Sutton - Secrets from the Greek kitchen: cooking, skill, and everyday life on an Aegean island

This project benefited from the generous hospitality of a number of Kalymnians who shared their kitchens and ideas with me. In particular Id like to thank Nomiki and Mihalis Tsaggaris, Popi Galanou, Pavlos Roditis, Yiannis Gavalas, Polykseni Miha, Polymnia Vasaneli, Nikolas and Katerina Malli, Irini and Savas Ergas, and Mihalis and Julia Koullias. Also thanks for hospitality and stimulating conversations in Athens to Susannah Verney and her lovely family.

Three families have been particularly central to this project. Without their help and friendship I cant imagine having gotten to this point. To Yiannis, Angeliki, and Dimitris Roditis Im grateful for all of our many shared conversations and meals. Angeliki has been like a second mother to me, and ruminations with her over freshly squeezed orange juice, not to mention avgozoumi and other culinary treats, always got my day off to a good start. In Carbondale, Illinois, Yianniss paintings are a constant reminder of his thoughtfulness, care, and shared love of talking about Kalymnian tradition and history, and I miss him tremendously since his passing in 2006. Dimitris, too, treated me like a brother, and Im so pleased that he is learning the joys of fatherhood with such a delightful young son. Dimitriss lovely wife, Evdokia, and mother-in-law, Aleka Passa, have been extremely generous in welcoming me into their restaurant kitchen and putting up with my endless questions, even in the midst of preparing the days meal for customers. And their papoutsakia definitely made it worth slipping from my vegetarianism.

Nina and Manolis Papamihail, as well as Ninas mother, Irini Psaromati, were always gracious hosts to me and my family. I had no inkling when Nina and my wife, Beth, first became friends how central her family would become to my research. I appreciate all our discussions over the years about the advantages and disadvantages of life on Kalymnos and in the United States. Ninas willingness to keep a three-month food diary, and allowing herself to be pestered on a regular basis about what she was making on any particular day, was truly saintly. Im so glad I was able to be there for part of her long-awaited trip to the United States, and to follow her on her culinary journeys.

Finally, I especially want to thank Nikolas and Katina Miha and their children, Yiorgos, Vasilis, and Little Katerina, who have been my longest and most trusted friends on Kalymnos; I have had uncountable meals and conversations in their kitchen over the past thirty years. Visiting with them and becoming part of their daily lives has made returning to Kalymnos a great pleasure, and seeing the continuities and changes in cooking practices over three generations in their family has been truly fascinating. From the time they nicknamed me Kyrios Gallorizos for my early linguistic gaffe, I have felt part of the family, for, as Clifford Geertz wrote, to be teased is to be accepted. Katina has always been willing to give me the inside scoop on Kalymnian social and gender relations, and related her stories with characteristic style and humor. Of course, the center of the family for most of the time that Ive known them was Katinas mother, Katerina Kardoulia. From the first day we met, when I was sent to help her collect pine cones for her leather-tanning operation (as part of the study abroad program on which I first traveled to Kalymnos), we both felt a connection in our shared attitude of openness and curiosity about the wider world, while not neglecting the importance of the mundane pleasures of good food, good tastes, and talk about food. No one was more central in making me feel at home on Kalymnos, and the many and varied conversations we have had and feelings that weve shared over the past thirty years on life, politics, religion, and family have become very much part of who I am. When Katerina died in late 2012 after a long battle with cancer, part of me went with her, and it is very hard to imagine Kalymnos without her central presence. While Katerinas husband, Yiorgos, died toward the beginning of this particular project, his hospitality and generosity to me over the years, and his many stories and prodigious memory of Kalymnos past were constant touchstones for me. Little Katerina, who is now no longer so little, has taken on the mantle of her grandmother while shaping her own ways in the world, and it has been a delight to get to know her and see her change over the years.