Capturing Rural Life on Film
by Nikki Rose, June 2005

(Home)

The Owl's Eye is Dakos (rusk) bread topped with grated tomatoes, fresh sheep's milk cheese - mizithra.

Picking olives

Nikki Rose, CCS Founder & Director is a Greek American professional chef and writer.  She has organized seminars to preserve the culinary arts since 1997, featuring renowned chefs.  She is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and worked in New York, Paris, San Francisco and Washington, DC (her hometown). 

Her articles focus on culture, agriculture and environmental issues and have been featured in Slow Food, among others.  Rose is working on a book and documentary that mirrors her projects in Crete.  CCS recently worked with Television New Zealand on their! culinary series, “Taste Takes Off,” to be aired in November 2005.

 FIND OVER 900 FOOD LINKS HERE!

Return home

We had four days to highlight 4,000 years of food and culture in Crete for a 30-minute TV show.

The crew from Television New Zealand was coming to Crete to film “Taste Takes Off,” their award-winning culinary travel program.  They asked us to introduce them to the people, places and cuisine that characterize Crete.   

Long before the crew arrived, Kostas Bouyouris, CCS project co-designer, and I conducted a recce, pronounced “ricky.”  It’s film lingo for researching story ideas and coordinating shooting schedules.  With our growing network of great farmers and chefs, we had to make agonizing decisions.  What are the most important stories?  Who are the best people to tell them?  To minimize crew travel time, we had to choose a single region of Crete, and decided it would Rethymno on the northern coast.  The casting decisions required several visits and lots of meze (meals) to work it all out.  We got a taste of how exciting our own documentary project will be. 

Not everyone in the world wants to be on television, especially foreign television.  Some Cretan farmers are indifferent to such exposure and suspicious of people asking questions about their cheese making techniques.  But New Zealanders are historically friends of Crete, and many people went out of their way to help. 

TVNZ has probably seen some strange and wonderful things during the show’s nine years on the air.  The crew is very accomplished, personable and mellow – great traits to have in their line of work, and for working in Crete, as we’d soon find out.  Chris Wright, the producer-director was interested in every detail of Cretan cuisine and very fun to work with.  Peta Mathias, the show’s presenter, seems to be at home wherever she travels, and her love of good food made her an instant friend here.   

My detailed shoot schedule looked great on paper.  Time was reserved for bumpy road trips and the Cretan way of unrushed greetings.  Knowing Cretan customs and sensibilities as we do, meze breaks were included in the schedule, which probably seemed unnecessary to the crew.  It’s not just that we wanted them to relax and eat well.  Strangers cannot follow a shepherd up a mountain, ask him a bunch of questions, videotape his every move, and just drive away.   

Business is conducted around the dining table. You’ve got to get to know each other, prove you are trustworthy and care about their work, and prove that you can drink more than a shot of raki (homemade grappa) without acting silly.  The crew passed these tests with ease.  A sustainable organic farmer’s time is very valuable, unless laboratory foods like GM corn and processed cheese miraculously become healthy food choices.  Culinary film crews have it good here – overtime is guaranteed and the fringe benefits are delicious.  Note that people who make raki will tell you that it goes well with almost all meze.  It also cures bashfulness. 

On the very first day of shooting, the crew was treated to a dramatic thunderstorm.  Flash floods and power outages added to the excitement.  It rarely rains in the summer and most of the shooting we had planned was outdoors, based on the nature of the project.  I stuffed the schedule into the bottom of my purse.  We were on Cretan time now.   

Our star shepherd had no time to make cheese -- for himself or for the cameras.  We know many shepherds, but his story is special and we wanted to include the gorgeous scenery in the mountains where he works.  During the tourist season, many shepherds only have time to look after their sheep in between their day jobs at the hotels and such.  They sell the milk to small factories that are not usually open to visitors, especially a film crew.  Secret recipes and a superstition that our presence will ruin the batch are the reasons.   

While we were having meze at a friend’s taverna, enjoying the fabulous homemade cheese...back-up plans were made on the spot.  Yiannis has a small flock of sheep and was happy to milk the little dears for the cameras.  We had to wait a few days for Yiannis to collect enough milk before his wife, Despina, could make the cheese.  It was worth the wait to sample the malakos – the cottage cheese straight from the pot.  Despina prepared an excellent feast for us and Yiannis played his lute and sang the most beautiful traditional love songs.  He is a pro musician, among the many other hats he wears.  That info was not in his “cheese maker” biography.   

If you think anyone’s living the Slow Life around here, think again.  Mrs. Tassoula, our star village chef with a gorgeous taverna overlooking the sea, got stage fright and decided she did not want a camera crew in her kitchen.  Based on her very outgoing personality, we guessed it was due to her schedule.  Her son announced his engagement to be married, which requires a near-immediate celebration.  

After the party and some begging, Mrs. Tassoula changed her mind and we worked around her schedule.  She rolled out her homemade pita dough for the cameras like a star athlete – making it look as simple as boiling water.  The perfectly formed, fresh mizithra cheese and spearmint stuffing waited in the wings.  We did not have time to film her making hortapita – pungent wild greens tucked into the same dough, but we made time to eat them.  Lefteris, Mrs. Tassoula’s husband, served his smooth raki for the shoot – it took a couple of shots to get it right and the raki bottle kept disappearing from the set.  The beauty of Crete is spontaneity unless there’s a camera crew involved.   

One person who was not camera shy at Mrs. Tassoula’s place was a skinny great-grandmother, waiving her cane and ranting and raving in a corner.  She was telling my partner, Panos, that he should get married and stop chasing women every night.  She made a gesture with her hands to emphasize her point.  Steve, the cameraman, caught that moment on film.  I doubt any one else will see it, but it was priceless. 

Some passersby nearly threw themselves in front of the camera.  Since we were not covering a soccer match, I was worried about the wasted film and time.  The crew is so accustomed to this that they just work around it.  During the octopus tenderizing demo and interview with the fisherman on the port, crowds of shopkeepers and tourists gathered – not realizing that they were in the way or ruining the sound.  The whole time, a coast guard boat engine was blaring...seems they were waiting for a big boss. I held my breath, waiting for them to leave the port or turn off the engine, but they never did.   

When we walked down the narrow port strip to Vasilis Taverna, people surrounded us, trying to get their faces or fresh lobster on film.  During Peta’s interview with Vasilis, I had to block off the taverna patio with chairs to keep tourists from walking onto the set.  We all accidentally disrupted the sound at one point or another – but hopefully we learned the system fast.  Clunky cars, boat motors, children playing – the sounds of village life suddenly seemed magnified.  John, the soundman, never flinched.  Steve had a delicate way of appearing invisible -- giant camera, tripod and all, which made the interviewees and villagers very calm.   

It was siesta time when we reached Anogia, a village in the mountains.  We have friends here, but decided not to tell them we were coming, since it would be rude to just pass through without making time for a long visit.  Most shops were closed and a few guys were sipping coffee at the old kafeneo on the square.  The crew decided to film Peta enjoying yogurt and honey at this great location.  But kafenia don’t usually serve yogurt and this one was no exception.  We ran around the village for a while, asking for yogurt and getting curious stares.  If we told them why, we would have been there all day.  “Just go to the supermarket,” they said, pointing down a winding road.  But one woman said the market was closed.  I asked a taverna owner for yogurt “to go” and he thought I was crazy. ”You don’t have time to sit down and eat a little yogurt?”   

I got distracted, admiring the textiles hanging outside a shop, until I saw the commercial fridge, camouflaged under lovely rugs.  Two little ladies were guarding the door, demonstrating their needlework.  Good thing Greeks still sell healthy snacks.  I saw the yogurt, grabbed it, and asked for honey.  “No honey here...buy this tablecloth, it’s very nice,” they said.  I froze for a minute with only half the mission accomplished.  One lady disappeared for a while and snuck up behind me with a big jar of her house stash of amber honey.  She knew I was relieved and said the price was 20 Euros, which is double the retail price.  I told the sweet little grandmothers that I was not a rich woman.  “Of course you are!” they said.  When they started to walk away with that jar, I handed over the cash.  An hour of crew time probably costs more.  Tastes great too.  The next time I’m in Anogia, I’ll never hear the end of it.  News travels faster than the speed of light here.   

Next on our agenda was olive oil.  Covering 4,000 years of olive oil and wine production in Crete is hard to squeeze into three minutes.  I don’t envy the editors who have to condense the hours of footage taken.  Our star organic olive grower, Stelios Kaliouris, produces excellent olive oil, is working on an olive museum, and is battling with local politicians to implement pesticide-free production.  He’s also working with us on a plan to protect the old indigenous olive tree called the Rethymnotiki (meaning it’s from Rethymno, Crete), also known as the Chondrolia (the fat and juicy olive).  The Chondrolia is rapidly being replaced by the more popular but not necessarily tastier or healthier cabernet of olives, the Koronaiki, which is probably from the village of Koroni in the Peloponnisos.  I predict the story will be that Stelios makes great organic olive oil. 

My favorite recce was the winemaking story.  Andreas Dourakis has a beautiful winery in the central foothills.  For every old rock structure on his property – the grape pressing shed and the wheat threshing pits, he had a humorous story to tell.  He is also a collector of antique farming equipment, much of which looks more practical than today’s machinery.  Geese wandered around the vineyards and fragrant citrus trees, rose bushes and wildflowers softened the stone walkways.   

Andreas was a principal winemaker for a major Greek winery, Tzantalis, for 20 years before realizing his dream of opening his own boutique winery in Crete.  Many Greek wine exports have gotten a bad rap and one reason is the politics of the past.  Within the last few decades, several well-educated Greek winemakers have taken the plunge into small-scale, high-quality production.  People are noticing. 

Andreas’ passion for winemaking shows in every glass we savored.  He also creates a superb balance between indigenous grape varieties and more popular international varieties, most of which are organically cultivated.  His “wine made by God,” was subliminal but it’s not for sale.  His daughter, Evie, acted as translator and it was a beautiful interview.  We sat quietly on the set, watching Andreas and Peta taste his wines.  It was torture.  We enjoyed his wines afterwards with meze and wanted to stay for a couple of days.  The family also makes their own cheese, yogurt, breads and olive oil.  A quiet retirement. 

Setting up the phyllo-making demo was challenging.  Yiorgos and his wife, Maria, have run their small production shop in Rethymno since 1956.  They know what they’re doing and we wanted to see everything.  Yiorgos handled the dough like precious silk.  As a former baker myself, tears welled up in my eyes at the sight of such care and perfection.  Yiorgos stretched a round of phyllo like a pizza, and tossed it onto the table to form a big dome-balloon without a break in sight.  What a showman.  We had to coordinate filming around their intense production schedule – the phyllo, kataifi or the string phyllo, baklavas, bird nests, and other sweets.  We asked them to unplug nearly every machine in the shop – the humming noise.  We visited his shop three times and each time we left with several pounds of production.  It was a dangerous assignment.   

We arranged for one-stop-filming at Agreco farm, a project of the Grecotel group.  Agreco is a re-creation of a 17^th century Cretan farm.  Kostas Bouyouris designed and oversees the operations, combining past and present sustainable organic farming methods.  Agreco has it all – vegetable gardens, fruit trees, vineyards, olive groves, flour mills, threshing pits, livestock, innovative water recycling, outdoor ovens, a taverna...there’s more.   

With a few hours’ notice from us, due to the usual schedule changes, Agreco’s Chef Nikos was ready for his cooking demo with Peta.  They made dolmades – stuffed grape leaves and beautiful stuffed zucchini flowers, braised snails with rosemary and vinegar...delicious!  Again, we asked them to unplug the machines – I hope everyone remembered to plug them back in – didn’t want to leave a river of melted ice all over the region.  Eva Maravelaki was our gracious host.  She really loves the farm and it shows.  When the crew needed a break, she and Nikos presented a huge meze of house-made fresh cheeses, marinated artichoke hearts, dakos bread, olives and wine.  There is no such thing as “grabbing a bite to eat” in the Cretan world of hospitality. 

One of the most important components of Cretan cuisine is dakos, aka paximadi, among other regional names.  It’s a traditional Cretan rusk bread, baked in the outdoor oven...an ancient cracker.  Not many people make dakos on a small-scale anymore.  Thankfully, we got this on film at Agreco, after waiting for the sun to shine.  The baker did not initially agree to have separate sets of dough ready in different stages of development – to speed things up for the cameras.  He did not want to waste the dough, which is understandable.  Asking people to waste food for the cameras is not a good idea.   

There’s more to this one-week project that seemed to last two months.  Everyone was flexible and calm...outwardly, at least.  And we made time for fun.  This was a good lesson for my team, since our documentary project begins in September with winemaking.  We take so many things for granted in Crete – the simple act of collecting lemons from our neighbor’s trees (preferably when they’re out of town), making fresh cheese and phyllo dough, or turning an octopus on the grill.  When you see it on film, it suddenly looks fantastic.   

In every little village and around every hairpin curve, people have stories to tell.  There’s so much more we wanted to share with the film crew but we were lucky to enjoy this short adventure together and hope that others will too.   

The day after we finished the project, Panos and I traveled to the southern coast for a three-day vacation.  My vision was one great taverna on the sea, with rooms to let, in the middle of nowhere, with no other people.  We found it!  My first thought was, “NZTV would have loved this place!”  On second thought, some secrets of Crete need to be kept.