Foraging for Flavor Greek Herbs/Bean Cuisine / Spa ... - Kerasma

gives us Aliagas, the emaciated
and smooth-faced neighborhood
pauper, who describes eloquently
and poetically to the neighborhood
housewives the [fictitious and nonexistent]
elaborate meals that he
has prepared and consumed. The
housewives all marvel at his gastronomic
prowess, and then exhort
and implore him to accept some of
their own homely, simple food; this
is nothing but a stratagem to offer
alms and food to the pauper in a
way that would not hurt his pride
or make him appear the beggar.
Hospitality is overriding in Crete to
Vassilis Stenos
the point that, even nowadays,
Cretan hosts will urge a guest to
partake of their food in ways and
with language the guest could
consider obtrusive, even brash.
This constitutes part of an ageslong
shrewd and astute game, in
which the host has to preempt the
guest's initial, polite, refusal of the
food offered.
In Report to Greco, Kazantzakis
describes a poignant incident that
shows how Cretans interpret their
duty of hospitality. In one of the
author's treks throughout Crete,
nightfall found him at an unfamil-
42 GREEKGOURMETRAVELER
Vassilis Stenos
iar village. He knocked on the door
of the village priest, knowing that
he could spend the night at his
house. The priest welcomes him
cordially, offers him dinner and a
bed for the night. In the morning,
he prepares breakfast for him and
then bids him farewell. Minutes
later, on the street, Kazantzakis is
informed by a passerby that the
priest's only son had died the day
before and that, even as he was
being served dinner by the priest,
the bereaved female relatives were
holding a vigil to lament the son's
loss. However, it was unthinkable