Came across this whimsical Greek art. It’s a painting by Mariella Bilitsa, an artist originally from Albania who now lives and works in Athens. Love it. Addresses the social stereotype issue beautifully.
Author: Sosanni V
A Gastronaut. A Kitchen. A Keyboard. An Odyssey.
“For there is nothing better or more powerful than when a husband and wife hold a house in harmony… but a welcome meal feeds the stranger and binds the soul to the earth.”
Homer.
Welcome to my kouzina (kou – zí – na), Greek for ‘kitchen.’
My kitchen is in Greece—I have had my ‘kitchens’ in many ‘places’ throughout my life…but here, this kitchen is what I call my ‘headquarters.’
This is where I write and where I cook.
Writing is one of my passions. I am a writer. Besides magical realism, I write culinary fiction.
Sosanni V
But being a writer comes with a price.
Many of us belong to a tribe of the ‘misunderstood’ because we are passionate about things others may not even notice in life.
Becoming a Gastronaut is the natural result of my passions.
Culinaria is one of my passions. Art is another. Actually, I am obsessed with art, literature, and food, globally and throughout history. Exhausting passions if you ask me. Especially in the kitchen, where my ‘passions’ compete for my time and energy.
I love to create meals—and I love how food influences culture. By creating meals, I don’t mean ‘following recipes. ‘I mean doing it the way Greeks were taught throughout history—to cook “me to mati,”* which literally means “by the eye,” but what it really means is ‘intuitively knowing.’ It’s a Greek thing. Many of us come from families who had the privilege of learning to read and write in the past two generations. That’s what wars and ensuing poverty do…Our grandmothers and ancestors before us didn’t know how to write, have paper, or even think to quantify an ingredient. They knew how the ingredients ‘behaved’ and taught their daughters to cook by teaching them how to work with the character/nature of the ingredient. ***More on that for sure in future posts… Because that is one of the passions driving me to keep this gastronaut field note journal.
*👁️ Me to Mati. = We were never handed down ‘recipes’ with precise quantities—we were handed down suggested ingredients and the skill to gauge how much you need or want, as well as the techniques and methods in order to achieve the meal you want to create. It comes with practice like anything else.
*** I say grandmothers, daughters, etc…. No, I’m not sexist, and I don’t mean to offend. But traditionally, it was the mother or grandmother who taught the younger generation of daughters to cook. It was what it was. It is what it is. Men are great cooks, but I’m talking about the rustic culture of the masses in Greece.
Okay…I admit that I have another thing going on in the kitchen.
I am worried about culinary and cultural traditions that are falling into oblivion as times change.
And times are changing, faster than we can detect. Aside from the role of fast food, convenience foods, processed foods, fake foods, toxic foods, and modified foods—we have soaring natural food prices worldwide—and we are also seeing the changing nature of family life. And these changes impact the kitchen.
From the hearth and heart of the home—where it all comes together for the family and friends through homemade meals and heart-to-heart talk and laughter—we easily slip into the kitchen being a storage space for prefab instant foods or where we place the delivered food on plates. But what’s worse? The kitchen easily becomes the place where the family may perhaps meet for a meal—but all they do is share space at the table, as they are all consumed by the silent process of eating with one hand while engrossed by the phone in the other.
I, like many of you out there reading this, am ‘different.’
Different as in :
‘I need to cook.
I need to ‘feed.’
I need to talk, to converse, to laugh and cry, and to feel.
And I know that
the kitchen, food, cooking, sensory experience and
the continuity of culinary traditions
are intertwined with
emotion, connection, ‘living,’ experiencing, blossoming, comforting, growing, and nurturing—on all levels.
Cooking and eating meals together can be a magical experience of generational continuity, intuition, creativity, bonding, knowing, and feeling.
I am passionate about these things, which is why they made their way into many of my novels.
And so, knowing where I am ‘coming from,’ you know what I’m about.
So:
- Welcome to my Gastronaut field notes…or the journal entries of a kitchen tribal chief.
- Welcome to my Greek kitchen.
- Welcome to a site that will have plenty of authentic Greek food posted here. My way to help prevent authentic Greek cuisine and many ‘moments of culture’ in general from disappearing into the sea of oblivion.
- On that note, please like and share so we can kick up the spice and have the algorithms actually notice the site to keep these going!
- And last but not least… I must say, Greeks are global. We always were and we always will be. But our identity and ways are firmly rooted. And no one and nothing can change that. It’s how we are. Although we are quite adaptable…lol. So…don’t be surprised by the fact that although the content focuses on authentic Greek food, it will end up be naturally seasoned with global art and literature or music that ‘shares the vibe’ or just streamed in. It is what it is.
“The weapons of a kitchen tribal chief. No scales, no plastic cups, no modern timers. Just worn wood, decades of muscle memory, and a conversation with the dough.” Sosanni V. @ The Gastronaut