Home life in Hellas, Greece and the Greeks - eBooks4Greeks.gr

DOMESTIC LIFE 169and consistency of plaster.Butter he knows notolive oil takes the place it holds with us. Meathe tastes at Easter in the form of Iamb roasted onthe spit, and seldom else throughout the year.This is the diet of the poorest class of peasant,the man who cultivates land on the system of payingone-third of the produce to the owner. It ismonotonous, but nutritious and easily assimilated.It might be made more varied if he grew vegetables,inclination.but he seldom has either the time or theMeals are eaten by the family out ofa common receptacle. Plates are undreamt of;knives and forks are unnecessary, owing to thecharacter of the food. One knife only is neededto cut the bread. It is usually the one employedfor purposes of husbandry. Spoons are providedfor the curded milk, or the mess of maize, or brothof wild herbs. The standard of living with respectto food is better than that of the urban poor inWestern Europe, but as regards the rest—thesleeping, for instance, and the stabling of theanimals in the dwelling—well, the abode of theEnglish cottager is not a model for imitationfrom the point of view of sanitation, but there isa gulf between it and the cabin of the Greekpeasant. The peasant who owns and farms hispatch of land and lives in a two-storeyed house hasa higher conception of comfort and cleanlinessthan the one just described, but his home cannotbe compared with a modest English farmstead,though he is probably better off than the occupant