• 2 pounds octopus
  (cut in small pieces)
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 4 garlic cloves (chopped)
• optional: 2 onions (chopped)
  
  Optional
• 1/2 cup Greek extra virgin olive oil
• 4 ripe tomatoes
  (peeled, seeded and crushed)
  
• 1 1/2 cup small pasta
• 3-4 cups water salt and pepper

Preparation:

Octopus exudes liquid when covered. Heat octopus in a big pan until moisture is absorbed. Add oil to saute octopus with onion and garlic, add wine, let it simmer for 3 minutes, add water and let it cook until tender. Add tomatoes and pasta and the rest of ingredients. Let it cook until it gets thick.

Serve with Greek olives and  white wine.

It can be used as a side dish as well.

Epirus in Northwestern Greece is one of the less often visited regions of Greece. Being geographically "impregnable" due to high mountains and few passages it has been historically isolated causing its people to be self-sufficient even during difficult times. The region includes several lakes, and borders the Ionian seas, guaranteeing plentiful supplies of water, fresh fish, and several agricultural products.
Epirus also has some of the best organized dairy and livestock farms that include beef cattle, pigs, goats and sheep. It is also very rich in game, making it one of the prime destinations for Greek hunters.
This independence in food production has been responsible for unique cuisine and culinary customs that we would like to introduce in the next issues of our newsletter. We hope that you enjoy it.

Cheese in Métsovon
It is now a good 40 years ago, that Greek cheesemakers from sleepy Métsovon set out for northern Italy, where they were welcomed by Baron Tositsas, a descendent of an old established Walachian family from Métsovon. He took them under his wing until they had mastered the manufacturing process of the famous Italian filata cheeses such as Mozzarella and Provolone, a process that involves scalding and kneading the cheese mixture until it can be pulled into "elastic threads." It did not take them long, and the young Greek cheesemakers returned to Greece with their newly acquired expertise and began to make their own cheese using local milk. And that was when Metsovóne was born, a semisoft, smoked cheese made the Italian way.

Metsovóne has a distinctive shape — a sausage roughly 16 inches (40 centimeters) long, with its ends of varying thickness. It is firmly bound with cords so that it can be hung up for smoking. When cut, it reveals holes and hollows. It is mainly made from cows milk, and the proportion of sheep's or goat's milk may not exceed 20 percent. With 42 percent water, a good 27 percent protein, 26 percent fat when dried, and 2.8 percent salt, Metsovóne is a decidedly salty cheese, better served as an appetizer than a sandwich filler. Initially, the manufacturing process barely differs from that of other types of cheese. The milk is thickened with rennet and the curds chopped up small to release more whey. The pea-sized lumps of curds are then left to form a cohesive mass and to sour, after which the mass is cut up once again. It is then scalded with hot water (167-176 °F, 75-80 °C), drawn out, and kneaded thoroughly. This makes it into an elastic and malleable mass, which can be formed into the characteristic Metsovóne shape, either by hand or using special containers. The cheese is then salted and matured at a very low temperature for a period of five months. Once matured, Metsovóne cheese is smoked to achieve its distinctive flavor. The cheese is served in slices or broiled, but can also be used grated.

Opposite: Country sausage is hung up to dry for about four weeks and can then be smoked over beech wood if desired.

The starting post mechanism in the classical stadiums. Model of one of the two agones of the hysplex, which is the system that, when placed in front of the starting point of the runners, prevented the premature set off during the speed contests. The hysplex was composed by two horizontal ropes stretched in front of the runners at the level of the knees and chest, as is observed in a scene on a Panathenaic amphora from Athens, dated 344-343 B.C. The ropes were held at the edges by vertical wooden posts, the agones, which were implanted inside simple mechanisms, predecessors of the spring, made by twisted animal nerves. These mechanisms were placed on rock bases, remnants of which were found at the edges of the starting point of three ancient Greek stadiums, of Isthmia, of Epidauros, and of Nemea, as well as in the Agora of Corinth. The agones were kept standing, probably stranded by a ring on a stable pillar, which was placed behind them. The starter, who was standing behind the runners holding the two control ropes, set the mechanism in motion. With one sudden move he released the stretched agones, which fell suddenly to the ground dragging along the whole barrier and thus providing the runners the freedom to run. In the picture the model of the entire system of the hysplex is depicted in natural size, which, placed at its original position in the stadium of Nemea, functioned perfectly until July 1996, during the conduct of the contests, according to the ancient prototypes.

Excerpt from:
Ancient Greek Technology,
by Ailos Publications
(in English and Greek)

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