01 00 19 05
‘The road was cut around 1900; electricity arrived after World War Two.’

01 00 25 12
The school teacher continued:

next landscape
‘The first phone was installed in the late 1960’s, the first TV in the early 1970’s. Seeing what the world had to offer, many boys sought work in the valleys; they left behind the old ways to be able to buy things un-obtainable by barter…who wants to be a shepherd?’

01 00 56 14
Today, villagers try to maintain their foods and other traditions in the face of these growing economic changes.

01 01 05 04
In this episode we go to the Peloponnesus, the southern peninsula of Greece, and to its centre, Arcadia and the villages above the Lousious Gorge.

01 01 17 06
The mountains are dotted by sheep and goats watched over by men who know every ravine and plateau.

01 01 27 05
In a moment of silence, a silence defined by the wind in flowering trees, tinkling bells become music with a bleating accompaniment.

01 01 42 05
Around a boulder the wind whispers their presence and they are gone but for the memory on the stoical shepherd’s face .



01 01 56 03
Horta or greens grow wild in the pastures and are picked and used in salads or cooked as a vegetable.

01 02 06 17
To the uninformed, they seem to be weeds but to Arkadians the several varieties which appear during the year are healthful additions to pies and side-dishes.


01 02 23 20
In the Hotel Dimitsana’s kitchen under the direction of Maria Malevetis, horta, brought by a local woman, is prepared for a lamb dish.
Head Chef Panayiotis Alexopoulos chops romaine lettuce and heats virgin olive oil, the beginning of most Greek dishes.

01 02 47 05
While Maria cleans wild dill for the lamb fricassee, Panayiotis adds onions and browns the meat.

01 02 59 18
Lamb is grilled, roasted, sautéed, chopped and fried. It is spit roasted for celebrations, or as here, smothered in greens.

01 03 11 19
The sauce shows the difference between Italian tomato based dishes and Greek egg based dishes.

01 03 28 06
With lemon added to the eggs and then the cooking water of the greens, a distinctively Arkadian taste is created, a taste which has survived the invasions of the Turkish, Italians, Germans and others…but will it hold out against foreign fast foods?

01 03 50 02
For the moment the Malevetis, their children and the chef seem to believe so.



01 03 59 21
The Lousious Gorge: this easily defended natural bastion, became the centre of Greek identity and the preserve of its religion and dreams of freedom from the occupying Ottoman Turks.

01 04 16 01
Monasteries cut into rocks high above the valley still cling to the cliff as the 11th century Prodromou Monastery, now guarded by stubborn non-believers.

01 04 37 21
The 11 monks are shadows to outsiders.

01 04 43 09
This doctor comes once a year to help the priests and to meditate.

01 04 48 10
People from the nearby villages come to dig the garden. With little cash, its produce is an important source of food.

01 04 58 13
In the early 19th century these monasteries, in the face of Ottoman oppression, illegally schooled young men who became the founders of the modern Greek state.

01 05 16 17
At this water mill, built around 1800, the wives of revolutionaries had their maize and wheat ground into flour. Until recently, self-sufficiency and a lack of money forced farmers to raise vegetables and animals as well as grains for bread.

01 05 37 08
The miller, Petros Kratimenos, 84, believes no one will carry on after he can no longer operate the mill stone, cogs and gears he designed and built.
Now most wheat is sent to distant mills, often owned by agri-corporations; the wheat is processed and sent back to the regions it came from…this flour is less fresh, millers are put out of business, sustainable energy is replaced by polluting fossil fuels for production and transportation.

01 06 18 01
As his client collects his flour, Petro’s wife brings fresh feta and a local aniseed liquor to thank the farmer.

01 06 30 02
‘Sad’ said Petros, ‘this old mill had lasted so long. Now we survive on pennies and it will disappear.’

01 06 42 20
In a small village near the gorge is Ta Arkadiko Pastry Shop.

01 06 48 21
Maria Baroutzos keeps alive traditional local recipes. There’s a modern oven and the water is piped in and heated by gas, but the same ways of making pastry and the same unadulterated raw ingredients are used.

01 07 02 08
She prepares Tsalskouni, with a Filo dough made of flour, cinnamon water, olive oil and salt which is mixed, kneaded and left to sit overnight so that complex flavours develop.

01 07 23 06
The next day Maria combines ground walnuts, melba toast, cinnamon and cloves.

01 07 32 17
Moistened with more cinnamon water, she mixes the ingredients and leaves them to plump up.

01 07 41 24
In this culture, people are used to the taste of real food. Imitation flavours are often offensive. A fresh walnut is more subtle to taste buds than artificial flavours fabricated thousands of miles away.

01 08 00 15
After rolling out the dough she enfolds the walnut mixture in it.



01 08 14 13
The half moons bake, filling the dusk with sweet seductive perfumes of nuts, sugar and spices.

01 08 25 10
After they cool, Maria dips the pastries in cinnamon water and rolls them in powdered sugar…

01 08 33 20
The pastries, as this chapel, represent the still existing fabric of regional culture now assaulted by global pressures but kept intact by the need for people to maintain their identity.

01 08 54 19
Goat’s milk makes a distinctive tangy cheese.

01 09 02 02
Vangelis and his wife Kalliopi Stavropoulos have 120 goats and 40 kids. At 65 he has been herding for 40 years.
They used to sell the meat and milk to butchers and cheese makers but were at the mercy of their pricing…now they make their own cheese and sell the meat directly to outlets in Athens.

01 09 21 03
Like many traditional farmers in Europe, they have been unable to compete with the large farms and corporations which dominate today’s food systems.
But their milk, flavoured by the diverse mountain flora, is sweet and rich. It is also used by Maria Mouroutsou to make a feta cheese for her taverna, O Folos.

01 09 50 10
Once the raw milk is strained, warmed and thickened Maria pours it into a cloth to allow the whey to drain and separate from the curds.

01 10 15 23
The next morning, while the cheese still drains, Maria plants tomatoes and picks herbs, all of which are used to feed her patrons.


01 10 25 02
And then the bread making process begins. Maria must knead the flour, salt and water for an hour. This requires a feel, strength and stamina but it is done willingly because, to Maria, her bread is central to every meal, which is the focus of her family’s life.

01 10 43 11
In ancient Greece, bread was made round as the sun, as a crescent for the moon or plaited as a woman’s hair; these loaves were offered as symbols for sacrifice.

01 10 58 24
Her battered tins are coated with olive oil…

01 11 03 10
…and the now risen dough is divided,

01 11 07 07
…re-worked,

01 11 12 00
…coated with sesame seeds and left 4 more hours for a final raising as sugars and starches develop rich flavours .

01 11 32 18
Yesterdays cheese has set.

01 11 51 14
With pleasure, Maria cuts and salts it, to be consumed immediately as a young creamy cheese or stored for up to 3 months, ageing into a firm strong cheese.

01 12 03 22
And after several hours in the wood oven her loaves are ready.

01 12 31 01
A spring night, chilly at the bottom of a deep valley, people arrive for the Festival of St. Nicholas and to the seductive odour of grilling meats.


01 12 42 02
Grilling meat over an open fire first occurred in the Caucasus Mountains but Arkadians have been cooking lamb and pork this way since before 1000 BC.

01 13 03 20
Served on chunks of white bread, it is a local variety of fast food,

01 13 0918
…‘fast’ if the 12 hours it marinates in wine, lemon juice, oregano and olive oil is ignored.

01 13 17 23
Deep gorges, protected cliffs and rich pastures support 6000 species of flowering plants
A bee keeper like Tassos knows the land well enough to place his hand-built apiaries in the right spot during the long growing season.

01 13 33 13
His bees produce thick rich natural honeys dominated by rosemary, chestnut, or sometimes from a variety of spring and summer plants.

01 13 54 00
Tassos cares for his bees; he watches for disease, he continually rebuilds his mesh racks and he carefully processes his honey.

01 14 07 11
But he and his wife worry about the cheap honey which global trading corporations insist Greece must import to their supermarkets; imports which may drive these hardworking people off the land.

01 14 30 04
Honey, runny and thick is elemental, basic to all Arkadian sweets.

01 14 43 09
Canella Mouroutzo adds store bought sugar, ground cinnamon and cloves to her roughly chopped walnuts and then builds layer after layer of fine filo pastry and the nut mixture.


01 14 55 16
Canella was raised on a farm. The family was nearly self-sufficient, eating their own produce. Her father, Vangelis, was a shepherd ; her mother Maria, tended the animals, made cheese, bread, pasta and sweets with whatever was available.
After high school, Canella realized she enjoyed baking. She learned more from Ministry of Agriculture seminars.
Ten years ago her husband Vasilis, her brother and she opened a food market in Lagadia but after five years they were driven out by supermarkets in the valley. Gradually they began to stock their shop with their own home-made goods as this baklava.


01 15 36 13
While a honey sauce cooks she makes a traditional Greek ‘spoon sweet’ from pears.

01 15 42 03
Peeled…

01 15 48 13
…soaked in lemon water and cooked in the honey sauce,

01 15 56 05
…they are bottled hot in sterilized jars with almonds.

01 16 01 01
To finish the now baked baklava the hot honey syrup is poured over it.

01 16 15 15
Their specialty shop in the centre of Lagadia is a treasure cave of her spoon sweets, honeyed fruits and nuts, and olive oils tinged with different mountain herbs.

01 16 29 13
Canella fills the shop as if a canvas touched with a thousand flavours.




01 16 53 23
In the surrounding countryside, chickens lay organic eggs and at the Kentrikon Hotel essential comforting foods are made, like this omelette with tomatoes, olive oil and local sausages.

01 17 08 22
The cuisine depends on seasonal local ingredients cooked simply but with a dash of the 400 year Ottoman influence.

01 17 18 20
This is tasted in the aromatic spices and herbs used in sausages and grilled meats. These combinations give their food its identifiable regional flavour.

01 17 28 02
Vasillis Betsas, the school teacher, makes different local pastas several times a week to sell in his and Canalla’s store.

01 17 35 21
This variety, called kritharakia, is made from an Arkadian milk based dough, which is unusual for pasta.

01 17 46 11
His watchfulness and experimentation help to develop a more refined texture and flavour.

01 17 53 14
The machine cuts the dough into different shapes, each of which has a particular use with meats, vegetables, sautés and stews.

01 18 10 08
Like many European producers, he combines modern machines and techniques with traditional ingredients and recipes and the irreplaceable craft of an individual.

01 18
Vasillis said: ‘We search for ways to survive…as building and catering for returning family members and tourists… but villagers become competitive… social solidarity falls apart.’

01 18 41 00
West of the Gorge, across the mountains, a fishing boat returns from its early morning trawl on the Ionian sea.

01 18 50 10
Isidoros Spanos, head chef of the Olympian Village hotel, arrives to buy fish from the boats captain.

01 19 04 00
As the tired fishermen separate and chill the catch, Isidoros imagines what he can make, how many fish he may need of which type and how to balance his budget.

01 19 25 22
An experienced and well travelled chef, Isidoros believes in using local ingredients and recipes but modernizing: using more aromatic herbs, less deep frying, lightening the flavours and using less fats and sugars.

01 19 41 04
Although the Mediterranean diet is the healthiest in Europe, he seeks to improve upon this.

01 19 52 24
His cultured taste and generosity shows in his delicate touch and in the sharing of his knowledge with his young team.

01 20 10 01
Olive oil, Feta cheese, red peppers, courgette, aubergine, garlic and tomatoes, essential Arkadian ingredients set off by local sweet wines, thyme and mint.

01 20 24 00
In the middle ages, young men escaped their Byzantine overlords by cooking in monasteries. To identify themselves from the priests who wore tall black hats, the cooks wore tall white hats: still today the sign of a chef.




01 20 57 22
Isidoros’ fine cooking reveals tradition as a dialogue between past and present, and how that exchange keeps regional ideas alive in the face of homogenizing tourism, agri- crops and processed foods. This splendid hotel helps maintain that dialogue.

01 21 24 14
On the Mercouri estate overlooking the Ionian Sea, salty breezes play with the grape vines.

01 21 35 10
Now in early spring, men tie back the vines and trim them so the sun can penetrate to the developing fruits.

01 21 56 19
In the cellars the young master of the wine, Dimitris Skafidas and Vassillis Kanellakopoulos, the present family member running the estate, taste last years vintage.

01 22 10 08
In the vineyards, men clear weeds from around the vine roots. This nurturing maintains an organic harmony in which as few chemicals as possible are used; `a sign of their ability to aid nature’s balance.

01 22 28 07
The history of the family and its estate reads like a 19th century novel; every generation inherits the land for it’s children. To lose it is to lose more then a business. Vassillis works to improve his wines, his markets and his families life.

01 22 49 23
In a valley, at the heart of Arkadia, water streams out of a mountain and is guided through pipes into fish tanks.

01 23 06 21
Babis Papageorgiou, the son of the owner Elias, nets a fish.

01 23 22 04
Elias prepares the trout for cooking.

01 23 31 05
He carried every bag of cement down the impassable road to build his dream. Now a successful restaurant, his family have an idyllic home.

01 23 46 14
While the freshly killed fish fry, Babis strips the skin of a smoked trout, a popular recipe.

01 24 40 11
Arcadia is a place but it’s also a state of mind; it represents what was once a European dream of rustic pleasures and habits -a peaceful rural life. This is the mythical birthplace of Pan, the ancient Greek god of all the countryside and nature.
But as civilization developed and people moved away from the land, Pan’s name sadly became associated with fear of the dark woods and eventually his name evolved into the word ‘panic’.

text
A condition of widespread apprehension in relation to financial and commercial matters, leading to hasty and violent measures…
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary