ABSTRACT

This recipe comes from a small island, 'Nisos',* about a day's journey from Piraeus. The island is so steep and rocky that crops are grown on narrow terraces and those slopes too steep or bleak for cultivation are used to graze sheep and goats. About a quarter of the men make their living as shepherds, the others are mainly farmers and farm labourers. The shepherds pay the rent for grazing-land not in cash but in cheese, the amount being agreed with the owner of the land. The renting year begins on 18 May and cheese-rent for the past year must be paid by this date. As this is usually later than Eastertime, most people want the rent to be paid not only in hard cheese, which will store well in brine or oil, but also in unsalted soft cheese used in preparing special Easter treats. The soft cheese, called vrasli or mizithra, is made from the afternoon's milk boiled up with whey from the morning's milk (used to make hard cheese) and sea-water. The coagulated result is drained in rush baskets shaped like plant-pots, and is delicious eaten with island thymeflavoured honey.