Grandma Secrets : Greek Philosophy in the Kitchen

Sitting down to a meal cooked by Evriklia Kapantzos, who learned all the old Greek dishes from her mother, who in turn learned them from her mother, one taps into something powerful and ageless: generations of women, talking, cooking, tasting, spending all day in the kitchen. At Kapantzos’ table, the olive oil flows as freely as water, the olives are gloriously salty, the lamb is always well done, and the women are very much alive.

Sadly, Kapantzos seems something of an anachronism. Much of the household knowledge once transmitted from mother to daughter is no longer passed on--and, we might argue, that’s not necessarily bad. Now women can be lawyers, secretaries or artists and can be too busy to cook, let alone instruct their children on recipes and cooking tips. Even full-time homemakers may find that the recipes their mothers did give them aren’t practical or even healthful by today’s standards. Old skills and techniques--kneading bread, making pie crust, whipping up a frothy egg-lemon sauce--have been obviated by contemporary gadgetry or can be learned from cookbooks. But nothing can replace the one-on-one apprenticeship that comes from cooking and eating daily with a gifted cook, ideally a grandmother, someone for whom the old ways come naturally.

I’m tempted to say that Kapantzos spends all day in the kitchen, the way an artist spends all day in the studio, but this analogy might say more about me than it does about this Greek grandmother. Homemaking in general and cooking in particular is her principal mode of creative expression, her passion, the thing she does to give her daily life shape and focus. But the truth is also this: Kapantzos spends time in the kitchen the way most women have for centuries, with or without much choice in the matter.

When Kapantzos left Athens to visit her son and daughter-in-law in Redondo Beach for two months, she packed a supply of aprons. Every morning of her visit, after she showered and put on her clothes, she tied an apron snugly around her waist. She does not consider herself fully dressed without one.

Kapantzos is small, sure and quick, with light-filled eyes and a ready smile. When she likes someone, she takes them by the hand firmly, with resolute affection. You can tell by her touch that this is a woman sure in her movements, capable, no-nonsense. Hers are hands that know how to coax, nudge and tug flavor from food.

*

Born in Thessaly, Kapantzos moved with her family to Athens as a young girl. Growing up, she says, she had meat only once a week. The rest of the time, the family ate soups, vegetables, pastas and potato dishes. Kapantzos’ mother, a knowledgeable and wonderful cook, brought Evriklia into the kitchen when she was 15 and taught her how to cook. Her mother’s teaching method was simple: Evriklia would watch her prepare a dish; the next time, Evriklia would have to make the dish herself. In this manner, she learned all the old dishes that had been passed down through the generations. She has never used a cookbook or had any formal training. To this day, when Kapantzos finds a dish she likes, she thinks, first, how to make it and, next, how to improve it.

Kapantzos considers having a knack for cooking and really loving it hereditary traits. Her mother and grandmother were both famous for their cooking. Still, the gene doesn’t hit everyone in the same family. You can’t teach someone to cook who has not inherited the talent, Kapantzos says.

She knows: She’s tried for decades to instruct her younger sister. She’s had much better luck with her son, Cosmas, who’s a restaurateur in Hollywood.

When her visit in Southern California was over, Kapantzos left behind the memory of countless dinner-time feasts. She also left dozens of jars full of bright preserves: quince with lemon-scented geranium, candied eggplant, tomatoes stuffed with almonds, golden grapes, lemon peels coiled and radiant.

Kapantzos takes it as a personal, creative challenge to please everyone who’s coming to dinner. And at home in Greece, somebody’s always coming to dinner.

“I don’t remember a day when there wasn’t a visitor for dinner,” Cosmas says. “People just drop by. There were always the four of us--my mother and father, my sister and I--and then four or five other people.”

*

At home in Athens, Kapantzos cooks for her daughter and her son-in-law and her grandchildren as well as the eternal drop-ins. Catering to the tastes of all at her table, Kapantzos often makes two or more main dishes at a meal.

Patience and a kind of nervy confidence characterize Kapantzos’ manner in the kitchen. What she knows, she knows viscerally, through doing, not reading. Her cooking is full of small tricks.

“Make a fresh tomato sauce,” she says to me in Greek as Cosmas interprets.

“Wait a second. Stop, hold on,” I say. “How do you make a fresh tomato sauce?”

The answer is simple and unusual: “Grate six or seven tomatoes. . . .”

*

One would have to spend days and weeks with Kapantzos to learn all of her tricks, and though she may believe that great cooks are born, not taught, there are a few lessons to be had from this Greek grandmother and thereby get a glimpse into the past, before labor-saving devices, before cookbooks, when spending the day in the kitchen wasn’t a rarity, but a necessity.

Lesson No. 1: Pay attention . This means: Go to the trouble to do things right. Choose ingredients carefully, keep an eye on the cooking time, don’t forget to taste constantly.

When Kapantzos wanted to make chicken with quince for her son and daughter-in-law here, she refused to use the small, common quince found in most local grocery stores. She persisted and found, in a Greek produce market, the big golden quince that look like fat apples with bad cellulite. The result--spicy, fragrant chicken with big, supple, slippery slices of quince--justified all the extra trouble.

Lesson No. 2: Don’t rush . This maxim may well illuminate the major difference between Greek and American or old-fashioned and contemporary approaches to cooking. While we busy Americans want to cook dinner in an hour, and to prepare a dinner party in an afternoon, Kapantzos’ cooking has a different tempo, broader rhythms--and it often produces flavors we may not have the patience to achieve. To make her preserved grapes, for example, she skins all the grapes with a paring knife and then extracts the seeds with a bobby pin. Thinking she must have superb technique, I ask her to peel a grape. She peels with no particular speed.

“Doesn’t it take a lot of time?” I ask, appalled.

“Oh, yes,” she says, matter-of-factly. “It takes all day to make four pounds of grapes.”

Kapantzos is also apt to cook on lower heat, with less liquid for a longer period of time, than would occur to many of us. Her son, who owns the Astroburger in Hollywood, discovered this for himself when trying to make stuffed peppers for a restaurant lunch special. “I made them first from a cookbook and they were nothing like my mother’s. Then, I talked to her about her stuffed peppers over on the phone, but I still didn’t get them right. The next time I saw her, we made stuffed peppers together and I got it! It takes time ! It takes time to assemble and cook those things !”

Lesson No. 3: Taste ! Determine your proportions through tasting the food rather than blindly following a recipe.

Kapantzos has never worked with a written recipe. She knows when something is right because of how it looks and tastes. In gathering recipes for this article, Kapantzos’ son followed her around the kitchen with measuring cups and spoons and, for the first time, wrote down how to make some of the dishes that have been passed down for generations. Kapantzos will be the first person to tell you to taste these recipes as you go--if the orzo cooked under the lamb is a little fatty, for example, feel free to add fresh tomato sauce (i.e., grate another tomato into the sauce!).

Also, Kapantzos says it is important to use a different spoon for sampling each dish so that the flavors don’t transfer either in your mouth or from pot to pot.

Lesson No. 4: Don’t fuss too much. Although she is careful and attentive to her food, Kapantzos does not fuss or fret over her pots. In fact, once a pot of food goes on the stove, she will not stir it. Stirring, she says, breaks up the food. If the food needs to be moved around, she grasps the pot by its handles and swirls it. Demonstrating this technique with a large enameled pot full of stuffed cabbages, Kapantzos looks more like she’s steering than cooking.

Lesson No. 5: Have confidence in your own experience. Cosmas says that watching his mother cook is an exercise in restraint. “She made her quince-and-chicken dish with so little water, I was sure it was going to burn. I was dying to add more water. She just put the lid on the pot, gave it a shake after 10 or 15 minutes and walked away.” The dish came out perfectly--the chicken tender, the quince intact, the flavors deeply melded--which might not have been the case had she lifted the lid, allowed the steam to escape, added more water to compensate, or--heaven forbid--stirred it all up with a spoon.

Lesson No. 6: Cooking is a purely creative act. In the afternoons, after lunch, while the rest of the household is napping and the pots on her stove are simmering away with no more help from her, Kapantzos might sit down with some needlework. She makes beautiful lacy crocheted runners and appliqued antimacassars. She never uses a pattern, she says, and goes on to sound like any artist I’ve ever met. “My needlework designs, just like the dishes I cook, come from my mind. They’re like fantasies. It’s all just thinking. I get an idea for a dish. I think about it. I make a small portion. I taste it and think about how I can improve it. I keep thinking about it and making it until it tastes right.”

*

This salad adds a bright plate of color to the feast. Be sure to buy the prettiest of each vegetable and to handle them gently after they’re cooked. Take time with the presentation.

VEGETABLE SALAD

4 zucchini

12 baby carrots

1 green pepper, cut into fourths and seeded

1 sweet red pepper, cut into fourths and seeded

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

Vinaigrette

Trim ends off zucchini. Cook carrots and green and red peppers in boiling water. After 10 minutes, add zucchini. Simmer until vegetables are tender, about 15 minutes more. Remove from water and drain on paper towels.

Pour Vinaigrette over vegetables. Let stand about 2 hours to marinate. Arrange vegetables on serving platter. Drizzle over some of the vinaigrette. Sprinkle chopped parsley over top. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

146 calories; 160 mg sodium; trace cholesterol; 14 grams fat; 6 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram protein; 0.71 gram fiber.

Vinaigrette

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup vinegar

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 teaspoon water

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix olive oil, vinegar, garlic, water, white pepper and salt in bowl. Whisk together 2 to 3 minutes.

*

Somehow, lettuce has crept into most Greek salads we find in Los Angeles, so this version is like getting all the goodies without any added fluff. Use a good extra-virgin olive oil and sweet red onions for best results.

TOMATO-CUCUMBER SALAD

2 large tomatoes, cut in wedges

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

1/4 cup thinly sliced onion

1/3 cup Greek olives

1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup olive oil

1/4 cup vinegar

Salt

Combine tomatoes, cucumbers and onion in serving bowl. Sprinkle over olives and feta cheese. Combine olive oil and vinegar in bowl. Drizzle over salad. Season to taste with salt. Makes 6 servings.

Each serving contains about:

211 calories; 290 mg sodium; 6 mg cholesterol; 21 grams fat; 5 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.8 gram fiber.

*

This is a rich and deeply satisfying dish suitable for special occasions--especially when serving those who prefer their lamb well done. The orzo is subtly scented, slippery and fun, like the best rice in the world. Slices of lamb have pretty dots of white garlic and a lovely, crisp crust.

ROAST LAMB WITH ORZO

2 cloves garlic, cut into slivers

1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper

3 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 (5-pound) leg of lamb

1/4 cup olive oil

1 ripe tomato, cored

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

10 cups water

1 pound orzo

Combine garlic, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and 1 teaspoon salt in small bowl. Using small knife make small slits all over leg of lamb. Insert garlic mixture in slits. Combine 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper and olive oil in small bowl. Rub oil mixture over surface of lamb.

Rub tomato through large hole-side of box grater, should make 1/4 cup sauce. Combine with tomato paste, allspice, nutmeg, remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper in bowl. Spoon sauce mixture into bottom of deep roasting pan. Place lamb in center of pan on top of sauce. Turn roast in sauce to coat sides.

Roast at 375 degrees 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees and add 10 cups water. Continue roasting lamb to desired degree of doneness. After lamb has roasted for 1 hour, cover with aluminum foil. About 1/2 hour before lamb is done, stir orzo into pan juices. Increase oven temperature to 350 degrees and roast 25 minutes. Orzo should be moist--neither too dry nor too juicy. It should resemble rice in consistency. Makes 8 servings.

Each serving contains about:

503 calories; 1,190 mg sodium; 112 mg cholesterol; 16 grams fat; 44 grams carbohydrates; 42 grams protein; 0.26 gram fiber.

*

To find the big golden quince for this recipe, check the produce sections of your local Middle Eastern markets. And remember--no unnecessary peeking or stirring, or you’ll end up with something resembling chicken with applesauce.

CHICKEN WITH QUINCE

1 chicken, cut up

1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

2 large tomatoes, grated

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 teaspoons salt

2 sticks cinnamon

10 whole cloves

5 cups water

3 large or 6 small quince, cut into large wedges, seeds removed

3 tablespoons sugar

Saute chicken in olive oil in large skillet about 10 minutes. Drain off excess fat. Add tomato, tomato paste, salt and pepper. Bring to boil. Cover, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes.

Add cinnamon, cloves and water. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, covered, about 20 minutes. Remove chicken from skillet and keep warm. Add quince. Sprinkle sugar over top of quince wedges and cook 35 to 45 minutes or until quince are fork tender. Return chicken to skillet, spooning sauce over and heating until hot throughout. Makes 4 servings.

Each serving contains about:

486 calories; 1,115 mg sodium; 134 mg cholesterol; 20 grams fat; 37 grams carbohydrates; 40 grams protein; 2.04 grams fiber.

*

Though we might associate the word “dolmade” with grape leaves, a dolma can technically be any stuffed vegetable. These dolmades are made with cabbage leaves.

DOLMADES

1 1/2 pounds ground beef

1/2 pound ground pork

1/2 cup green onions, finely chopped, white portion only

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill

1/2 cup rice

1/3 cup grated onion

1/4 cup olive oil

1 egg

1 tablespoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

4 large heads cabbage

9 cups water

2 eggs, beaten

Juice 1/2 lemon

Avgolemono Sauce

Combine ground beef, ground pork, green onions, dill, rice, grated onion, olive oil, egg, 1 teaspoon salt and teaspoon pepper in bowl. Set aside.

Separate leaves from cabbage. In saucepan cook few leaves at time in boiling water about 3 minutes, until tender. Drain on paper towels.

Spoon 1 tablespoon meat mixture into each cabbage leaf and fold sides of leaf to center, then bottom, and roll up. Line bottom and lower sides of 8-quart sauce pot with any leftover cabbage leaves. Arrange rolls in layers in sauce pot. Pour over water and remaining 2 teaspoons salt. Place small glass plate, face down, on top of layered cabbage rolls to hold in place while cooking.

Bring to boil. Reduce heat, cover and cook about 35 minutes over medium heat. Measure 5 cups hot cabbage stock and set aside for Avgolemono Sauce. Measure out 1 cup additional cabbage stock and blend with 2 beaten eggs and juice 1/2 lemon. Pour into pot with cabbage rolls and let stand 5 minutes.

To serve, place several cabbage rolls on plate and spoon over Avgolemono Sauce. Makes 46 cabbages.

Each dolmade contains about:

135 calories; 252 mg sodium; 45 mg cholesterol; 10 grams fat; 7 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams protein; 0.65 gram fiber.

Avgolemono Sauce

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

5 cups reserved hot stock from cabbage rolls

1 egg, beaten

Juice 1 lemon

Salt

Melt butter in 3-quart saucepan over low heat. Stir in flour until blended. Gradually stir in stock until blended. Heat to boiling, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Combine egg and lemon juice and stir into broth. Season to taste with salt. Makes 5 cups sauce.

*

This halva is pleasing for its unusual, grainy texture and nutty flavor.

HALVA

3 cups sugar

4 cups water

3/4 cup olive oil

2 cups regular cream of wheat

1/2 cup chopped slivered almonds

Whole almonds

Combine sugar and water in saucepan. Heat to boiling. Simmer just until sugar is dissolved.

In saucepan heat oil. Stir in cream of wheat. Cook over medium heat until some of the granules turn light pink in color, stirring to prevent burning, 10 to 15 minutes. Stir in almonds. Add sugar-water little at time while stirring constantly over medium heat. Stir until all syrup has been absorbed and mixture is thick, 15 to 20 minutes.

Press into 6-cup bundt pan and let cool, cover and chill. Invert onto serving platter and decorate with whole almonds. Makes 24 servings.

Each serving contains about:

280 calories; 1 mg sodium; trace cholesterol; 11 grams fat; 34 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams protein; 0.16 gram fiber.