[From Homepage] Home Cookin' 5: Cool Yiayia

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by Alan Lake (Jazzfood)

Synglitiki “Tita” Zervos comes to the United States in 1961 imagining she’ll live in the White House or a Hollywood mansion. From her tiny island of Kalymnos off the Southern coast of Greece (population 1,500), it seems possible. Based on American movies, her impression of the United States is all presidents and movie stars. Little does she know what lies ahead: a life full of cooking, family, and later - memories.

Childhood in Greece

As the third daughter in a family of nine, growing up in Greece during World War II is tough, but not as tough as it is for many of Tita’s neighbors. Bombs destroy the house next door to their family bakery. German and Italian soldiers occupying the island conscript her father to bake bread for them. Convincing them he needs helpers for the task at hand, he brings all 46 members of his extended family to work in the bakery. Besides not knowing what it takes to produce said bread, the soldiers don’t really know how many loaves 100 kgs of flour makes, either...let’s just say no one goes hungry.

Lovely. My favorite in the series so far. But maybe I say that after each installment.

thank you

Thank you for Tita's story, these are the cooks I want to know, the ones with a wealth of knowledge and experience that will hopefully be passed on the the next generation. This is why food is important to me, it's a door into a culture and there's always a story worth knowing.

Love your stories Jazzfood. Tita is quite a gift to her children and grandchildren. I love her spunky nature (with the hair cut and cooking strike). Thanks for sharing these passionate people with us.

mbh wrote:Thank you for Tita's story, these are the cooks I want to know, the ones with a wealth of knowledge and experience that will hopefully be passed on the the next generation. This is why food is important to me, it's a door into a culture and there's always a story worth knowing.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ what she said. Perhaps we were meant to be food anthropologists after all.

My heritage, southern Af-am, suggests that I should have been an old-pro at canning, gardening, and making pie, but each of these became a quest for knowledge long after I stopped living in the south. Perhaps, it was my desire for a taste of home that brought me to acquiring these skills, but man do I love talking about them, eating them, and sharing them with others.

At the end of the day, good food is good food, but the stories and memories that food conveys is enough to move one to joy.

Thanks for the reminder with this post and bringing the chick peas to the picnic Alan.

A wonderful story indeed Alan, and a lesson for all of us to try to hang on to some of our cultural heritage. There's so much to savor. I look around and lament our loss of Jewish delis and I hope this is not a sign of things to come with other cultures. Bravo to you on telling her story, and I think you did her really proud Sunday with your terrific preparation of her lenten chickpeas.