fresh milk

The memorable time spent in my father’s birthplace, Elassona in 1976, was such an eye opener. My siblings and I had the opportuntiy to experience things we never could growing up in suburbia Adelaide, Australia. 

My grand-parent’s neighbour, Eirini, was a hard working woman who kept cows in her yard and in turn supplied the town’s people their fresh milk.

My sister and I warmed to Eirini immediately and we spent most morning’s with Eirini going through the steps of milking a cow. The fun part was when my sister and I took turns milking the cow’s which mind you, got quite messy. There sure is an art to milking and hands down, Eirini was the expert!

In the evening we accompanied Eirini making our way by foot to the locals in the town, door to door delivering fresh warm milk. This usually took up the whole evening. Feeling quite exhausted by the end of the night, my sister and I would head straight for bed as soon as we returned to my grand-parent’s house. We were eager to wake bright and early the next morning and head straight to Eirini’s next door. 

Another highlight of our holiday in 1976, was my pappou Ioannis’ horse anad cart rides. He would help us kids up onto the carriage of the horse and cart and I recall seeing the extreme joy on his face as he guarded his three cherised Australian grandchildren up on the carriage. We sat with anticiaption and pappou showed us how to steer the horse.  One particular day as we sat in the carriage I pulled too hard on the reigns and the horse suddenly bolted forward. Luckily pappou was guarding us and stopped the horse going any further by yanking at the reigns as only he knew how.

Mostly everything we ate came straight from the earth. My yiayia gathered all she needed from her large vegetable garden for the meal she was preparing for that day. Even though back home in Australia nearly every Greek family grew a vegetable garden, for some reason the vegetables and fruit at yiayia and pappou’s tasted so much sweeter.

My mum helped yiayia with the cooking and the daily chores. The array of home cooked food such as the  bread, fresh goat cheese, soups  … it just did not compare to back home.  I loved watching mum and yiayia in the tiny kitchen of her cottage, absoring the raw aroma’s from the food prepared. There is nothing greater than walking into yiayia’s house and being wrapped in the distinctive smell which comes only from a Greek kouzina. 

Elassona 1976 – my little brother John, me (in the middle) and my younger sister, Effie making special memories.