A day picking olives and wild greens in Kandanos
By Vassilis Gialamarakis
Half way down to the south of Chania, on the way to Paleochora and more specifically in an area called Selino, there is the beautiful
A few days before our visit, the weather had been really bad in Crete with heavy rain, cold and loads of snow up the
After making some quick arrangements of the day's schedule, we were shown an old olive orchard with huge trees with nets laid under them. We would start picking from there. The trees were very old and their trunks looked more like monuments from another era rather than parts of someone's producing crop. In Kandanos village there is a huge olive tree, like the famous one in Vouves, God knows how old, and it takes four men with their arms wide open to encircle its trunk, which is about
The storm and winds had dropped many fresh olives on the nets for us to get. Olives must be large and deep blue in colour, in other words, ripe enough to be edible and of course good in taste. We had gone there with high expectations and could not wait to start the hard work of hand picking the best olives of western
The olives had fallen scattered in the nets making it very hard and time consuming to pick, as you have to bend over and move around all the time. After an hour of low efficiency, I began to lose my patience. You see, I am the typical modern type that wants everything to run efficiently and consider time to be of high value. However, this day was to be spent in the Cretan countryside, the old traditional way with my mother, in a slow but constant pace of work just like the way she grew up. My mother had the answer to my worries. We needed to gather the olives in large piles so we could sit down and work with them. But we could not lift the nets as they were sawed up together in a huge sheet covering the entire field. So, my mother disappeared off to the woods next to the field and a little later, she came back holding a few bunches of thyme she had cut there. Using a piece of wire from the fence, she made a broom to sweep the olives on the nets to the same direction to make piles. It did work, although hard work, and in the next two hours we had about 30 kilos. We were greedy though and determined to get more.
We were quickly done with this olive grove and wanted more olives, since my brother Adonis, whose good friend and koumbaros is putting in for mare of Kandanos on the next elections in October 2006, had made it clear to us that, like all real villagers in Crete, he does not work on Sundays and had gone to mingle with his village friends. By the time I went to get Adonis, my mother, being a typical village woman born and raised in a village, had gone off to the field nearby with a knife and waist bag made of cloth to pick wild greens and radices, that we call "chorta". She had not stopped talking of the amounts of greens that grown in Kandanos on our way there the whole morning. And of course we should keep the whole expedition secret of her sister Artemisia, because had she found out we went for greens, she would definitely want her fair share!
Just before noon we were off to Kampos, the area of Kandanos with the most olive trees. The landscape was amazing. The trees were loaded and absolutely stuffed with olives. This is a sight rarely seen on this variety of olives called "tsounati" in the Cretan dialect. This year is the best for olive oil that
After a rather long conversation repeatedly refusing a lunch break at his house in the village, we left him with no other option but to go and let us accomplish the goal of the day, picking as many olives as we could. We started work quickly but the olives were too small for our purpose and unripe, green. We selected carefully as many large green ones as we could find from up the trees and not from the nets, with the view of making them cracked olives, known as "tsakistes", preserved in lemon juice and salted water. They are great eaten on their own or with bread and cheese or in salads or even to cook with them (using wild greens and olive oil, cuttle fish and fennel casserole).
The snow-capped mountain across the valley was shining in the afternoon sun and the colours of the fields and village houses at the mountain were very bright. In the sight of such beauty, I thought that we are so lucky to be living in such a blessed place. The rest of the afternoon was spent wondering around the field gathering wild greens, different radish species, wild fennel, artichokes, and many more greens unknown to many people. They are weeds, as many would say but with great value for us. I kept picking the wrong ones and mother kept showing me the ones that we were after. They all looked the same to me! The next week's menu would be greens with something else every day cooked in different ways and of course "kalitsounia", which are greens and cheese pies and "marathopites" (fennel pies).
Very few people realise the role of greens in Cretan diet, the healthiest diet in the world according to scientists and the study of 7 countries carried out by the American Rockefeler Foundation. When the results were published the international community was taken by surprise. The Cretans had the strongest hearts in the world, lived longer than any other people and cancerous and cardiovascular diseases were rare on Cretans, unlike in northern populations where heart diseases are a real threat.
On the way back we were feeling absolutely exhausted, yet very pleased with our lovely day out, and of course the pick-up truck was full of the fruits of the earth. The mission did not end there though. We had to pass from our winter vegetable garden in Maleme where the expedition was completed. There we got our spinach, red beets, lettuce, fennel, parsley, radish and rocket. Chickens and rabbits were fed and one rooster was to be part of the meal for the following day.
The next day the olives had to be checked again, all the bad ones should be taken out, then mixed with thick salt suitable for table olives. The salt comes from the western Sfinari and was given to me from Yiannis back in summer. Here is my father's task, since he has the patience to deal with all this!
If you ever have the chance to go on a day like this, do not miss it for anything! It is a real tribute to the goddess of agriculture, Demeter. Unfortunately it is only possible in winter and you need a Cretan like my mother Katerina, to take you around.
How to make your own table olives
The techniques of soaking the bitterness out of the olives and thus making them edible are ancient and very simple. The most famous method used today in western
Alatsolies (black olives in salt)
Olives of the "tsounati" variety are used for this recipe and they must be harvested late in winter so that they are ripe and with loads of olive oil in their flesh so as to be of rich taste. They are just washed well and then mixed with thick salt in a sack or basket or plastic container so that all the juices produced out of the flesh run out. The olives gradually wrinkle and they are turned around regularly so that the salt goes everywhere. They can last for quite a long time up to a year. They must be stored in a dark and cool place to preserve. Before serving they should be rinsed well from the salt. They are generally a starter and enjoyed with bread and cheese or in salads. Make your own olives “a’
Tsakistes (cracked olives)
The same olives here are harvested in October or November while they are still green, unripe and with not much olive oil in their flesh, which is really bitter in taste. Then, the olives are beaten gently with a stone or wood cracking the flesh open but being careful not to touch the pit. Then they are soaked in large glass containers in a mixture of water, salt and lemon juice or bitter orange juice. The water mixture is changed every 10 days tasting the olives to see when they will turn sweet and edible. Then put loads of lemon juice in the water and various herbs if you like and cover with some olive oil on the top to stop the top ones from getting mouldy. These olives can be used in cooking or eaten on their own as a starter. Wash them gently and drain before serving with a bit of lemon juice and olive oil and if you like sprinkle them with coriander or rosemary. They do not preserve for very long maximum a year. My friend Eleni at Sfinari village told me that she uses sea water for her olives until the bitterness comes off and she does not crack her olives at all, which helps to keep longer.
