Karpathos, bakery

Everything around us nowadays claims to be about “authenticity,” “flavor,” and “tradition,” but, more often than not, what’s being described doesn’t live up to those words. However, I do know one woman who truly embodies these values. She wears traditional local garb, talks and tells jokes in an ancient Doric dialect, bakes all day using age-old recipes from her village, and serves her homeland, family, and culture with a wisdom and a love that are both simple and rare today.

It was harvest season, and the landscape was golden with wheat. There was a strange light to the sky – dark clouds and a bright sun battled to see which would prevail. From afar, I could see the gleam of the women’s sickles as they cut the stalks. Kalliopi would grab a tuft of wheat and, before I could even see it cut, she had already moved on to the next and then the next. Her strong hands worked swiftly, fighting against the wind, which made the task even more difficult, yet she pressed on tirelessly for hours. She wore the kavai (a traditional outer garment) with its “wings” tucked into her belt, revealing a long embroidered shirt underneath, stivania (tall leather boots) on her feet, and a headscarf tied around her head. She was a tall, young, slender dark-haired woman from Olympos. I couldn’t get enough of photographing the scene: a person in harmony with nature, part of it. She had sown the land, and it was rewarding her in return.

As the sun rose higher over the fields of Avlona, a whole meal was laid out – kousoumades (rusks), cheese, olives, artichokes in oil, herb pies and figs – all homemade. Her mother, her grandfather, her sister-in-law Mangafoula, and her children, including Maria, her eldest daughter, were all there… There was easy conversation, banter and laughter under the grapevines. By afternoon, they were back in the fields with their sickles in hand. Her relatives called out jokes to one another to pass the time while the children played on the threshing floor.

Twenty Years Later

Those events took place two decades ago in Avlona, an area of farmland near Olympos in northern Karpathos, on a plateau overlooking the sea. This year, I’ve returned to this beloved place, now with my daughter, to reconnect with the people, see the places, and observe the changes. One thing that certainly hasn’t changed is the flavors – they are still exactly the same!

Kalliopi still wears the traditional costume of her region and bakes daily in her wood-fired oven, which stands on a spot overlooking the windmills and the sea. She never alters the recipes passed down to her by her mother. The only difference now is that she bakes to feed dozens of people. It’s the steady stream of visitors that led to the creation of “Kalliopi’s Bakery,” where people can buy local delicacies and, of course, bread; almost every household in Olympos has its own wood-fired oven. Kalliopi rises at dawn to knead the dough and gather greens from her garden to make herb pies, sourdough bread, sesame biscuits and tourtes (local cheese pies). Her kousoumades – delicious rusks made from barley, wheat and white flour, with a blend of a few spices – are renowned. A friend from Crete, a true gourmet, once tasted them and said, “These aren’t just rusks, my dear; they’re communion wafers!”

In the mornings, I watch her carrying athimaria (large branches) to fill and light the oven. This is yet another reason why her products have such a unique flavor – even the oven smoke is imbued with the presence of the rugged landscape. She then starts kneading the dough, rolling out the pastry for the herb pies, and chopping the vlita (wild greens), the tomatoes and the onions, unhurriedly, with care and devotion. Beside her now are Maria and Sophia, her daughters and worthy assistants. Maria has a talent for traditional savory recipes, while Sophia excels at sweets, making cakes, kataifi and baklava. Her baklava, made without excessive syrup, would impress even the best pastry chefs in the country.

Local Recipes

I met Kalliopi when her children were young. She was baking in the same wood-fired oven she uses today, and everything that came out of her skillful hands was unmatched. She made the largest and most delicious artos (sacramental bread loaves) in the village – the same ones she baked this year for the Feast of the Virgin Mary on August 15 – using ten spices, including freshly ground mastic, black sesame, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander, and topping the loaf with whole cumin seeds. I recall telling her that her creations should be sold in delicatessens. This was in the mid-1990s, and I remember that it was the first time I’d seen so many spices used in Greek cooking. Since most traditions in Olympos date back to ancient Greece, I realized that spices were, in fact, an integral part of Greek cuisine in antiquity.

One taste I will never forget is that of the “tourtes with oxyalo” that Kalliopi’s mother used to make – small miracles, hot from the wood oven, filled with soft fresh cheese and sprinkled with sesame seeds. To make the cheese, they would take fresh goat’s milk and pour it into a clay pot with a hole at the bottom. As the milk thickened and soured, the water content would drain out from it. Every day, they would add more milk, and the water would drain, leaving behind a thickened, sour mixture called oxyalo. They would strain this through a cloth bag for another day or two to make it even thicker. Then they would make some dough using all-purpose flour and olive oil, and adding mastic for flavor. They would roll out a square piece, place the oxyalo inside, along with fennel, sugar, and cinnamon, fold up the four corners of the dough, and brush the pies with egg before sprinkling them with sesame seeds. Baked in the wood-fired oven, these cheese pies were unforgettably tasty!

Living Like a Local

Avlona, the island’s breadbasket (it fed all of Karpathos during the lean years of WWII), is the perfect place to stay. It’s authenticity at its purest; you sleep on a sofa beneath rows of decorative plates and wake up to the crowing of a rooster. There’s breakfast on the veranda with delicacies from the bakery: delicious bread or kousoumades with honey and Cretan graviera, and cheese pies (called tourtes) made with anthotyro, a fresh cheese. To drink, there’s kinomalea (local sage) tea mixed with some rosemary you can find growing wild in the Papa Minas area. The herbs here are flavorful and, as research has shown, rich in beneficial properties.

One morning there, I watched Michalis Lentakis and his wife Anna threshing a little further down. They were taking turns using the dihali (a long wooden fork-like tool), tossing the grain high into the air to separate it from the chaff. “Making flour is hard work,” Michalis shouted to me. “Now in August, we have to clear the field. In the fall, we’ll sow it; in June, we’ll harvest it, and take it to the mill. We only make whole wheat flour.”

That afternoon, to go with my coffee, Kalliopi gave me one of the koulouria, or cookies, she had made that morning; it was soft yet crispy, and sprinkled with black cumin. The taste, so special, captured the unique essence of Olympos! Her creations carry the flavors of the fields, the mountains, the cliffs, and even the thick mist, which the locals call bonenti…