Don’t you just love the smell of first rain? It was raining all night and morning yesterday. Chania saw the first rain in four months! The scents of Rosemary, Sage, Lemon Verbena, Thyme, Mint and Lavender filled the air. Autumn…
A CRETAN PRE-WEDDING PARTY (Κρητικό προγαμήλιο γλέντι)
Here is what was served at a ‘before wedding’ party which was held in Karanou. The party was given by the groom’s family one week before the son got married. The wedding ceremony and the after wedding party (gr. glenti)…
Carnival
The three weeks of Carnival are the last weeks before the great Easter Fast and also a festival of masked balls, songs, rivers of wine and plenty of food. Like its predecessors, Greek Athenian Anthesteria and Roman Saturnalia, Greek Carnival…
The Bread Oblations of St. Antonios
On January 17, the feast day of St. Antonios, women on Sfakia (SW Crete), bake man-shaped breads as an offering for the sick loved ones. The custom of anthropomorphic breads or foods is found in several cultures. Small anthropomorphic breads, known as “muertitos,”…
Eating lupines
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lupinus_albus.JPG “For our best and daintiest cheer, Through the bright half of the year, Is but acorns, onions, peas, Ochros lupines, radishes, Yetches, wild pears nine or ten, With a locust now and then.’’ Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Deipnosophists,…