[MGSA-L] Greeks tighten belt with crisis cookbooks

Neni Panourgia np255 at columbia.edu
Fri Dec 9 15:14:45 PST 2011


AND here are the ingredients for one of those frugal recipes included in 
the Bletsas book

> 500 g sugar
> 250 g butter
> ½ teaspoon vanilla
> 5 eggs
> ¼ litre milk
> 450 gr soft flour
> 100 gr cocoa powder
> 10 grams baking powder
> ¼ teaspoon salt
> ¼ cup ground hazelnuts
> ¼ cup dark chocolate pieces

and as he says in the recipe "this is a /basic/ recipe which you can 
then change and cover the cake with powdered sugar, or chocolate, the 
only limits are your imagination"  NOT your budget, might we add?

Or, maybe, he is just writing for Manhattan's Upper East Side (although 
with his spelling that includes "cinamun" and "whole wheat" meaning 
wheat berries, one would have to doubt it)--maybe he's addressing the VP 
of Athens...

Mercy, please some mercy!

np/


On 12/9/2011 4:44 PM, June Samaras wrote:
> Greeks tighten belt with crisis cookbooks
>
> http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-food/story/2011-12-06/Greeks-tighten-belt-with-crisis-cookbooks/51670644/1
>
> Thanassis Stavrakis, AP
>
> Author of the ''Starvation Recipes'' Eleni Nikolaidou says
> recession-hit Greeks have found fascination in the wartime survival
> tips, with bargain-hunting and frugal living entering the country's
> popular culture.
>
> ATHENS, Greece – It's the ultimate belt-tightening handbook: No Meat?
> Push an eggplant through the grinder instead. Chew your food long
> enough for your stomach to feel full. And don't forget to sweep crumbs
> off your table and into a jar.
>
> These are some of the tips Greeks used to survive the World War II
> occupation that have been collected in "Starvation Recipes" — a
> cookbook that has become a surprise hit as millions of Greeks struggle
> to make ends meet in a new era of hardship brought on by economic
> crisis.
>
> In the grim years of the occupation, starving Athenians invented new
> ways to stay alive, helped by daily advice columns in the capital's
> newspapers known as "survival guides."
>
> Historian and high school teacher Eleni Nikolaidou spent 18 months
> compiling recipes and survival tips — combing through more than 6,000
> scanned newspaper clippings from the 1941-44 Nazi rule to produce her
> book. "Starvation Recipes" was released this year and is on its second
> print run.
>
> "It was all about getting by with very little," said Nikolaidou,
> sitting at her Athens home, with books everywhere stacked to the
> ceiling.
>
> Nikolaidou stumbled onto the subject two years ago while working on a
> masters degree on Greece's wartime economy.
>
> "I read an article from the front page of a newspaper, 'How to collect
> crumbs' — a little each day so that you could have a cupful of crumbs
> by the end of the week, something extra to survive. It really struck
> me."
>
> She was drawn in by the details: Horseshoes used to reinforce
> dilapidated footwear, baked sand to preserve lemons, and stray cats
> and dogs hunted on Athens streets for food.
>
> "People would come up with new ways to cheat their stomachs: There
> were starters designed to cut your appetite. And people were advised
> to chew their food very, very slowly, so it felt as though they were
> eating more," Nikolaidou said.
>
> "There was no sugar available, so at weddings, the sugared almonds
> handed out were black. Raisin pulp was used as the sweetener."
>
> Coffee shops had no coffee, so they served a brew made out of ground
> chickpeas. Newspaper articles at the time encouraged Athenians to make
> the best of it.
>
> "The new coffee can be enjoyed just as much as a prewar coffee,
> because people visit the coffee shop for more than just the coffee,"
> one newspaper wrote.
>
> Publisher Oxigono says "Starvation Recipes" has sold about 2,000
> copies — considered an early success despite the modest number, helped
> by Nikolaidou's appearance on television, newspaper articles and
> Internet buzz. A third print run is planned this month.
>
> After decades of overspending, Greece was forced from late 2009 to
> grapple with its ruined finances by imposing harsh taxes and surviving
> on rescue loans from the IMF and European Union.
>
> The result means 9 out of 10 Greeks are changing their food-shopping
> habits, according to a September survey by the consumer organization
> KEPKA: People are now eating out less, cutting back on meat and any
> extras, and swapping quality food brands for cheaper substitutes.
>
> The growing demand for affordable meals has been met by magazines and
> a new batch of low-budget cookbooks, such as "The Cooking Economy" and
> "Family meals for €5 — 110 recipes for the financial crisis."
>
> But the dire wartime hardship has little in common with the current
> crisis. Even as the number of vacant stores and homeless grow by the
> day, Athens' coffee shops are busy and streets filled with new cars.
>
> During the occupation, dead bodies were collected off the street each
> morning, the hills were stripped bare of wild greens, and families had
> to keep round-the-clock guard of their backyard chicken coops.
>
> Raisins, olives, wild greens, and rationed bread became the nation's
> staples against mass starvation that claimed an estimated 300,000
> lives.
>
> But for Nikolaidou, worrying signs of sudden poverty have arrived in
> this crisis, too.
>
> "There are children who go to school without enough to eat," she said.
> "The circumstances were of course much more extreme. But there are
> people, today, who open up their cupboards, and see little more than a
> bag of flour, and think — 'what can I do with that?'"
>
> Opting for cheap processed foods is the biggest mistake
> budget-conscious consumers can make, says chef F.T. Bletsas, the
> youthful host of the Greek TV show "Mama's Cooking."
>
> "Most people spend more than they need to, and still eat badly," says
> Bletsas, who runs the English-language website www.cookingeconomy.com
> spun out of a 2010 book on frugal dining.
>
> Bletsas, 31, honed his thrift techniques while living in Britain as an
> engineering student, and later adapted his modest menus to Greece's
> renowned Mediterranean diet.
>
> His top picks for strapped shoppers include olive oil, tinned
> sardines, lentils, and good quality meat used sparingly.
>
> He has simple advice for Greeks laboring under the crisis.
>
> "Never, ever throw anything away: You can preserving it, freeze, cook
> it, reuse it, or give it to someone who needs it more than you."
>

-- 
________________________
Professor Neni Panourgiá

2011-2012 Charles H. Revson Fellow
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
Washington, DC  20024
www.ushmm.org


ICLS
Heyman Center for the Humanities,
Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027

Dangerous Citizens. The Greek Left and the Terror of the State
www.dangerouscitizens.columbia.edu

Ethnographica Moralia Experiments in Interpretive Anthropology
www.fordhampress.com/detail.html?id=9780823228874






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