Spanakopita Memories

This short essay is from my emeritus sociology colleague Charles Moskos. Those on the board who attended Northwestern will surely remember Charlie Moskos. For decades he taught our 900-student Intro. to Sociology course. But even if you were not a "Fighting Methodist" (the old term for NU's sports teams), you might enjoy this essay.

Spanakopita Tales
Charles Moskos
The National Herald, Oct. 27 2006, p. 9


Oh, no! For a while I thought spanakopita (spinach-cheese pie) would be outlawed in the United States. In mid-September, public health officials decreed that fresh as well as bagged spinach must be taken off grocery shelves. This, as we all know, because E.coli contamination of spinach sickened several hundred people, and even resulted in some deaths. Fortunately, the ban has now been lifted. Spinach is again legal.

My addiction to spanakopita began as a child and continues to this day. Both sides of the family come from Northern Epirus. I was always told that Epirotes made the best pita -- not only spinach but cheese, apple and all others. My maternal grandmother rolled her own phylo dough, as did most Greek women of her generation. My mother, who came to this country as a child, did likewise. Subsequent to my mother’s early passing, my father made the family spanakopita the same way. More remarkable, Ilca, my German-born wife, rolls her own phylo when making spanakopita. She acquired this talent from my father, who lived with us in his senior years.

Our younger son, Peter, enjoys cooking and also rolls his own phylo when preparing spanakopita at his home in Astoria. A summer ago, we were on the island of Lesbos (Mytiline), where Peter prepared spanakopita for our family consumption in one of the local restaurants (where we were friends with the owner). After taking the spanakopita out of the oven, we had only a few small bites of the spanakopita as it was very hot. Several hours later, we all went to the restaurant expecting to eat the spanakopita as our main course. To our surprise, we found that the kitchen help had eaten all of it. They raved over the hand-rolled phylo -- evidence that such is becoming a rarity in contemporary Greece.

In my periodic New York visits, I frequently eat at Greek restaurants (as I do elsewhere). One time, I departed with a left over portion of spanakopita. As I was crossing the street on the way back to my hotel, a homeless woman was begging and chattering belligerently on the sidewalk. I offered her the bagged spanakopita, and she asked “What’s in it?” Baked spinach and cheese, I told her. Her demeanor abruptly changed, and she replied, “That sounds very healthy, thank you sir.”

Another time in New York, I was again bringing left over spanakopita to my hotel, this time by taxi. The cabbie (an African from the Ivory Coast) and I entered into a conversation. Somehow, I mentioned the spanakopita in my possession. The driver immediately switched into flawless Greek. He had worked on a Greek ship for some years. He was very appreciative when I handed him the spanakopita as I left the cab.

In 1995, I was invited to Capitol Hill for a memorial reception for Les Aspin, the long-time Congressman and later Secretary of Defense. Congressman Sonny Montgomery, with whom I worked on the G.I. Bill, was present. Prominent on the table of appetizers was spanakopita. I pointed to the spanakopita, and asked Montgomery if he knew what it was. “Why, that’s spanakopita. When I was growing up in Mississippi our Greek neighbors made that regularly and always gave us some. I love it.”

I have taught a Northwestern University for many years. One day, a student from Singapore approached me. Knowing I was Greek American, she asked where it would be possible to buy some spanakopita. She said it was her favorite food. Somewhat surprised, I asked if spanakopita was popular in Singapore. No, she replied. But once on a ski trip in Canada, her tour group had a meal at a Greek restaurant, and that is where she became hooked on spanakopita. She had not had any since then. Some days later, I brought her a portion of my wife’s spanakopita. No student of mine has ever been so grateful.

Let me mention a different kind of spanakopita tale. The Moskos family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the1940s. In the late 1940s, my grandparents paid us a visit from Chicago. It was decided that, coming so far, they should see Mexico. My mother drove the family to Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The whole trip took about three days in the high summer heat. My grandmother had prepared spanakopita and placed it in the trunk of the car. For some reason, it was never taken out. After spending a day in Juarez, we were ready to cross back to the United States. The American customs official asked us to open our trunk. We did so. A terrible and powerful odor of the rotting spanakopita overwhelmed him. He immediately shouted “close the trunk,” and waved us through the border. One wonders, could illegal drugs be smuggled into the country this way?

Spanakopita is no longer our Greek secret. That is the good news. It is increasingly common at receptions and is now even sold in some of the new organic food grocery stores. I have even seen menus with spinach-feta pizza.

But the not so good news is that hand rolled phylo is virtually extinct, here and, more telling, in Greece itself. Just think, in my own memory, four generations of the Moskos family have rolled their own phylo. Judging from the way something like spanakopita with hand-rolled phylo can affect human interactions, maybe it’s time to start a campaign to restore an art which seems to be lost in the old country.

***

Dr. Moskos is professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He and his son, Peter, are working on the third edition of “Greek Americans: Struggle and Success.” This article was initially is published The National Herald, Oct. 28.

The Chow Poodle, being of Greek descent, makes the best spanopokita I have ever tasted. During the spinach ban, we were lucky enough to have a stockpile in the freezer that saw us throught the drought. Spanokopita is one of the few non-liquid foods that I feel does not suffer from freezing.

Thank you for passing on that wonderful story, Gary. For the next spinach crisis, let me remind everyone that beyond the obvious solution of eating locally grown spinach, you can, and I do, make a fine spanakopita with chard. In fact the last thing I did before leaving my garden to move into a condo was to harvest my chard and freeze it. It sits in my new freezer waiting for a suitable occasion for the last garden spanakopita.

My memory:
For years, my nothing-Greek-about-her mother would make span-ih-co-PI-ta (rhymes wtih Anna-Maria). We enjoyed it very much. I still self correct when I read the word for this spinach and cheese pie.