free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

Sphakia – Impressions
the National Gardens he seems cowed and uneasy. It would be pleasing
if the preservation laws encouraged him to venture outside the gorge -
so that one day we might see, as in days past, whole herds of ibex roam-
ing the slopes of Dicte and leaping wind-borne from crag to crag on
Ida.
Undated. An old braggart in a cloth cap, his chin stubbly, very talka-
tive. A Sphakian with a dark carved face, deep-set eyes, dark crisp hair
just going grey, big eyebrows, headband, very silent. Eventually he
admits he left Sphakia because of ‘family differences’, i.e. a blood feud.
It seems to have blown over since he can now revisit Sphakia. The old
man suddenly says, ‘That is the evil of Crete!’ He is rather drunk, but a
remark about old age causes him to speak with passion: ‘Listen to
me. There where I stand, you will stand. Are you listening? This
is ancient Greek philosophy, write it down. This is Latin. Listen.
Where I am now you will be. There where I stood you now stand. In
the end it is the same for all.* And we and the Sphakian nod.
Making cheese: Sheep’s milk is heated in a great copper cauldron, to
48° C, before being curdled. If it exceeds this temperature by much
the cheese will not take salt and is spoiled. The cauldron full makes
three ‘heads’ of cheese: that is, three whole graviera cheeses, each
between four and eight kilos in weight. In the cool of winter they can
make it all into two or even one head. The milk is stirred perpetually.
Eventually you can plunge a hand into the cauldron and turn over the
grains of milk-cheese. A third of the contents, enough for one head, is
gathered in a cloth, pushed into an open metal cylinder, and pressed
into shape. A pail catches the whey. After some hours the head can be
laid in the maturing room where it is turned and salted daily.
The maturing room is marvellous - dark and mysterious - row on
row of cheeses, over a foot in diameter; at first they are soft and immature,
and later as the rind hardens they begin to glow with health.
They take a month to mature.
How should one eat graviera? Best at a Cretan festival or glendi, in
large slabs, with cold lamb, or hot pilaff, or honey. And of course
washed down with the great local wines.
I I June. An evening’s revelry at Agia Eirene ends with Julie and me
singing ‘On yonder hill there iives a lady", and our doing a waltz accompanied
by the village schoolmaster on the comb and lavatory paper
– only being Greeks they have no lavatory paper, and so use the tissues
from a cigarette packet instead.
137