Matriarchs, Meze and the Evil Eye is a must-read memoir

During Lent, we fasted for forty days. Yiayia became very resourceful in the kitchen, preparing wonderful dishes with myriad subtle flavours to compensate for the absence of meat and dairy. Greek-style fasting was certainly no hardship. She cooked okra in a sauce of olive oil, fried onion, garlic and tomato puree. She used the same method to prepare green string beans in a casserole with peeled potato quarters. She steamed spinach leaves, wild mountain greens called xorta, wild chicory, beets and dandelion leaves, and she dressed the liver-friendly greens with latholemono, the classic Greek dressing of whisked olive oil, oregano and lemon juice. She baked steaming loaves of eliopsomo, bread studded with olives.

Large metal trays of gigantes plaki, giant white butter beans, went into the oven with a melange of chopped carrots, celery, garlic, parsley, olive oil and her homemade tomato-based sauce. She used a slight variation on the recipe to make a hearty fasolatha, a white-bean soup that is the national dish of Greece alongside moussaka. She also used the beans to make a fava-bean puree blended with onions, garlic and olive oil. During this period, we always had bowls of white beans soaking in cold water in our kitchen.

She made revitho-keftethes and kolokitho-keftethes – chickpea and courgette fritters. We ate melitzanes and kolokithakia – aubergine and courgette slices immersed in a batter of beaten eggs and ice-cold beer, then dusted with seasoned flour and deep-fried until golden and crispy. We dunked the crispy strips into a strong skorthalia, a dip made of garlic, olive oil and pureed potato. She baked melitzanes papoutsakia – little aubergine “shoes”. She halved whole aubergines lengthwise and coated them with olive oil. She scooped out the flesh and mixed it with chopped onion, minced garlic and a fresh homemade tomato sauce. Nothing came out of a tin. Then she baked them in the oven until they were sweet and soft. It was healthy, classic and meat-free Greek cuisine, which always showcases the vegetables.

When we were not fasting, she baked the same papoutsakia but with a more substantial mincemeat filling topped with a béchamel sauce and a grated feta or kefalotyri crust. Our consumption of olive oil exceeded a litre a week. A five-litre can would barely last a month in our kitchen. Yiayia firmly believed that olive oil was good for everything, even for frying eggs, and a worthy substitute for butter in pleated Greek coffee cookies. It was good not only for your insides, but also for the health and elasticity of your skin.

To an outsider unaccustomed to shared living arrangements, our domestic setup may have appeared complicated. But it worked for a while in its own strange way, with some inevitable turbulence along the way. There was never a dull moment. Our kitchen was a constant source of friction. For my mother, it was a daily battle with two older, difficult and uncompromising women.

Away from the heat of the kitchen, there was an uneasy truce between the three of them. Food was not only their language of love, but also became a daily weapon in the war to win our affection as the women tried to outdo each other. Yiayia and my nonna adored my father, and no woman would have been good enough for their precious kanakari, their darling, let alone one educated by French nuns in a Catholic school.

I was content to bask in the reflected shine of my father’s glory. We could do no wrong in their eyes, and they were happy to serve us. Unable to have children of her own, my nonna poured all her love on me.

My mother had no such illusions. She was far more pragmatic and certainly not blinded by our numerous shortcomings. She was therefore sceptical about the whole arrangement. In the beginning, she remained quiet to keep the peace and watched the proceedings with increasing alarm. Often, she would withdraw to some dark, quiet corner of the house to smoke and consider her next move.

The two older women doted on me shamelessly. They fussed over me and spoilt me at every opportunity, treating me like a little Greek prince and potentially creating an overindulged despot and problems for any future wife.

The most important question every day was, “What are we going to cook today? What are the children going to eat today?”

My mother usually allowed YiaYia to answer this question. It made her life much easier to accept whatever was going rather than debate at length whether baked aubergines, fried courgettes or spanakorizo – spinach and rice – should accompany the roast chicken.

Yiayia would urge me to eat and say, “Eat Kostaki, eat so that you can grow and become a big palikari – a strong, brave young man like the courageous Cretan warriors who fought the German paratroopers at Maleme with pitchforks, shotguns, knives and even their bare hands.”

My standard reply was, “I’m not hungry, Yiayia.” But she would insist, saying, “Ella, come, Kostaki, please eat. Try my delicious dolmathes. Take the first bite and you’ll see. Appetite always comes with eating.” DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.