Comments on: Sacrifice revisited

By: Ruth Alegria

Ruth Alegria — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:13:54 +0000

Festival breads — the use of amaranth in pre-hispanic Mexico as a ritual food consumed as part of a group “communion” has always interested me. The ritualized consumption of amaranth was considered so similar to the Christian communion that this extremely nutritive food was banned.
In present day Mexico its use as a candy is popular and a resurgence in popularizing it for wider use in the kitchen seems to be taking hold.

By: maria

maria — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:41:28 +0000

ASH: here’s another use of ash still in practice in modern cretan cuisine, in the making of the seasonal desert moustalevria, made with grape must

to avoid reading the whole story, skip down to the paragraph below the dish of the finished desert:

http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2008/09/grape-harvest.html

this desert is made in modern kitchens, where ash is not generally available, which is why i didnt use it myself in making it

By: History of Greek Food

History of Greek Food — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 09:01:13 +0000

The fact is that the present day consumption level of meat in Greece is a relatively new thing…. as the Greeks become more affluent they eat more meat. But the pork consumption has a very long tradition in Greece. Bones of domesticated porks have been found in Argissa – Magula which are dated on 7000-5000 B.C. During ancient Greek and Roman times pigs were sacrificed to deities, during Byzantine times pig’s meat was high appreciated. Prior to 1960’s, it was the custom for each family in the village to raise a pig which was slaughtered on Christmas Eve and was the basic source of meat for 1-2 months. In villages, being unable to afford to rear a pig was the stigma of ultimate poverty. Of course, during spring and winter lambs and kids replaced the pork’s meat.
Omathia (sing. / omathies pl.) is pig’s large intestine which is traditionally stuffed with rice and /or cracked wheat grains, raisins, chopped liver and coagulated blood. Almonds or cumin seeds or thyme etc. are optionally added. Omathia is eaten boiled or roasted. The first and last time I ate this blood sausage was in Sfakia of Crete(1980). Since then, I have eaten omathies many times but the blood has been replaced with spleen.
The meat of souvlaki is traditionally pork in Greece and in modern times chicken as well.

By: maria

maria — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:43:15 +0000

what you write about the melbourne community reflects my own upbringing in nz – we never ate pork in nz, becos, according to my parents, it simply didnt taste as they remembered it in crete, and becos they were poorer than other families, they never ate much of it in the first place (remember – if you could raise a pig, you were better off)

omathies look like a sausage – they are rarely made now, becos they require a lot of work and special skills which are not being passed on to the younger generation

souvlaki in greece is always pork: http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2009/11/umami.html (or chicken, as an alternative healthier choice) – but never lamb; the melbourne greeks have developed their own form of greek cuisine, adapting the basics to the readily available ingredients in australia; lamb has (had?) always been the meat of choice in australia (and nz obviously).

i really doubt that eating pork is a ‘relatively new thing’ in greece – there is a huge tradition associated with the pig in rural communities (and most of crete and greece was always rural, except in modern times), which could not possibly have developed in the last 50 years

here is my recent post on the very first meal after the slaughter of the pig: http://organicallycooked.blogspot.com/2009/12/bloody-food-xidato.html

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 20:49:29 +0000

That is very interesting thanks. I’m still not quite sure what form the omathia takes. Is it the same thing that is called “kokoretsi” in other parts of Greece, although this is lamb.

My understanding is that the present day consumption level of pork in Greece is a relatively new thing. Prior to the 1950′s keeping pigs was much more localised and restricted, with large parts of the Greek community not eating pork at all.

The Greek families that I know in Melbourne always comment on returning from visting Greece about all the pork products. Souvlaki is a hugely popular item here in Melbourne, but it is never, ever pork, maybe reflecting the diet at the time the Greek population came to Melbourne?

By: maria v

maria v — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:13:17 +0000

here’s another reference to omathies (aimathies, aimatiai – lingistically it is the same word) from a book of the history of cretan food (a tourist version of this book is also available in english) by maria and nikos psilakis (roughly translated by me):

“omathies, a christmas food known all over byzantine. but its origins lie in ancient greece, where blood was used in the preparation of certain comestibles. byzantine aimathiai were made with the large intestine, the offal and the blood of the pig. the latter was boiled so that it would coagulate, then filled the intestines with this and the other boiled innards”

an explanation is then given for the cessation of the custom of using blood in food in larger centres due to the religious connotations, which did not affect smaller areas (eg mountain villages). the information given accords with the cook’s information in my photo set: omathies in crete were not made with the blood, this was reserved for other dishes (presumably ‘xidato’ was one of them)

By: maria v

maria v — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 07:04:19 +0000

it’s definitely not a widespread custom to eat blood food, but there is an economic reason for this

my mother’s family (for eg) who are from a mountain village (much more remote than the one i presented in the photos) were very poor, hence they did not raise a pig – they could not afford to (space, feed, maintenance); raising 1-2 pigs per household was considered a sign of affluence. those who did not raise a pig did not have the chance to make this dish, so it was not srprising that xidato was not in the culinary repertoire of their family

and dont forget that each household only had one (or two) go’s to make blood food anyway (other animals’ blood is never used in this context, and in the early days there was no electricity to preserve fresh products) – some people ate them, while others were disgusted by the thought, which is very much the case in modern society (in a similar way to how we feel about seeing fried scorpions being sold in thailand)

this village did not make sausages with blood – their version of omathies used other blood-related organs; they were wrapped in the intestine. i was surprised that the cook made a reference to the ancient gods (and not the venetians) as to the origins of the dish – but the no-waste element definitely came through, especially when he told me how the urethra of the animal was used to make his only toy

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 01:49:21 +0000

It still seems that eating blood products is very localized in Greece, Aglaia Kremezi remarks in an article on pig killing in The Atlantic that while the Keans are aware that eating blood product is known in Crete, to them it is a disgusting idea.

Most of these modern blood sausages in Greece seem to derived from the Venetian sources, rather then having roots in the pre-Christian Greek world. What is the etymology of “omathia”, I can’t see how it is related to aimatias/haimatia/haematia etc, but I’m not an expert by any means and it would be interesting to know what its origin is. What form does this sausage take, is it wrapped in caul fat or in intestine?

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:05:37 +0000

The continued consumption of these blood products is interesting in the face of religious bans. Especially during the Turkish occupation where in a large part religious identity was national identity. Still it doesn’t sound that widespread a custom.

Also is it positively known that the items Aimatitis, aimatias, omathia actually contained blood? In the modern EU with bans on home slaughter a Tuscan sweet pig blood pancake (“migliaccio” = millet, also doesn’t contain millet anymore) is now begining to be made with chocolate.

By: maria v

maria v — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:04:24 +0000

here is a series of photos that show the making of xidato, and the use of the pig’s blood in the dish: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7209077@N06/sets/72157622946643634

a brief explanation in given at the beginning of the set into the tradition behind the making of this dish