Caper capers (Κάπαρι)

The fire in our neighbourhood left its mark in the open fields close to the houses. Luckily for all of us, our houses were not affected (some suffered very minor damage, eg sooty walls). Although the fire caused widespread damage, it was fortunate that the natural landscape did not burn right down to its roots.

The fire started behind the buildings, from a short-circuit during high winds, which helped it spread from one side of the road, jumping over the buildings to the other side f the road (not visible) and up the hill to where we live.

I recently took a little walk in our neighbourhood to see the aftermath. The main damage occurred in the olive trees, which are laden with an oil content that makes them sizzle like a frying pan before they go 'whoosh' and burn in a matter of seconds.

This poor tree caught fire in its trunk, making one part of it fall down as it gave way to the flames. 

The few citrus trees in the area were less affected, as they have a greater water content.

The lemon tree has survived despite its burnt leaves. The fruit will all still be edible.

The woodier trees like the decorative palms were not so lucky - neither were the snails that were enjoying their shade on the bark.

This palm is located in the garden of a private home - the blackened shells of the snails can be seen.

The odorous burnt smell in the area will not go away until the winter when the rains fall. Until then, the wind will make the smell travel whichever way it blows.

A neighbour's house - the fire came that close.

Although the earth where the fire touched now has an orange-brown hue, the greenery that was growing on it  before the fire has shown great resilience. The caper bushes continue to grow as if they were never affected by fire. I found a caper bush by a church which the fire surrounded but did not burn, not even singe the walls; that could be some kind of sign, but I put it down to the concrete and stucco walls playing the rols of firebreaks. This caper bush is special in another way: it is completely removed from pollution, as no vehicles, no animals and no people come near it, except for once a year during the chirch's feast day.

The caper plant is very beautiful with its fushcia-shaped pink and purple blooms. These flowers come from the edible buds of the plant, which is fully edible but very thorny, so it's a bit of a pain to harvest the tenderest shoots for pickling. It also produces a downy fur on the leaves and buds, but this just natural and does not need any special removal technique.

This caper bush was full of small buds and tender shoots. I chopped the shoots as far as the most edible part, placed them in a bag and took them home. Then I picked all the buds and leaves (and a few of the berries from the flowers that had lost their petals - they are edible too!), and the shoot tips to 1-2cm. The stems were discarded.

The parts for pickling were rinsed mainly to get rid of ants and any other potential contaminants. Capers can be pickled in just plain vinegar with a bit of salt, but a few spices do not go amiss here. I added some bay leaves, some peppercorns, and some Pimenta dioica known in Greece as μπαχάρι (ba-HA-ri), for a bit of aroma.

The jar can be placed in a dark corner of your kitchen, and you can start using the capers a month later. Capers are excellent natural taste additives in tomato sauce for pizza or spaghetti, tomato salad and potato salad. They look very pretty sprinkled over red and white food.

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Married fava (Φάβα παντρεμένη)

I know I'm bragging when I tell you that I'm up to date with every single one of my tax, utilities and other bills, because put together, these days, they make hefty amounts, and my guess is that most honest people are still wondering how to make all those unfair payments. It's still hot in Hania and it still hasn't really rained here save a few drops of drizzle, so I can be thankful that we don't have to turn on the wood fire heater yet, and many of my colleagues are praying for this weather to continue so that they can save on heating costs too.

One way I have managed to continue to be up to date with all those bills is to cook really cheap food jazzed up with very tasty garden vegetables. My cheap food always gets noshed up really quickly because it's very tasty, even though it may not look like a feast to begin with. But the smells emanating from my kitchen don't give any hint of cheapness or low quality - it makes my family even more impatient to eat.

Take last Sunday when I was cooking fava to have ready for Monday's main meal. The aroma in the peas' sweetness wanted through the house; instead of having the tsigariasto meat dish that I had prepared for the Sunday lunch, the family ended up eating half of Monday's lunch instead.

"But it's Sunday," I complained. "Sunday is meat day, you can't eat that fava!"

"We'll just have that meat tomorrow instead," they all insisted. So fava it was, even though bean dishes are usually Never Never on a Sunday for us. And since it didn't feel right to serve such a cheap and frugal humble dish on a Sunday, I jazzed it up with a sivrasi medley of onions, foraged capers and garden peppers, which turned my simple fava dish into fava pantremeni ('married' split yellow peas - φάβα παντρεμένη), a popular way to serve fava in the Cyclades. The married effect comes from combining capers and yellow split peas, which make a very compatible pair.

Apart from some crusty bread, you also need some extra virgin olive oil - as much as you like - which is usually used as a dressing over fava. Luckily, that remains cheap and Greek and frugal where I am.

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Pickled capers (Κάπαρι τουρσί)

Caper bushes are especially pretty in spring when their impressive flowers are in bloom. They abound in olive groves, especially in patches of land which do not undergo strenuous tilling, which is why they are usually found on the borders between fields or by the roadside. The field across from my house was full of caper bushes growing uncultivated when I first arrived in the neighbourhood a decade ago; now, they've all but disappeared, although they are found in other fields close by to where I live. They are stunning as hanging plants, growing in amongst the crevices of high rocks. They are not fun to work with: they have sharp thorns that get stuck in your skin and clothes.

Capers have been known since ancient times in Greece as a pain reliever for rheumatism, but they are generally not used in Greek cooking. I know of a couple of people in Crete who pickle them, but they are mainly older people who do it as a way to pass their time, and have something unusual to give away as a present for friends (which is how I acquired a jar). Despite this, the Greeks - probably islanders, where caper bushes grow profusely - have invented their own recipe for them: they are eaten as a kind of horta: branches, leaves, buds and even the seed pods. Therefore, all parts of the caper bush are edible. Once they have softened, they can be used to flavour salads and other meals. Anne Yiannoulis gives a recipe in her Greek Calendar Cookbook: "Pick short branches from a caper bush, wash well, lay in a bowl, cover with boiling slated water (50g salt to 1kg of branches). Leave in the sun for 3-4 days, changing the cold water every day. Strain, place in a jar, cover with vinegar and a handful of salt. They are ready to eat in a few days, drained and served with anchovies in an oil dressing." We don't eat anchovies, preferring fresh fish instead, so I'm wondering whether this preparation would be a wasted effort in my own home.

UPDATE: these capers looked so fresh and tender that I pickled the lot.

 
The last time I pickled capers was over a decade ago. This year, my family's been eating puttanesca spaghetti, a lazy Saturday meal, on a regular basis, something we enjoyed eating in Paleohora on our mini-break. I've been using store-bought capers for this purpose; now I have a reason to pickle them myself. The capers were found in a field very close to my house. But I won't be able to use them this summer - they need a few months to pickle, so they'll be ready to use in autumn if I jar them now. In Greece, all sizes of caper buds are used in pickling, although you will only find very small bead-like capers in store-bought jars. This is because commercial growers of capers grade them according to their size, and the tiniest ones are the most prized. GourMed has a simple recipe for pickling capers. I used this one and added a few more spices - a bay leaf and some carnation cloves - for a more piquant taste. I left part of the stalk on the caper buds, but I couldn't understand what to do with the tender shoots - they were all covered in thorns, right to the topmost bud. None of my sources mention whether we need to get rid of the thorns before pickling or if they soften in the brine solution.



Since I can't use my pickled capers to flavour my salads at the moment, I'll just have to stick to glistrida (γλιστρίδα - purslane), the local variety of watercress growing wild in the garden, to do that in the interim.



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