Food in Athens
Easter Lamb and Cheese MarketEvery Easter for as long as anyone can remember the streets of Psiri, particularly the area around Platia Iroon, have hosted the Naxos Lamb and Cheese Market. |
The neighborhood of Psiri has been home to people
from Naxos for well over a hundred years. Several days
before Easter the shepherds come to Athens from the
island and set up their stalls. They all sell pretty
much the same thing. They have lambs and goats of all
sizes, cheese from the same lambs and goats and some
people have home-made wine. In the old days the lambs
were alive and Athenians and transplanted Naxiotis
would choose the one they wanted for their Easter
Sunday dinner, it would be led away and return skinned
and gutted. But now the lambs and goats are killed beforehand
and brought to Psiri in large refrigerated trucks like
American style 18-wheelers or in some cases by a
tractor pulling a home-made trailer and a big freezer.
As you wander around the farmers offer you a taste of
their cheese and proudly show you how fresh and
healthy the animals are, (or were).
This year I spent my Easter in Athens and bought my
lamb from the Naxos Market with the help of my friend
Kostas from the
Geniko Emborio Eklekton Proionton
Naxos
, the local Naxos 'supermarket' who had his own stand
selling his delicious cheese and wine. Kostas called
over one of his friends and told him to take me to the
trucks and find the freshest 18 kilo lamb for me. We
wandered through the back streets until we found a
parking lot full of refrigerated trucks, each with a
crowd at the back and one or two men inside the truck
bringing out lambs and goats in the sizes requested.
The animals were then weighed and put into a red
plastic garbage-bag, not to be confused with the blue
plastic garbage bags which the lambs and goats bought
at the Athens Central market were put in. It made it
interesting because as Easter Sunday came closer and
closer and more and more people walked the streets of
downtown Athens carrying their lambs you knew which
market they had gone to. I admit I was feeling some
pride that I was carrying the red bag from the Naxos
market. To me it meant that I knew something others
didn't and in fact when I asked many of my friends if
they knew about the Naxos market in Psiri they didn't,
even though it has been going on for hundreds of
years.
For those who are curious an 18 kilo lamb costs around
$125 and is a lot heavier then it sounds. I had to
carry it back to the Attalos hotel where they let me
keep it in the walk-in cooler in the kitchen until the
night we threw it into the back of my friend Ana's car
and drove it through the streets of Athens to the
house of the friend who had agreed to host our easter
dinner, like we were disposing of a dead body.If you are in Athens in the days preceding Easter be sure to come to Psiri and check out this phenomenon. It usually begins the Wednesday before Easter and goes through Saturday. By Saturday night the streets are completely deserted until 11pm when everyone goes to church. Then at midnight they light the candles, the bells begin ringing and Psiri comes alive with fireworks. As the festivities are dying down and many people go to their homes and the restaurants that serve the traditional magaritsa soup to break their long fast, the farmers and shepherds of Naxos go down to Pireaus to board the special ferry that takes them back to their island to celebrate Easter Sunday with their families at home. Anyway the photos I took should be loaded up by now. If you have a decent connection listen to what Kostas has to say about the Naxos Lamb and Cheese Market |
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Remember...red bags are cool. See Also: Psiri , Easter, Greek Food, Holidays, Naxos |
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