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A long time ago I was in Crete, eat-ing lunch with a large group of visitors,mainly food writers, a lunch that had beencooked by the people of the village wewere in. A chance came for several of usto see the oven where some of the breadhad been baked. A woman led us to herhouse, where the masonry oven, still cool-ing from the morning's baking, was builtinto the walls. The house was two storiestall, high-ceilinged, sparsely furnished andwith a sparse but certainly efficient kitchen.Covering the entire floor of one bedroomwere drying figs.

We had just left the house and werestanding outside, when our hostess's white-haired mother appeared, wearing a fulldress and with her hair in a kerchief. Whenshe heard who we were, she smiled withoutstopping, seeming joyful to see us. Maybe

that was because we were Americans andwell liked, a legacy of the Second WorldWar (when Crete fiercely resisted theNazis). But it was more than that. She dis-appeared and returned and began to stuffour pockets, opening and filling them, withalmonds and figs. Most of us were wearingjeans and the gesture was very personal. Ican't say why, but it was immediately clearthat this was an act of hospitality meantfor us and yet going far deeper, back tothe time, probably not so long ago in thatplace, when for strangers traveling throughthe countryside food was not readily avail-able from an inn or tavern, but only fromthe people living there. I began to cry.

It was as if I had been touched for thefirst time by one of the oldest and deepesthuman emotions, the desire to give pleas-ure to guests. It was the greatest lesson inhospitality I've received, and now whenguests come to our house I often thinkof it and ask myself how I can measureup. Hers was the ancient desire, perhapsinstinct, to send strangers on their way safefrom hunger.

Edward BehrMay zoiz

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Mastiha

W^

by Diana Farr Louis

HE LENTISK IS A TOUGH LITTLE EVER-

green tree, not much to look at. It grows

no more than about three meters (ten

feet) tall and has small, dark green leaves gathered in clusters; its trunk and branches are

scaly and sinewy, twisted like rope. Pistada lentiscus, a member of the same family as the

pistachio, thrives in stony, infertile soil, along with thistles and hardy scrub like thyme,

Jerusalem sage, and juniper. It's so prevalent in Greece that it's considered a nuisance. From

my terrace on Cycladic Andros, I can see dozens of the plants — sprawling blots on the

tawny hillside. Some even encroach on our olive trees or send seedlings into the cracks in

our paths. But on Chios, the northern Aegean island that lies just eight nautical miles from

the coast of Turkey, the trees behave quite differently.

They look just the same as the lentisks elsewhere, but they are different enough to merit

a separate botanical name: P. lentiscus var. chia. And they possess a unique feature. When

cut, they weep — tears of clear resin that have an enticing aroma as well as long-proven

antiseptic properties that will heal a wound. The tears dry and harden into crystals —

mastic — that are collected, cleaned, and sold at a premium. In southern Chios, there may

be as many as two million mastic trees, growing not in vast groves like olives, but in neat

rows, some with no more than ten or 20 trees, along roadsides, on flat land, up gentle hills

— just about everywhere you look. These trees and the mastic they produce are worth a

s,mall fortune.

Yiorgos Rikaniadis "embroiders" mastiha trees near the village of Mesta in southern Chios.

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Mastic lends its distinctive aroma to all sorts ofdishes as well as spirits in the Eastern Mediterraneanand Arab world. Considered a spice, its gummy con-sistency and therapeutic properties have made it aningredient in products as disparate as adhesives, tooth-paste, dyspepsia cures, and finishing varnish for oilpaintings. In Greece, mastiha — as its gastronomicadvocates prefer to call it, to avoid unappetizing non-culinary associations — has long been added to festivebreads, creamy puddings, and sticky sweets, such asTurkish delight (known in Greek as loukoumi). Duringthe past decade or so, more and more chefs have beenexperimenting with adding it to savory sauces for meat,poultry, and especially seafood, finding that it enhancestomato and lemon, yogurt and bechamel, not to men-tion chocolate. Mastiha liqueur has become a favoritedigestif at Athenian restaurants.

In certain places, mastiha has never gone out of fash-ion. Indeed, throughout its long history it has been sucha valuable commodity that people have killed and diedfor control of the mastic trade. It was a chief ingredientin poultices, tisanes, cordials, and other folk remediesfor just about any ailment. And it was widely popularas chewing gum; from Nero's court to a Sultan's harem,mastic kept the breath sweet and the mouth healthy. Thepractice of chewing it gave us the word "masticate."

In recent years the folk remedies of the past havebeen validated by modern science. The research depart-ment of the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Associationworks with about a dozen universities in Greece andabroad on medical applications; countless studies haveconfirmed an array of health benefits.

Over the centuries, speculators have tried to culti-vate the trees elsewhere and to harvest resin from otherlentisks, without success. Some scholars maintain thatwhen Christopher Columbus embarked on his greatvoyage, he was actually hoping to find a new sourceof mastihd. He had served as a sea captain on Chioswhen the island was controlled by a Genoese cartel andknew how profitable the spice was. Though he wroterhat he had discovered mastic trees in the Caribbean,they were just deceptive relatives. The lentisks that growoutside Chios do emit resin, but the quantity is invari-ably limited and the quality unmarketable — the resinneither possesses the same aroma nor hardens properly.Although no one has isolated the exact chemistry, itseems that in southern Chios soil and dry climate cometogether m a way that cannot be duplicated. In the

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northern half of the island, as in the rest of the Mediter-ranean, the mastiha trees remain uncultivated.

To those inimitable climate and soil characteristics,add the human factor — the agricultural expertise,knowledge, and respect with which generations ofgrowers have looked after their trees. On Chios, mas-tiha producers take resin from only the male trees,and when they propagate new trees, they take cuttingsfrom the strongest. It is just possible that today's treesare genetically identical to those that produced mastic2,000 years ago.

For the last 700 years most mastiha producers havelived close to their trees in the 14 so-called mastiho-horia, or mastic villages, of southern Chios. All aremedieval walled settlements built by the Genoese, whoruled Chios from 1346 to 1566, to protect the masticfrom pirate raids. Pyrgi, the largest, with a population o£i ,000, is named for the now crumbling fortified toweror pyrgos in its center. It has all the features you wouldexpect — massive doors, dark mazelike alleys to con-fuse intruders, some vaulted or joined by arches — andsome you would not: AC units, parked motorbikes., andextravagant black and white patterns in the shapes ofhalf-moons, animals, flowers, triangles, stars, rosettes,crosses, that cover almost every visible surface and areunique to this village.

When I visited Pyrgi in August zoi i, the first collec-tion of mastic was drying inside. Outside every door-way, for want of courtyards, sat clusters of men andwomen of all ages on plastic chairs, gossiping loudly orkibitzing over a backgammon board. In the afternoon,during the siesta, the streets were deserted except for thealmost tangible scent of mastiha. It resembles no other:fragrant, piney, and musky at the same time, slightlysweet, delicate yet pronounced.

I spent the morning in the mastiha fields learningabout production. My guide, Vassilis Ballas, who sportsa ponytail, left a well-paid computer job in Athens towork with mastiha near his grandparents' village ofMesta — population 300. He drove me over ruttedroads to a scruffy slope where since sunup his bestfriend Nikos Rikaniadis and Nikos's father, Yiorgos,had been slashing mastiha trees.

The trees were lined up about six feet apart on lowterraces; around each one the ground had been trans-formed into an immaculate white circle. It's so hard, flat,and smooth that the Chiots call it a trapezi, or "table,""That's powdered calcium carbonate," said Vassilis.

Mastic tears drip from the scarred bark.

"The local name is asprohoma, or white earth. In latespring we scrape the area around the trees to remove theweeds and leaves. Then we throw handfuls of the pow-der to cover the soil. This is where the mastic tears willfall. If they are discolored by contact with the brownearth, they'll be worthless."

Until recently, all the weeding and sweeping weredone with a sharp hoe and a whisk broom. Now somefarmers resort to weed whackers and leaf blowers. Theirancestors had to travel by donkey to extract the calciumcarbonate from a special quarry some distance away,and then grind it to a fine powder by hand in a giantmortar. Today they buy it ready for use. But the mostimportant aspects of mastiha production — incising thetrees and collecting the tears — have hardly changed ina thousand years,

I watched Yiorgos "embroider" the trees. Armedwith a sharp, double-pointed tool and wearing kneepads, he quickly, surely, and precisely added new inci-sions to the already scarred bark. Spaced about eight tonine millimeters apart, each gash was about ten to 15millimeters long, two to three wide, four to five deep.Strange that this aggressive act should have such arefined name in Greek: kentima, "embroidery," is usu-

ally associated with genteel ladies sitting in parlors withtheir needles, threads, and dainty fabrics.

Yiorgos spent 35 years working in restaurants inNew York City. Now retired to an Athens suburb, hecomes to his native Chios every summer to help his sonin the mastiha fields. "I've worked all my life. I can'tstop now. I started with mastiha at the age of eight, dur-ing the war. Those were hard times, but my grandfatherwould get me out of bed at 5 and slap me if I dawdled.You don't see kids doing these jobs any more."

Nikos and Vassilis are anomalies in the world ofmastiha growers; few are under 60. But when I asked ifmastiha farming would survive the modern age, no oneeven considered the possibility that it would not. As onegrower said, "These trees are like our children, there willalways be people to look after them." Another added,"You'll see, with this crisis even teenagers will be leav-ing their computers and helping out." Mastiha remainsa family business. As Nikos Rikaniadis said, "You'dhave to have 3,000 trees to justify hiring workers, andin any case most owners prefer to themselves performthe delicate job of cutting."

Wearing long sleeves, thick gloves, and a tasselledwhite scarf on his head to keep from getting sticky,

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Olimbi is one of the mastiha villages founded by the Genoese in the i4th century.

Yiorgos stooped down and slashed some more. "Webegin at the base of the tree and move up gradually,don't make too many cuts at first. We visit each treeevery six days or so. Some trees can take as many astoo cuts, others as few as 50. You want to see how itreacts," he explained. "Look, see how it starts to sweatas soon as I cut it? But you need to be careful — don'twant to scare the tree."

Later, Vassilis told me about an experiment that wasmade to speed up collection by making all the cuts atthe same time instead of spreading them out from earlyJuly to late August. The experiment traumatized treesand they withered in shock.

Properly treated, a mastiha tree may live more thani oo years. Its productive life begins around the age offive or six and continues up to 70, when the weepingbecomes less copious. The average yield per tree is 150to zoo grams (five to seven ounces); in 2010, from 2,000trees Nikos collected 130 kilos, which fetched about 76euros (just under 100 dollars) per kilo when he deliveredthem to the Chios Gum Mastic Growers Association.With the addition of a couple of very small subsidies(1.30 euros for each tree declared and a free bucketof asprokoma for every z1/! kilos) plus tax rebates, he

earned a total of 10,000 euros. Not a huge income forso much work, but at least it is guaranteed.

The association buys all the mastiha collected,whether it can be sold or not. In aoio, the harvest cameto 150 tons, and, when I visited, 30 tons remained in itsstorerooms. With the highest-quality crystals wholesal-ing at about 9 5 euros per kilo, the association doesn'thave a big profit margin, but they did bring 1i millioneuros to growers, made up of between 3,000 and 5,000households, a variable number because not every familyis active every year. Most grow mastiha for additionalincome.

Every grower is legally required to turn over his cropto one of 20 local cooperatives. These obligatory coop-eratives then deliver the crop to the association for pro-cessing and promotion. In exchange, the grower receiveshis money up front, while the association admits toturning a blind eye if a portion of the crop should goastray and be sold unofficially. While some growers mayprefer to sell direct to distillers or other manufacturers,most are happy to leave sales, both domestic and inter-national, to the association's executives.

Before the mastiha can be taken to the association'sfactory, it must be cleaned; the hardest job, it naturally

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Most/fro trees grow in typical rows on a hillside near Olimbi.

falls to the women. After the harvest, virtually all theolder women in Pyrgi and the other villages sit on theirstoops with pans of unsortcd mastiha crystals in theirlaps. From the mess of leaves, twigs, soil, they pick outthe hardened "tears," which range in size from aboutas big as a fingernail to tiny beads no larger than thehead of a pin.

Not all the crystals are of the same quality. The larg-ish flat pieces, called pites, or "pies," gathered duringthe first collection in mid-August, are not really crystals,being more aromatic and softer, and are used in distill-ing mastiha liqueurs. At the end of the harvest, beforethe first autumn rain, the men scrape from the tree anydroplets that haven't fallen to the ground. Some of themare yellow and opaque, left over from the previous year,and must be separated from the clear pixari, as the bestmastiha is called. After the women sieve and sort thecrystals, they wash them repeatedly in cold water. Thecrystals rise to the surface and are easily skimmed off.But even the leaves and twigs are washed, for mastihadust may be clinging to them. Nothing is wasted.

Time-consuming and tedious, cleaning at home cantake months. In the old days, it would be a communityeffort. Girls would join their aunts and grandmothers,

who would sing songs and tell stories, passing on theirheritage. Nowadays, when it's too cold for the elders tosit outside gossiping, they move indoors to watch theirfavorite soaps — without the younger generation —until every household's storeroom has been emptied.

The time spent between harvest and arrival at thefactory is short. Mastiha tends to oxidize slowly, and ifleft a year or more at room temperature, it can becomeyellow and bitter.

Upon delivery to the factory, the crystals are put intomassive refrigerators, where they remain at 8 degrees Cuntil they are processed. Every day a portion of the mas-tic is distributed among 2.4 women to clean it further;they sit under fluorescent lights, four to a glaring whitetable. Each woman has her own mound of mastihacrystals to whittle at with a sharp knife, removing infini-tesimal specks of grit. They are paid by the kilo, and anexpert can clean from five to ten kilos of mastiha a day,earning as much as 70 euros, well above the averageGreek daily wage of 50 euros for unskilled labor.

Opposite the cold storage is the laundry, where allthe mastiha is washed in ice water. The smaller crystalsare then soaked for Z4 hours before being poured intoa huge vat containing water and glycerol. There the

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clean particles float to the surface, enabling workers toscoop them out and put them in an adjacent air dryerfor an hour. Until the installation of this machineryten years ago, they were laid out on linen sheets todry naturally. Once dry, the crystals are mechanicallyinspected for impurities before packaging. Those thatdon't make the grade for medical or culinary uses canbe sold as incense.

Elias Smirnioudis, who showed me the factory, toldme that 2,0 percent of the harvest goes to chewing gumand essential oil, used in cosmetics. Sixty percent isexported, mostly to the Arab world but also to the US,for Mastisol liquid adhesive. Twenty percent of the totalcrop remains in Greece, where it is enormously popu-lar as a flavoring in briochelike breads, ice creams, andsweets. But no Chiot woman would dream of cookingwith mastic. When I once asked a pair who were clean-ing it, they cried in unison, "Po po po!"—Absolutelynot! — "We do chew it but never add it to our food."

During my first three decades of living in Greece, Iwas barely aware of mastiha's existence. I knew it onlyas a "submarine" — a spoonful of semi-solid whitesweet sucked by children and dunked in a water glass— and as an unusual ice cream flavor.

Yet today, just a few kilometers away from themam plant is another factory devoted to finding newrecipes for mastiha and making products that willappeal to new customers. In aooz, Giannis Mandalas,a jo-something native of Chios, had an idea that wouldchange the image of mastiha from a curious spice withlimited culinary use to a kitchen staple. When I first methim in 1999, he was working for the regional govern-ment on development possibilities that would promotethe island's traditions without clashing with its environ-ment. He founded the company, with the associationas che majority owner, "to promote mastiha awarenessand give it an identity." He explained, "We called itMediterra to convey the Mediterranean connection;mastiha\ history stretches way beyond Greece."

Mediterra has been extraordinarily successful. In2.000, the number of foods on the market containingmastiha was five. Now it is 500. Many are made byMediterra and sold at its trademark mastihashops inChios, Athens, and in airports all over Greece, as wellas in Pans, New York City, and soon Saudi Arabia. Themost popular food items are still in the sweet ratherthan savory range. But Mediterra's R&D department is

trying to establish both the amount of mastiha that willbe acceptable to potential consumers and the percentageof the spice that should be added to a specific product.According to Antonis Kalitsis, production director atthe factory, "When we think up a way of using mastihain a traditional recipe, we hand it to a small companyto experiment with. We pay for their costs. If it catcheson, we can then give it to a larger firm. Take chocolate,for example. We dealt with a company in Lebanon thatwas already producing chocolate with mastiha. Nowboth of Greece's biggest chocolate makers sell bitterchocolate with mastiha."

Introducing mdstiha into savory recipes requireseven more thought and inspiration, because its fla-vor is so associated with sweets and has to be unob-trusive. Tomato sauces, spice rubs, and spreads witheggplant, red pepper, or olives are obvious contend-ers. As for cooking with masnha at home, I recom-mend Diane Kochilas's Mastiha Cuisine, published byMediterra. Her dishes are simple, clear, and tempting.A judicious amount of the spice adds a subtle, or, asshe has said, a seductive dimension to dishes such asMastiha-Marinated Octopus and Roasted Red Peppersand Herbs; Sauteed Shrimp with Mastiha, Vegetables,and Feta; and Steak au Poivre with Mastiha Mystique.Piney, musky, it's hard to describe because it's unlikeany spice most people are used to. Kochilas also givesinstructions for infusing olive oil with mastiha andadvice for pounding the crystals (adding a little salt orsugar prevents the powder from sticking). She warnsagainst adding more than half a teaspoonful of pow-dered mastiha to any savory dish; a heavy hand canproduce a bitter, astringent taste.

Since 1997, the EU has identified mastiha as a Pro-tected Designation of Origin product, and the PDOseal, a blue circle ringed with gold, is a guarantee of.quality. Adulterated imitations abound, and a bad expe-rience will have you wondering what all the fuss wasabout. The best way to get acquainted with mastiha isby drinking it — Tetteris and Skinos are two reliablebrands of liqueur.

There is something almost mystical about thisancient flavoring, as though eating or drinking it linksus to all the peoples who have craved it over the centu-ries, as well as to the hardy villagers of southern Chios,who have toiled over the trees and their tears since timeimmemorial.

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Mastic Recipes i cup basmati or jasmine rice

% kilo (i pound) fresh young spinach, trimmed

and coarsely chopped

salt and freshly ground black pepper

3 to 4 medium mastiha crystals

>z cup finely chopped dill

YL cup finely chopped wild fennel

a grating or two of nutmeg

.strained juice of i lemon

125 gr (]4 pound) Greek feta

lemon slices, optional

In a large casserole or stewing pot, heat % cup olive oil

and cook the onions, leek, fennel, and garlic over medium-

low heat for 10 to 12 minutes, until the onions are soft and

wilted. Do not brown. Add rice and stir for i to 2 minutes.

Add the spinach in 2-cup batches, tossing after addi-

tion and waiting a few minutes for each batch to wilt and

shrink a little, so that all the spinach will fit in the pot. Sea-

son with salt. Stir in the mastiha crystals, which will melt

fruit and vegetable vendor stops in Pyrgi's main square. Geometric designs, called xysta (sgraffito), unique to the village, cover almost

every surfacg of every building.

crystals, powder, and oil are sold in the US at

WWW.mastihashopny.com; the store itself is at 145 Orchard

Street in New York City, tel: 212.253.0895.

Mastiha Spanakorizo (Spinach and Rice Pilaf)

This recipe is reproduced with permissionfrom Diane Kochilas's

Mastiha Cuisine (Mediterra, 2008). She writes, "Spinach-

fife pilafis one. of the most traditional dishes on the Greek

table, mastiha ;s a perfect match. Try this with a piece of sim-

ply grilled fsh, such as salmon, or with a portion ofsauteed

shrimp."

125 ml (J4 cup) extra virgin olive oil

i large red onion, finely chopped

i large leek, trimmed, washed, and finely chopped

i small fennel bulb, trimmed and finely chopped

i garlic cloves

* .I

over the course of cooking. Add i cup water, cover, and

Simmer for 40 minutes, stirring occasionally and adding

more water if necessary to keep the mixture moist. Add

the dill, wild fennel, and nutmeg, and continue to cook for

another 20 minutes, until all the liquid has been absorbed

and the spinach-rice pilaf is smooth and creamy. Adjust

seasoning with salt and pepper, then add the lemon juice

and remaining olive oil.

Spread the spanakorizo on a platter. Taking a vegetable

peeler, shave thin curls offeta over the spinach and rice.

Garnish if desired with lemon slices, and serve either

warm or at room temperature. Serves 4.

Christopsomo (Christmas bread)

The dough for Christmas bread, baked all over the island of

Crete and a tradition in the rest of Greece as well, is so filled

with nuts, spices, and raisins that it more resembles a cake.

Coated with sesame seeds and sometimes walnuts, the crust

often bears a cross: the letter X in Creek stands for the "On" in

Christ. The cake is an attractive addition to the festive table,

alongside the Vasilopitta (New Year's cake), melomakarones

(walnut-honey cookies), and kourambiedes (almond-

shortbread cookies) that no house is without during the holi-

day season. Christopsomo is also good at other times of year.

Originally, before commercial yeast became widely available

in Greece, the leavening would have been sourdough, but in

Greece the taste of sourdough isn't sour at all. This recipe is

adapted from my book Feasting and Fasting in Crete.

115 gr (% cup) all-purpose flour

i gr (a generous J4 teaspoon, or V7 of the contents of oneenvelope) instant dry yeast

120 ml (>4 cup) water at about 27° C (80° F)

The day before you bake, in a large bowl prepare a sponge

with the flour, yeast, and warm water; cover and set

aside.

loogr (%cup) sugar

60 ml (J4 cup) olive oil

140 gr (i cup) all-purpose flour

In the morning, add the sugar, olive oil, and flour, knead

well, cover, and leave to rise in a warm place.

250 ml (i cup) red wine

250 gr (2 cups) raisins

645 gr (about 4% cups) all-purpose flour

14 grams (2 envelopes, ̂ A teaspoons), less the amount

already added, instant dry yeast

200 gr (i cup) sugar

60 ml (J4 cup) olive oil

>a teaspoon salti teaspoon mastiha powder or finely crushed crystals (see

source page n)200 gr (iJ4 cups) walnuts, coarsely chopped

i teaspoon cinnamon

i teaspoon ground cloves

grated peel and juice of i orange

60 ml (% cup) brandy

1 to 2 tablespoons sesame seeds and no to 12 walnut

halves, for decoration

Warm the red wine, and, in a separate small bowl from the

dough, add the raisins to it.

When the sponge has doubled in size, stir in the flour

and other ingredients (except the sesame and walnut

halves), and knead for about 10 minutes on a lightly

floured surface, adding flour if you have to, until you have

a smooth, nonsticky dough. Cover the dough and let it

rise again in a warm place until it has increased about 2^4

times (about iK hours).

Heat the oven to 200° C (400° F). Fold the dough onto

itself and form into a round loaf. Place on a lightly oiled

baking sheet. Let it rise again to about the previous size

(about 45 minutes). Brush the surface of the loaf with a

little oil, and sprinkle on the sesame seeds and walnut

halves. Bake 15 minutes, and lower the heat to 150° C (300°

F), then bake another 35 to 45 minutes, or until the loaf,

tapped on the bottom, makes a hollow sound. Makes i

large round loaf. Q

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