©Happy Holidays Corfu
Corfu Kitchen
How to Make Moussaka
Food - Corfu Magazine - Vol. 3, No. 3; March 2008
How to Make Koulourakia
Last year I convinced my Yia Yia to give me her Greek family recipe collection. I told her I was going to combine it with some other stuff to make a family cook book that I would give to all the women in our family. So yeah, I still haven't gotten around to making the book, but I have finally made one of the recipes. I've helped make almost all of the recipes she gave me and almost every April of my childhood was marked by twisting and moulding hundreds of koulourakia and kourabiedes for the Greek Festival thrown by my church.
Man, those were the days, sitting at an incredibly long table with at least 20 old Greek church ladies on both sides, rolling and twisting and telling stories. I was always the youngest one there, none of the other Yia Yia's brought their grandkids. I would sit very quietly and try to decipher their bad english to understand what they were all laughing about.
However, now I'm trying to cook this stuff completely on my own, in my tiny, barely functioning kitchen. Oh yeah, American pronunciation of this cookie is 'kool-eh-dakia' just so you know. Many of the recipes for kourourdakia I found on the internet claim they are a "traditional Easter cookie" and I don't know why. Maybe my family, and the entire church congregation is wierd, because there are pans and pans of the stuff served with coffee and this wierd, sweet barley cereal stuff every Sunday after the morning service. Easter is usually when someone in the family makes the good stuff - baklava (which I despise but still appreciate), kourabiedes (my fav), ravani (a farina cake), finikia...and those awful white almonds. God I hate those things, and I just know that when I get married there will be little tulle wrapped bags of them EVERYWHERE.
For years now, those of us interested in a
healthier diet have been avidly following all
of those celebrity chefs who tell us that this
truffle, or that cheese is now widely available
at our corner shop – if you live in London, or
some other cosmopolitan European city that
is! They have been dispensing advice to all
corners of the country based on what they
can obtain through their trade suppliers or
at specialist shops in Neal’s Yard or some
such ‘foodie’ oases that only a few of us have
access to.
Not least of these hero’s proclamations is that the very best extra virgin olive oil is green and, what’s more, the greener it is, the better it is. For years, accomplished cooks, inspired by their favourite Ainslie or James, could be seen holding up their purchases to the light to show that they could tell the difference between Stork and butter! But are they right, or are they all being conned, and why do so many experts fail to learn a little more about one of their favourite products?
Now don’t get me wrong, I love olive oil and think of it more as a food than a cooking medium. I suppose, having had the opportunity to see a little of Corfu and sample the fabulous oil produced on this island, having seen it being made and having consumed copious amounts of it at every opportunity, I may be a little biased.
One thing I do know is that when you taste a natural olive oil, you taste a summer. Every summer is different and therefore every year’s oil has a different acidity, a different colour and a different taste. If you want to use the same product every day of every year, then go to your supermarket where they will gladly sell you, at a price that would shock the growers, an oil that has been meddled with, had its acidity regulated and its colour adjusted. The chances are that it is made up of the reprocessed dregs of the end-of-season oil stocks from places like Corfu, exported to Italy, Spain or France and then blended and sold at inflated prices to supermarket giants around the world – the very ones who have our interests at heart and not their profits! Under EU regulations, up to 25% of a country’s olive oil can come from other countries unless it is certified under the Protected Denomination of Origin system. So, make sure you read the label.
The oil produced and used by Corfiots is probably better than ‘extra virgin’, perhaps ‘pure extra virgin’ is a better description. Pure as in ‘not tampered with’, with no chemicals, or regulators, or colouring agents or expensive French or Italian labels. The best of a season’s product never reaches the shops because it is for domestic consumption and not for resale. It might be cloudy and delivered in a recycled water bottle, but I would prefer it to a shop bought oil any day. Its acidity and its colour might vary from batch to batch, but this is the real thing.
The truth is that colour alone is not a sure sign of quality and it depends upon the main substances of the olive fruit from which it has been made. Green olive oil is a result of fruit that is high in chlorophyll and harvesting early in the season can have an effect on this. It does not necessarily mean that the oil is of a superior quality. I am not sure whether chrorophyll has any nutritional value, but I’ve never seen it listed as a ‘must-have’ ingredient. In Corfu, the oil is often more of a golden yellow colour because of the presence of carotenes in the fruit and it is quite misleading for so-called experts to make sweeping statements that can send their devotees off in the wrong direction when they, themselves, seem not to understand.
Corfiot olive oil is a pure, golden product high in desirable carotenes and it cannot easily be purchased in a shop. It is these very carotenes that cause nutritionists to advise us to eat more highly coloured fruits and vegetables. Olive oil is rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids, anti-oxidants and vitamins. The carotenes in Corfiot olive oil are also found in green leafy vegetables, carrots, cucumbers, prunes, strawberries, apricots, peppers, squashes, tomatoes and aubergines. In the body, they are converted into vitamin ‘A’, which helps to maintain healthy vision, a good skin condition and protect against infection.
In my opinion, even though its acidity may vary, Corfiot olive oil is superior to the shop-bought reprocessed product that seems to get greener every year. It is the wholesome product of local fruit being pressed and bottled without the intervention of an industrial chemist or the influence of a supermarket chain. It is not green because it doesn’t need to be – but it is unbelievably good and I’d like to bet that you’ve never seen a local olive grower wearing glasses!
…but beware of the hype! Green is a word that is these days associated
with everything that is
Green is Good...
by Steve Williams
from a Blog by PROTEST just a small town girl,
livin' in a LONELY WORLD...
good for you, in fact the very best for you,
your family, your country and the planet.
Like all trendy words it is likely to be over-
used and misused, eventually losing its
impact altogether.
