century. In 2008 a group of Lesbos islanders tried to get a legal injunction banning groups from using the world lesbian in their names, claiming it violated their human rights by associating the island with “disgraceful” practices. As you can imagine, they were laughed out of court and have had to satisfy themselves with making sure everyone spells it Lesvos, a more accurate transliteration of the Greek Λέσβο. Despite their best efforts, there’s a modest but growing LGBTQ tourism trade, supported by agencies such as Sappho Travel in Skala Eressos, Sappho’s birthplace. Today, the island’s most famous export isn’t poetry but ouzo, a dry anise-flavored aperitif. Lesbos boasts 17 ouzo factories, some quite large, others no bigger than a kitchen; together they produce half the nation’s supply. We’d heard it was traditional to drink ouzo around sunset and that a good place for this was Kastro Tavern, owned by a magician named Georgios. We arrived at dusk to find Georgios playing backgammon with friends, his dog asleep in the kitchen, and no other customers in sight. “We’d like some ouzo,” I said. “Do you have Kefi?” This popular brand is named for the state of sublime, transformative contentment when everything in the world seems right. “No,” said George. “It is turned off.” He mimed closing a tap. “Two brothers made it, and they …” He made fists and pantomimed punched them together. “No more Kefi.” Well, that’s one for the irony department, I thought. We chose another brand at random. “Ice?” asked George. “Of course,” I said. I’d read that ouzo, which we’d been taking neat, should always be served over ice or with a little cold water, which turns the clear liquid cloudy. Why is this important? I have no idea, but I’m not about to fly in the face of tradition. It’s also meant to be taken with a meze (snack) or two; at 37% to 50% alcohol content, it’s nothing to be trifled with. We ordered white beans and red mullet, and sat sipping, nibbling, and listening to the clatter of dice and the low hum of talk and laughter. Occasionally George’s dog wandered over so Rich could scratch behind its ears. When we eventually bestirred ourselves to ask for the bill, George said, “Would you like to see magic?” He dazzled us with nifty bits of sleight of hand. “The bag is empty, yes? And now…” he flipped cards out of the bag onto our table; we gasped and applauded. And I reflected that the true magic of Greece is this: its ability to make strangers feel they belong, that they are among friends, even when they are very far from home. LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MEDITERRANEAN COMFORT FOOD TOUR. SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES AS WE GO. Here's our path from Kalamata, Greece to Mytiline, Lesbos, Greece via bus and ferry.  GOT IDEAS ABOUT THE TRIP? SEND US YOUR COMMENTS BELOW! YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
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 “This isn’t coffee,” Rich said, glaring into his cup. “It’s gasoline.” “No, there’s definitely some coffee in it because I have grounds stuck in my teeth.” We set down the cups of revolting brew and stared around us at Kalamata, Greece: gloomy sky, empty street, silent men hunched over scattered tables under two giant trees. I could almost hear the blood from Rich’s leg wound dripping onto the paving stones underfoot. It was a low point in a day that had started with a setback and gone downhill from there. We’d awakened that morning 50 kilometers to the south in Agios Dimitrios to discover the village was in the grip of a power outage and a sirocco. Fierce, sand-laden winds that blow up from the Sahara, siroccos turn the Mediterranean sky a gritty gray and (they say) drive people mad. During the Ottoman era, if you murdered someone during a sirocco, you got a lesser sentence due to extenuating circumstances. Rich and I managed not to go berserk, even when we realized without electricity we couldn’t make coffee.  Our route through Crete and the Mani Peninsula to Kalamata. The landlord of our rental apartment gave us a lift to the bus stop, conveniently located in front of the café run by Freda, widely known as the village’s most resourceful resident. She didn’t fail us now. Working with a car battery and a gas-powered burner, she produced French-press coffee for us and our friends, Jackie and Joel. Many of you know Jackie from TravelnWrite, her lively blog about expat life in Greece. After corresponding for years, we finally met IRL (in real life), and not only had she and Joel generously spent days showing us around, they came to see us off on the bus — a bright spot in the morning. “Does the sirocco always knock out the electricity?” Rich asked. “Oh no, this is a planned outage,” said Jackie. “They must be fixing something.” The outage and the sirocco extended all the way up the coast to our next stopping point, the city of Kalamata. After the picturesque charms of Crete and the rugged magnificence of the Mani Peninsula, our first glimpses — and frankly, our second and third glimpses as well — suggested that Kalamata was a soulless wasteland of shabby, crumbling concrete.  Our first stroll through Kalamata was somewhat less than picturesque. We were too early to check in, so our Airbnb hosts kindly directed us to their favorite café, just around the corner under a pair of huge trees. Stepping into the deeper gloom below the branches, Rich immediately walked into a low metal table, gashing his shin. As he hobbled to a chair and began sopping up the blood with his handkerchief, I ordered coffee — the only item on offer. They were likely heating the water with kerosene, which could account for the taste. “I gotta tell you,” said Rich. “I am not warming to this town.”  The café where the fight took place between the little table and Rich's shin. Disinclined to linger at the café, Rich tied his handkerchief around the wound and we set off to reconnoiter. Hours of walking took us past closed shops, lightless windows, and a few shadowy restaurants serving coffee. Suddenly Rich’s sniffer went on high alert. “Do I smell food cooking?” he said. We followed our noses into the steamy warmth of a café, where a gas cooker had produced an array of hearty dishes. In a matter of moments we were seated before heaping portions of moussaka, green beans, and chicken "mincemeat." We sighed with pleasure and tucked in.  Having missed breakfast due to the power outage, we were thrilled to find a place serving a hot lunch. Ten minutes later the lights came on and the sun came out. Leaving the restaurant, we found ourselves surrounded by bright, inviting shops and cafés with abundant charm and originality. Our apartment turned out to be even pleasanter than it looked in the photos. Rich grudgingly agreed the town might have some redeeming features. The next morning we took a food tour, and our guide, Fotini, introduced us to local characters as well as local cuisine. Tourists are relatively rare creatures in Kalamata, and everyone seemed delighted to spend time with us. The Economakos family gave us slivers of their famous salted pork and cups of homemade wine as they showed us a picture of the sausage plate that won first prize the 1999 trade fair. We nibbled and sipped our way through the morning, shaking hands, kissing cheeks, promising to come back one day. Kalmata’s world-famous olives were mentioned only in passing, and I asked Fotini why there wasn’t more fuss about them. She shrugged. “When you’ve been eating something since ancient times, it is just a part of everyday life.” I asked if there were any special dishes we should try while we were in town. “Gourounopoula,” she said. “Roast pork with plenty of skin and fat. Back in the days of the Ottoman empire, we used it to plan a revolution. When we had feasts, we of course had to invite our Ottoman neighbors. But being Muslims, they didn’t eat pork, so when we served gourounopoula, they stayed away. And we could plan our revolution, right under their noses.” Thanks to gourounopoula — and a few other factors, of course — the Greeks gained independence in 1829 after 400 years of Ottoman occupation. Where we should try this famous pork? Fotini led me to the corner and pointed. “There. That café with the two giant trees.” “No way,” said Rich. “Oh, man up,” I said. “Let’s see if that little table is ready for a rematch.” “I want a second opinion.” When we asked at the tourist office, the woman at the desk sighed ecstatically.“Ah, gourounopoula,” she said. “Yes, you must try it. The best is here.” She pointed at the map. “At Barbayiannis.” We set off, hampered only by the fact most streets weren't marked, and the few that were didn't seem to match any of the names on our map. Eventually I noticed a window displaying the remains of a pig, with a severed head and a meat cleaver. We had found Barbayiannis! I did a doubletake. "Hey, this is the place we had lunch the first day!" What are the odds? Gourounopoula was comfort food at its finest: a crispy outer layer of roasted fat covering meat tender enough to cut with a fork. I didn’t even try to talk my way into the tiny kitchen during the lunchtime rush, but I did the next best thing and looked online for a recipe. Ideally you roast the pig whole on a spit, but when that's impractical, this video shows how to create the same effect with a pork shoulder roast and a few other simple ingredients in your home oven. “I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Rich told me. “But I actually think Kalamata is my favorite stop so far.” “You’re just saying that because you’ve stopped bleeding and have a belly full of roast pork.” “I rest my case.” LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MEDITERRANEAN COMFORT FOOD TOUR. SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES AS WE GO. AND SEND US YOUR COMMENTS BELOW! YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY  Hohli bourbouristi, snails cooked in rosemary, are a favorite comfort food in Crete. And the little critters are healthy eating, with just 72 calories and one gram of fat per serving. If I’d blinked, I would have missed the snails completely. We were passing a dusty parking lot in an unfashionable section of Chania, Crete when out of the very corner of my eye I caught the flash of a yellow chair under a tree beyond the cars. Someone’s private dining spot? No, wait; turning, I saw more chairs and a scattering of tables. A battered sign said helpfully, ΠΕΡΠΕΡΑΣ. Rich and I strolled in to take a closer look. And that’s how we met Yannis, chief cook and proprietor of Perperas. He gave us a warm welcome and presented us with a handwritten English menu that was short on descriptions and long on intriguing possibilities. The meal was a delight: tzatziki made from thick Greek yogurt, garlic, and cucumber; grated zucchini patties sautéed in olive oil; a pie that might have been quiche’s Cretan cousin. Snails are everyday fare in Crete, the local equivalent of American burgers or British fish and chips. During the 40-day Lenten fast, when people are expected to refrain from eating meat, fish, even dairy, it’s OK to consume snails and shellfish; they’re exempt on the technicality of not having a backbone. It's customary to eat snails on the Thursday before Easter, and Yannis very kindly agreed to let me come into his kitchen last week, on Orthodox Holy Thursday, so I could be initiated into the mysteries of hohli bourbouristi. Brace yourself, because the process is a gruesome one. More so for the snails, obviously, but fairly distressing for humans of tender sensibilities as well. Captured when spring rain forces them out of their underground dens, the snails are sequestered in a mesh cage or simply a circle of salt, which they can’t cross because salt is lethal to snails. For at least three days, often a week or more, the captives are fed a bland diet of flour or dry pasta, which is said to make them excrete all their toxins. Then they are thrown live into a pot of boiling water which is soon covered with a white froth of snail saliva. Cookbooks advise keeping an eye out for those trying to escape so you can catch them and toss them back in. As you can imagine, the creepy backstory did nothing to enhance my appetite. “I’m calling this post ‘Snails from the Crypt,’” I whispered to Rich. Fortunately I was spared the grim necessity of witnessing these atrocities in the flesh. Yannis explained a family of snail collectors in the nearby village handled all that, delivering the snails to his kitchen clean and ready to cook. Yannis rinsed 30 large snails in water, then dusted them with a third of a cup of flour. (He never measured, so all quantities are very approximate.) Then he poured a quarter of a cup of olive oil into a frying pan and set it on the burner. He pressed the fleshy foot of each snail into salt then set it in the pan. “They go in ‘face down,’ as we say,” he told me. “The name bourbouristi comes from the Cretan abouboura, which means ‘face down.’” When the snails were sizzling, he pulled leaves off of two sprigs fresh rosemary and sprinkled them on top, adding a pinch of pepper. Pouring half a cup of strong red wine vinegar over everything, he let it cook for about three minutes until the liquid reduced to a thick sauce. "Done!" he said. He took them outside to our table and set them down with a flourish. It was love at first bite. “Oh my God,” I kept gasping. “Wow!” Using the outermost tine of his fork to pry out a morsel, Rich slurped it down. He kissed the shell he held his fingers. “These snails,” he said, “were not sacrificed in vain.” Lenten observances in Greece are big on sacrifice, starting with 40 days of fasting and culminating on the eve of Easter when Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, is burned in effigy in towns all across the island. We witnessed the ritual in Loutro, a village on the southern coast of Crete. The evening began with the traditional Orthodox liturgy held in a church so small people took turns going inside to pay their respects then gathered outside chatting quietly. Eventually the priest emerged and sang into a microphone held by an altar boy, reading the lyrics off a cell phone tucked into a hymnal. Men and boys took turns ringing the church bell. After the kiss of peace, everyone lit their candles; some kids carried fancy ones decorated with unicorns, Barbie, or Spiderman. Then the bonfire was ablaze on the beach, and altar boys, bell ringers, and Spiderman fans began throwing fire crackers into the blaze, making everyone jump. As flames consumed the effigy, fireworks exploded overhead. Once again, sin had been vanquished.  It was a magnificent bonfire; the air was filled with flaming sparks, and the remains were still burning when I got up the next morning. Easter Sunday was a quieter affair as families released from fasting gathered to feast on lamb, the traditional symbol of sacrifice and salvation. In Greece, the practice of animal sacrifice dates back to Neolithic times; more recently it appears as the Passover lamb, first offered during the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt, and in New Testament passages where John the Baptist refers to his cousin as “Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.” For us, more prosaically, lamb was simply lunch. For this meal, Rich and I had chosen a family-run restaurant on the hill just above the church, and during the morning we dropped by to see how the roasting was coming along. The lamb was turning slowly on the spit, looking all too much like a human sacrifice. There was aluminum foil draped over its loins, like the white cloths strategically placed on naked figures in old church art.  “Boy, these guys really know how to work a theme,” I said to Rich. The snails, bonfire, and lamb of Easter — as well as the island of Crete itself — are now just fond memories. Yesterday we took a ferry north to Greece's Mani Peninsula, a rural area on the southern tip of the Peloponnese. Our modest hotel overlooks the island of Gytheio, where Paris of Troy and Helen of Sparta spent their first night together, having the sex that launched a thousand ships, culminating in the Trojan War. Rich and I don't expect our further adventures in Greece to be quite that exciting, but we are looking forward to more good food and fun times. Stay with us on the journey! LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR MEDITERRANEAN COMFORT FOOD TOUR. SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES AS WE GO. AND SEND US YOUR COMMENTS BELOW! YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY |
Our Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour
I'm an American writer living in Seville, Spain and traveling the world with my husband, Rich. Right now we're on our Mediterranean Comfort Food Tour, exploring the world's favorite cuisine to discover more about European culture. Get updates on the journey. See comfort food recipes and videos. OUR CURRENT LOCATION: Ikaria, Greece 
Karen McCann
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