Here in this little Greek island people have always given
each other food, often already cooked. The local family that has adopted me
often send a family member round with a plate or tupperware of whatever the
family is having today, especially if it’s some traditional dish — a favourite
is Yiouverlakia —that they know I like. It is likely, in the present
circumstances, that people will do this more and more. Thank God I live in a
small community; things will not get as bad as they are in the cities. No-one will be allowed to go hungry here.
Yesterday my friend Tasos presented me with an enormous
marrow; I shall stuff it with a mincemeat sauce, bake it, and take it round to
the bookshop, where we gather of an evening, to share. I am tempted, for all
that most of the others know only a little English, to take round also a
recording of the Marrow Song. (You know: ‘Oh, what a beauty, I’ve never seen
one as big as that before…’ Greeks love a double entendre.)
I don’t know much about vegetable growing but I know what I like:
as far as I’m concerned a marrow is just an overgrown courgette, and unless you
do things with it it’s pretty bland and boring. The same does not go for tiny
courgettes, though of course the English will find a way to make any food bland
and boring; they will chop up courgettes and cook them to death. The thing to
do however is to top and tail them, cutting off as little as possible, and then
steam them whole until they just begin to soften. Serve whole, warm rather than hot,
with olive oil, salt, and pepper, eat separately rather than with other more
strongly flavoured foods. This way you will appreciate their fine, delicate
flavour.
Yes, I know I don’t usually write about these sorts of
things, but the way Greece is going we are all going to have to think more
about the next meal.
Yes, all right; we all know you've got a big one.
Now there's a couple of tasty little ones.
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