the double bags loaded full of foods that were not found in our garden. Meats, especially lamb, seafood, pastourma (a special, cured lunchmeat made from camel meat like corned beef,) I remember it was delicious with mustard, fresh fruit in the winter especially citrus, chestnuts and apples we would carry on the bus.
None of the foods we ate were processed in any way and nothing we ate was prepared by anyone else. Our mother was in charge of what went into our mouths. This wonderful mother cooked many thousands of meals without complaining, without a day off for over sixty years.
My mother was the home economist. We always looked forward to our afternoon wholesome real flavors ice creams from the vendor in the summer we went to summer movies, beach trips on buses and by motor boats from downtown.
We had pretty bows for our hair, we were loved, and we were very well fed. Yet, my mother still managed to buy and hide her gold coins. In the tough times, she came through, and brightened our days with much needed foods and other necessities. Like magic we kids watched her bring out a golden lira and all was well. That golden lira bought many weeks’ worth of foods and paid for household bills too.
It was a different world back in the old country. One generation would leave a house or land for the next generation to inherit.
The new married couple had a house to live in without struggling with a never-ending mortgage or rent that took half of their monthly paycheck.
The young people took care of their elders gladly and respected them. There was no such thing as a “home” for the elderly.
Today I see advertisements on television shamelessly promoting a final home like it is normal to put the elderly in some “home”. What about their children’s homes? A parent can support and raise ten children. Ten children cannot nurture and support one old parent now days.
Those people enjoyed life more. They were not strapped with all the monthly bills we have today. Most of the middle class ended up owning the inherited home and they created a second home by the sea for their days off and vacations, (thiakopes.) So now this family would have two homes to deed to their children. They wanted their children to be better off in their lives. They wanted them to have an easier life.
My parents had eleven live births and nine living healthy children. From these nine children only three of us had three children. Everyone else had two or just one child.
Greece had a population of eight million people in 1962 when I left, and today 2019 Greece still has eight million people. The people that have the most children will dominate a country. Greeks only have one child, maybe. The writing is on the wall.
My yiayia left my parents, her home in Serres.
After the move to Thessaloniki and the much more modern home where I was born, life was easier for my parents. After I left for America my father sold the family home and the land, where I was born and the builder gave them two apartments on the third floor along with a commercial store front on the ground level.
If they had no home at the beginning it would have been nearly impossible to have and raise all those children. With that size family I think the biggest expense was probably food.
When I went back to Greece the second time my mother gave me one of those perfect, shiny golden liras and I saved it for many years. I kept it in cotton in a velvet box where I used to keep my diamond ring set that I had lost. I used to take it out and admire it from time to time. Eventually, I gifted it to my youngest son for a birthday gift. I had a jeweler make it into a handsome gold, heavy man’s ring. This is a real, worth a lot, heirloom. It also has a meaning. I have touched it and my mother has touched it also.
I remember one year my mother baked the traditional Christmas sweet bread just like the Greek Easter bread but without the red dyed eggs. She inserted a golden lira in the bread and baked it. As the slices were handed out on Christmas day, my lucky brother Carolos bit into the gold coin. He was very happy, because he was engaged and needed the extra money. My mother was a giving person. She gave unselfishly. Her world was her kitchen, she lived for her family. Her family came first, always. We children had her unconditional love forever. Knowing this as a child, made you feel strong and confident.
My mother did not believe when mankind went to the moon, you may call her backward. She was not book educated like my father. BUT, she was the very word economist, in every sense of the word, and she was taught the value of gold. Only recently people are learning about gold in this country.
My mother had no medical degree, but she knew what remedies to use with great results. She depended on her miraculous herb garden and wild herbs too. This was all handed down in families.
From a tooth ache to the mumps, to a hurt knee, to chicken pox and a sore throat, she had become an expert because she had an abundance of patients, her large family. One time she even used the leeches from a jar on herself. It was awful! I was ten years old and she had placed those leeches on her shins. She did it outside in the back garden and it was summertime.
Most of the early years I do not believe we had expensive health insurance coverage. Thankfully we were a bunch of healthy kids and did not need hospitalization. I attribute that to our genetics and my mother’s nurturing and homemade unprocessed foods with nutritious unspoiled by chemicals and unnatural fertilizers, raw ingredients.
My mother also nursed one of my nieces. My mother gave birth to my younger sister Anna, at 44 years old. My married sister Roula, who was named after our yiayia, Zafiro, Zafiroula, who was about 16 years older than me, also gave birth to a baby girl. This niece was a tiny, black haired, green eyed baby who nearly died. Her mother had no milk, so the baby was frail and starving.
I don’t believe baby formula was invented just yet. This was Greece after all and it was 1952. In my opinion life was about fifty years behind there than the new country called America. Now things are different. My niece would have died, her intestines were closing up, her pediatrician had said. That is when my mother started nursing this frail baby. She nursed my sister Anna and her granddaughter at the same time.
What a mom!!! So that baby received nutritious milk with the much-needed natural immunity that comes with it. My mother saved her granddaughter’s life. Grandmother Malama and granddaughter Thomai always had a special bond.
I don’t remember my mother sitting around much, idly. With so many children and grandchildren she was always making clothes on her SINGER with the foot pedal sewing machine. She also had bought the SINGER with a gold coin. In the evening, sitting around the radio she would be knitting sweaters, hats, scarves, cotton and winter woolen socks. I am describing the 50’s and the 60’s. I came to America in 1962.
She used to say a person needs 40 salt water baths at the sea, for their health. Later, I found out about thalassa therapy. She was right again. I remember going to the thalassa (sea) on foot and by bus, sometimes by motor boat.
These were day trips to different beaches. My mother, half a dozen children, just the younger ones would go for an outing which took place a couple, and sometimes three times a week during the hot summer. We tried to have 40 salt water baths under our belts for our health. Dipping in the salty Aegean Sea was medicinal indeed.
On the way back from the beach my mother would buy fresh fish and mussels from the fishermen, and that night we feasted on delicious, fresh sweet fish. That is what fresh means.
I remember the sun was sweltering hot when we were walking and sun bathing and sometimes we got sunburned. At night our backs were pampered with this plain, cool, wholesome, wonderful goat’s milk yogurt which my mother made almost daily.
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