Olive oil and Sea

Winter in Santorini island: After several days of strong wind, the sea looks like oil, as Greek people say when they want to describe the calmness of the water surface. We seem to remain connected in a way with the traditions of an Aegean antiquity, when the offering of olive oil to a stormy sea was a common practice in order to make it serene and safe for the seamen. In many islands, people still use to pure into the wild sea, a few drops of olive oil from the candle of Saint Nicholas, the protector of sailors. I don’t know if olive oil can whisper its soothing secrets to the sea, but both of them are the two of the oldest secrets for the well being of my country. If you deconstruct Greece, you will in the end see an olive tree, a grapevine, and a boat remain. That is, with as much, you reconstruct her*.  

Let’s go back to this amazing balcony… If you were there, under the sun, smelling the iodine and hearing every subtle sound of a winter island, having a bottle of olive oil and the Aegean Sea in front of you, what would you be inspired to cook?  

* Odysseas Elytis

by christos drazos