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At noon, around one o'clock we arrive on a Blue Star ferry on the Island of Mykonos, where a taxi is already waiting to take us to Dimitrio’s house. The house lies well hidden amidst the hills of Mykonos surrounded by a vineyard, an olive grove and orchard. Directly next to the house there is a small chapel, such as can be found everywhere in the middle of fields, upon hills or nearby homesteads on the Cyclades. The house has a large canopied terrace, with a big oven for home-made bread in the rear and a fireplace for barbecue. The house is built in the same style as old farmhouses. The canopied terrace with its fireplaces, niches, benches and tables was once used - amongst other things - for home slaughtering, gutting and further processing of pigs. Dimitrios has written a book entitled "Tastes of Sacrifice", where he describes the old tradition of the pigs feast.
In November or December, at the beginning of the cold season, when pigs were getting fat and fodder was getting rare, the pig butchers went from house to house to slaughter the animals in a traditional manner. That was some kind of ritual offering. Friends and neighbours came together to take the meat apart and to process it. This was the meat for the winter season, that had been preserved with salt, herbs, fat or was made into sausages. Thus Louza was created, a lean bacon, cured with herbs, Sisera, Glina(lard)and Hali, a piece of fantastically spiced sausage. One worked all day and quite naturally the work became a feast for all senses. Food was served, there was plenty of wine, music began to play and so the immolation of the day crossed over to a merry delirium of night. The cosmic dance of life and death was celebrated here in the rhythm of seasons.
When we arrive, Dimitrios is busy cooking with three huge pots, wherein various fish-and vegetable stocks have been boiled since morning. We see delicious, opalescent fishes, freshly caught lying in a large bowl, a plain plastic bucket is filled with lots of small fishes and all kinds of seafood; freshly cleaned and peeled vegetables are floating in a water basin. Dimitrios' mother is frying stockfish, Vicky is preparing salads, Yiannis is serving wine. Each works on the progress of the feast in a playful way.
Everybody welcomes us so heartily. New guests arrive continuously and again and again new dishes are served and glasses are constantly filled. Like a musician on an organ, Dimitrios composes his multifarious Kakavia, the Greek fish soup which is - like many other fish soups - always cooked after a home-made recipe. He plans to cook the soup in three different colour variations by using pureed carrots and bell peppers for the red -, pureed celery and parsley for the green - and no colour vegetable for white. Much later, when everybody has eaten plenty of these three varieties, he prepares a black kind of Kakavia coloured with sepia and even later - after many opulent courses - he serves a potpourri made from the leftovers of all four varieties.
It's rhythm and dynamics that make the feast so special. In the early afternoon a man plays the Bozouki on and off. Towards the evening there are two musicians, and then a guitarist joins them as well as a dulcimer player. Sometimes only one person sings, sometimes the whole group. The children grab a tambourine and carefully try to find the rhythm of the music.
The particular of this festivity is it’s rhythm and it’s dynamics. All day and half of the night is a constant floating and flowing of preparations, eating, talking, drinking, making music, and dancing. There is no hectic working towards a particular point, at which the feast should begin and all preparations should have been done; one thing is completed and another one begins. Everything is there, from the beginning to the end. Although in changing constellations, different focuses, varying intensities, but there is never one action isolated from all the other activities; simply cooking; simply eating; simply making music. Sometimes such an amalgamation will be considered disadvantageous. For me it is the most successful form of an unpretentious fiesta, were the pulse of life becomes the delight of the guests.
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