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I was just thinking this has to be one of the most photographed shots in the world with the dome of Salute in the distance there. And how substantial it is. And you sort of think that out of extreme adversity comes something like Venice. Because if you think Venice started as a result of the end of the Roman Empire and all these hordes of Goths and Visigoths were streaming into Italy murdering, raping, pillaging. And people came to these squelchy islands of sand clay just to get out of all the destruction. And gradually they built up this. They became the largest trading nation in the world. But still when you look at it, to me there's just a little air of impermanence about it because
Venice is sinking, the water's rising. But that makes it perfect. I don't like permanence. At my age, why would I? Even when I was at school I knew that Venice was sinking into the mud and the sand to eventually end up like Atlantis, lost beneath the waves. One of my favorite places here, and I think it's as important as any museum, is the Rialto fish market. It's got the freshest fish I've ever seen. And for a fish lover, it's a sheer delight. But now the developers want to get their hands on it because they say the local population is dwindling and this prime piece of property can do its job in a much cheaper area out of the city.
Hence the defiant flags with the Venetian lion saying, "Rialto, do not touch." Luca Fullin is the son of a prominent hotel owner here. It's very nice to see the younger generation taking over like it is with my sons. Although young, he's seen a few changes and feels the tide of tourism is getting ever stronger. Do you feel proud to be Venetian? Yes, I'm feel proud and I'm love this city. In the last years a lot of people are living Venice and the demographic numbers are going down, you know, from the '90s 120,000 living here and now we are only 55,000. But I want still to keep the traditional and local project. are people leaving then? Is it You know, the price of properties goes up,
some tourism reasons. So that's why, you know, a lot of people are leaving. But especially for the properties price, you know, it goes up in the last years in a crazy way, crazy way. But maybe at this point we need some more Venetian, you know, living the city. I said to Luca I wanted him to cook one of my favorite dishes of all time, that spaghetti vongole, pasta with clams. Okay, so first of all some olive oil. Then I will use a little garlic. I was interested to see that he chose these clams telline.
It showed to me that he knows a thing or two. They're so deliciously sweet. Okay, now the tellines they start to open. We use uh There you go. We use a little bit of wine. Okay? Okay. So you see, they start to open one by one, you know. And they have inside a little bit of sea water. So this make the dish even more intense the taste. And then to use a little bit of broth, of sea bass broth. So you obviously enjoying this. When did you start cooking? How long have you been doing it for though? Since I was very young, you know, with my grandmother first.
She started to teach me how to cook. And this was one of the first dish actually made me do at home, you know. So she gave me the passion for the kitchen. Have you done any TV before? No, never. Well, it's a really good idea to do something you're very familiar with then you can concentrate on talking to me. So what's next then? So after this we are boiling the pasta. And that's always boiling in every Italian kitchen, the pasta boiler. Yeah, exactly. Great. I need one of those. I won't cook completely the pasta in the boiling water. I want to end the pasta be cooked in the telline. So the pasta will get the flavor.
the first time I tasted this years ago in Venice. I thought, they cook that pasta in the broth. But you finish it in the broth. Absolutely. That gives more flavor to the dish. And that's how you get that sort of light very gleamy finish to this dish. Well, I never realized that before. So here we are. Now you can smell it's good though. Smell it, smell it. Luca chops up parsley and chives. That's what I like about making these programs.
You're always picking up new things. By finishing the pasta off in the pan, it gives it more depth of flavor and a better texture. There we go. So see how creamy is this pasta? It's fantastic. I'm loving it. Some little olive oil. He finishes the dish off with grated bottarga. All the trendy chefs in Italy and around the Mediterranean are using this year's star product, bottarga. When I knew I was coming to Venice I had to make a beeline for the Lido, that long stretch of sand and pine that shields Venice from the Adriatic. It's a place where the great and the good and the not so good came for centuries.
Byron swam the length of it. In fact, he swam everywhere in Venice. And people like the Windsors would come here to bathe. Winston Churchill would sit on the beach chomping on a cigar staring at the sea. D.H. Lawrence would get very grumpy over the displays of opulence and luxury. And Thomas Mann spied a striking Polish boy on the beach and turned him into the centerpiece of Death in Venice. These very expensive beach tents at the Grand Hotel Excelsior made it really easy for me to think of the knights and foot soldiers, all 35,000 of them, who were trapped here in 1202.
They couldn't afford to pay the fare to the Venetians to ferry them to the Crusades. Just looking down this row of tents which are beach huts, they could have been the knights' tents. This is where they were camped. I bet it was just here. Then the Lido was just a strip of sand, but you could sort of imagine them in the early morning like this sort of stumbling out of their tents, maybe some armor hanging up, probably in their vest, bit of chain mail, the odd horse hanging around, a fire going, thinking, "Where's our boat?" This famous hotel, the Excelsior, is almost an architectural statement of the journey I'm about to take, a mixture of West meets East.
It was here I met up with Robin Saikia, a British writer who like many before him fell in love with Venice and the Lido in particular. Ecco qua. Oh, look at that. Maestro, risotto coi go. Buon appetito. Well, I know about this dish cuz it's made with little gobies which are sort of things little boys catch in rock pools back in Padstow. It is very typical of Venetian cooking that's just quite sort of lowly ingredient. They never overdo it. Very simple. Never more than two or three ingredients. The result is always fantastic. Tell me about the Lido. I mean, it's such a total contrast to Venice itself, isn't it? Completely.
This stretch of land was where Venice really all began. Um you had this city a thousand years ago starting from scratch. They had nothing but this wonderful beach and the island up at Torcello and the lagoon. That was it? That was it. And they had to survive and find a way of building this extraordinary city we see today. But it all started here. That's where the romantic origins of the city really are, out on this stretch of beach. Oh, fab. There you go. Grazie. And this is uh bigoli? Bigoli in salsa. Bigoli in Grazie, maestro. Thanks. It's perfectly in order. If you dine as a Venetian, you will have five courses, all of them manageable like this.
What you might call an elegant sufficiency. It's it's absolutely the right amount. just onion with a bit of anchovy in it. The sweetness of the anchovies goes with the onion. Pasta cooked to perfection. And you know, what more could you want? [snorts] Well, I know you have a way of using your hands to say something's really special which is I think it's like war no.
Yeah, not bad. A bit Anglo-Saxon, a bit like my dancing. I mean, work on that I think. Scampi alla busara. Oh. Oh, that looks good. Look at that. Wow. Fritto Misto. Oh, great. Una birra piccola? Grazie, maestro. This looks fab. I just love your book about the Lido. Just tell me how you came to write it and just the way you found the Lido in the first place. Yeah, well, I used to come here as a kid when I was so high, but I was here on a school trip when I was about 15 and there were 10 of us. Two of us got left behind after the trip finished and we were staying over at the Seguso. Our art master said, "There are three things I don't want you to do.
Don't go to Harry's Bar, don't drink grappa, and don't go to the Lido cuz you'll be picked up and you'll end up dead in a swimming pool somewhere by Lake Garda." So, anyway, that night we went down to Harry's, drank a bucket full of grappa, came over, met a group of other young guys, piled into a car, down to Al Barone on the beach, spent all night drinking wine and cooking fish on a wood fire on the beach. Great. And at that moment, I suddenly realized that there was this sort of unbuttoned paradise of a beach out here, only 15 minutes away from this museum city. So, for me, it's a very romantic and very resonant place.
Left to my own devices, I like driving about in search for good lunch. I just think I can spot a wholesome restaurant at about 400 yd. Korčula is a very fertile island and these are the vines that make the grapes for the famous Grk, the local white wine. It's spelled g r k. It's fabulous, but it's as rare as hen's teeth. I stopped at the little restaurant in the village of Pupnat where Biljana and her mom cook local seasonal dishes. It's the middle of May and the dish of the day here is baby goat stew with fresh peas.
Whether you can find this in the height of the tourist season, I've no idea. But, it's baby goat, over fried onions and garlic and pancetta and that's made locally in the village. Now, also from the village, white wine. Next, salt. Homer, the ancient Greek philosopher, not the one from The Simpsons, called it a divine substance. Pepper and cloves, a hint of the East there. And now Biljana's special tomato sauce. She makes this by reducing the fresh tomatoes with wine and olive oil very slowly and makes huge batches of it while the tomatoes are plentiful and cheap.
Now, paprika for a little background heat. And last but one, parsley. Now, it's nearly done except for the peas. I like the fact that these weren't your normal frozen ones. They had more of a pulse-like flavor. Soon we'll I think it's over. Um, she knows best. She's really keeping an eye on Biljana, making sure that she's doing exactly in the family way. Is she? She is. Seal of approval.
Mhm. Very good. I'm glad you like it. Well, I'll tell you why I like it because it tastes of where it comes from. Um, um, we don't get enough goat meat back in the UK, but it is lovely. It's so different to lamb. It's sort of and because it's young goat, it's very tender. What I also like about it, I sound like I'm a sort of one of those food, you know, in competitions. What I also like about it is the fact that the goat's got texture. It's not cooked till it's all mushy and I love the peas in here because they're not like little frozen peas. They've got substance. [clears throat] They're a bit floury.
Floury, yeah. And the paprika, do you cook with a lot of paprika? Uh, when cooking stews. It's a very lovely stew, I must say. Thank you. I'm glad you like Marco Polo allegedly was born here in Korčula. I'm not sure the Venetians would agree with that. But, what is certainly true is he was captured in a naval battle just off Korčula, the water out there between the Venetians and the Genoese. And he was imprisoned by the Genoese and during that time, and this is very serendipitous, I think, he dictated the Travels of Marco Polo to his cellmate. And I'm fairly certain without that time
in prison, he wouldn't have bothered to dictate anything. He'd be too busy doing deals. As it is, the book was electrifying to Europe because people just didn't know about the Orient. But, the bit that appeals to me, allegedly, yes, allegedly, he brought pasta back to Europe. And I keep thinking, where would the Italians have got their spaghetti from otherwise? Having a famous celebrity linked to a town means a great source of wealth for the community. Well, ask the people of Stratford-upon-Avon. So, Marco Polo, intrepid explorer and merchant, great sea captain, and a bringer of
riches from the East, came from Korčula and not Venice. Well, I put the question with a smidgen of disbelief to a local, Tony Losić. Do you believe that Marco Polo was born here? Uh, I do. Good. Definitely. But, it's not proven. That's one thing. If I would say that I don't believe, then they would actually probably burn me on a stake here in the middle of the square. Fair enough. I can understand that. But, he had business interests. evidence where he was born. That's That's actually the problem between Venice and us concerning Marco Polo. This is house of Marco Polo. So, that's where he was standing and
watching far down south like, "Okay, where are my ships coming in?" But, basically, this house is built about 200 years after Marco Polo was born. Wow, you know. There's a lot of conjecture about Marco Polo. This may have been his house. It probably wasn't. Everything about him, but how important was he to the Western world, I suppose? For the Western world, he was I think he was the most important because he opened the gates to the Orient, actually, for everyone. And uh he was definitely from Korčula.
I'll believe it. So nice here, though, I must say. It is lovely. I'm traveling south to Preveza, a few hours from Ioannina, leaving the mountains and the lakes behind. I'm looking forward to some fish from the sea. The fish from the lake was lovely, but sea fish is the thing that makes me tick. To my right is the Roman city of Nicopolis. It was built nearly 2,000 years ago and it still looks fabulous. Although it's pretty derelict, it still has the semblance of a complete city.
I can imagine throngs of people in the foreground selling vegetables, herds of goats and camels, tents, a market with smoke coming from food stalls, soldiers on the battlements, etc., etc. But, what has this got to do with cooking, I can hear you sigh. Well, quite a lot because I believe the Greeks and the Romans were pretty clever where they built their towns and their cities. It seems to me the most important thing to them was a supply of good food. And here in Preveza, that meant fish, loads of fish, and oysters. One of the things that I find very endearing about Roman mosaics is that quite often they're like this, a celebration of fish, of game, of hunting, anything to do with food. But, thinking about it, of course the
Romans would have built a city here because of all those great prawns, the oysters, the mussels, the clams, the fantastic fish. And the whole area is so fertile. Obviously, sometimes it was strategic, but a lot of the times it was where they could get really good food. I mean, simply just think of cultures during oysters. This is the Greece I know and love. This is lovely warm breeze with a slight sort of scent. It's always it in Greece. There's a sort of smell of I suppose it's herbs almost, but I Yeah, I think it is and I just feel I'm back. Thank you. Well, look at those. I mean, smell them.
Oh. Do they get any fresher than that? What would I do with them? Well, I'll put them on the barbecue. What would you do with them? I mean, I know you can bake them or you can fry them, but basically, I love them barbecued cuz you just get that lovely smell and taste from the shells. And what would I serve them with? Well, a Greek salad and some chips. And what would I drink with it? A glass of retsina. Here in Preveza, they told me this, how to cook prawns. Basically, lots of hot olive oil, then red onions along with one chopped leek, garlic, two large cloves roughly chopped, ouzo, of course, for that touch of aniseed, shake it up, baby,
and then you must give it a Greek Orthodox blessing, like so. Next, tomato puree let down with a bit of water, parsley and cayenne pepper, feta cheese, I knew that was coming. Basil roughly ripped up, and serve. A touch more cheese, and voila, or isou, as they say in these parts. Kalimera. Sardine or anchovy? Sardine. Sardine. Lovely looking. Fresh sardine. Oh, yeah. Beautiful. Preveza is a sort of place I really like and feel comfortable in.
It may sound a bit daft, but it reminds me of Padstow. It's a holiday destination for sure, but that's not its reason for being. Its mix of fishing, boat repair, and agriculture make it far more interesting and enjoyable. Otherwise, it's just bars, hairdressers, and lots of shops selling scented candles. Kalimera.
Now for lunch, gray mullet. Not the most popular fish back at home, but in Greece, it's revered. It's caught way out at sea, far away from the muddy estuaries and outfall pipes. Here, they split it open, baste it with lots of olive oil, and grill it. The fish has to be a good size, at least a kilo, so that the flesh is good and stake-y. All it needs is a dressing of oil and lemon, and that's it. You wouldn't want anything else, except, well, maybe a Greek salad.
Wow. I suppose I look a bit sad eating on my own, but actually, I rather enjoy it and do it often. Normally, I've got a book to read, but this time, I've got a camera to look at. Bit weird, but there you go. I tried to get a smaller fish, but you know, in Greece, it sort of has a habit of not working how you want it. I started my journey in Venice, and it was a Venetian who coined the name of the town, Messolonghi. Meso means middle, longhi means lakes. The town in the middle of the lakes, famous for its salt, its stance in the Greek War of Independence, and I suppose, the reason I'm here, it's fish. So many lovely fish, thanks to these shallow, fertile lagoons.
Sit down as quick as possible. Did we get that? Sorry, I'm a bit heavy. How embarrassing. I must go on a diet. It's no good having all these lunches, but anyway, back to the fish. Think of these enormous lagoons as a trap for unsuspecting fish, wild fish from the sea. The lagoon is a very tempting place for fish cuz it's warm, it's shallow, there's loads of food, and it's a lovely place for them to breed. And so, in the winter months, the fishermen open the rickety gates to the open sea, and when the weather starts to get warm, they close them.
The fish breed and grow, and voila, you've got fish, as much as you want. Clever. Everywhere I've been on this journey, Byron's been there before me, but this, here in Messolonghi, is where his life ended. His heart is supposed to be buried here. He gave his money, his name, and everything he had to the Greek fight for freedom from the Turks. I'm really drawn to Byron. Uh why he left Britain, we don't really know, but at that time, he was termed mad, bad, and dangerous to know. I suspect he was probably bipolar, so he had massive phases of creativity and enormous charm, but then the other side of being bipolar are these times when you are filled with self-loathing and doubt. And he came to Greece and got involved in the War of Independence. And
I suspect he thought, "This is my cause." I mean, it was like maybe Mick Jagger or Angelina Jolie suddenly coming to a small part of the world and taking on the cause. No wonder the Greeks loved him, and no the Greeks still have a lot of affection for the British. And a Turkish Ottoman general at the time said, "Before we were fighting the Greeks, now the world, thanks to this man." Petros Parahios is a master of making bottarga. That's fish roe salted and dried. It's a wonderful delicacy that I personally love, and it's really famous in Messolonghi.
Particularly delicious grated on pasta, it's a lovely taste of the sea. Well, this is very nice, I must say. Nice. Sort of how I dream of Greece, really, a nice bar in a square. What I'd really would like to talk to you about is what's special, what does everybody like to eat here in Messolonghi? Everything that comes from the sea. Actually, it is funny, but if you are from this area, and you go to a place or a house, and you're a guest, there is a 100% possibility that they will offer you fish or seafood. If they offer you meat, you will understand that this person does not originate from Messolonghi. Really? Yes. So, that everybody's that [clears throat] enthusiastic about it. So, if I talk to
anybody here, say, "What's your favorite food?" They'd say fish. They will say fish, or they can't even say which fish. Really? And also, the cats do not eat fish. The cats don't eat fish? What's the matter with them? They are fed up with fish. What, they've had too much fish all their lives? Yes. Well, I'm blowed. They are the only cats in the world that they see the fish, you know, doing like this. Cake, yeah, fish. Something like this. If someone was making a study of fish eating in the Western world, then look no further than Messolonghi.
There are more fish shops here than anyone I know could believe. Fish shop to the right of me, fish shop to the left. Every few yards, another fish shop. There's fish shops on every corner in this city. I was just thinking, don't have a go at me back home. If you take somewhere about the same size somewhere like Winchester, as far as I know, there's not one fish shop there. Well, here's another one just a few yards down the street. We've got sardines, we've got some bream, mullet, eels, bass. I just noticed over there, here's one. And here we have some more bream, garfish, mullets, and down here, here's
another one. It's a bigger one. This is amazing. This is, you know, absolutely where I want to be. I mean, here we've got some sardines, we've got some large bass, they're really large mullet, again, some bream, more bream over here. I mean, it's just total nirvana. And here's another one. I mean, this is sensational. So, here we've got like sardines. No, no, I'm just talking. Big mackerel, chunky mackerel. I'm in absolute heaven. Greece is a really good country for thinking. It's warm, and there's lovely walks like this along beaches like this. And I was also thinking, if this was Italy, would this beach look like this?
Would it have this informality with just a few Greeks sitting in deck chairs? No. For a start, the beach would have been swept. It would be filled with deck chair concessions. There'd be pizza and pasta shacks at the back, and it would cost you lots of euros to get anywhere near the water. This is the famous Bay of Navarino. The very last sea battle under sail happened here nearly 200 years ago. Through these straits sailed 22 ships, British, French, and Russian. And inside the bay were nearly 70 ships and boats from the Ottoman Empire.
The subject on hand was peace. The Ottomans were slaughtering the Greeks and all of Europe wanted it to stop. And so the British were here to look for a peaceful solution. However, it's said the Ottomans took a pot shot at a British ship. And then all hell broke loose. It finished with the sinking of the entire Ottoman fleet and the loss of their sailors. Admiral Codrington, the leader of the peaceful mission, got a huge telling off by the politicians in the hierarchy back at home. After all, he was supposed to be a peace envoy. But, without doubt, his actions, not that they would be copied today,
shortened the war with the Ottomans and made Greek independence viable. The Greeks really loved Admiral Codrington. Notice he's got pride of place. The other two, the French and the Russian, are just round the back. For some reason, I'm in a serious holiday mood. I think it's Greece, really. And this farm come taverna, run by Nakos and his wife Georgia, is just a few miles from Pylos. You'd never find it, but I think it's what Greek dreams are made of. Good food straight from the farm, homemade wine, and a fabulous setting.
Now, this rooster is the reason I'm here because there's a famous dish with chicken and pasta that I've heard about, but never tasted. The basic rule here in this taverna is that if it's not reared and grown here, it's not on the menu. I couldn't help noticing wandering around the back of the taverna this fabulous garden, kitchen garden, I suppose. I'm just looking at it and there's loads of tomatoes growing, loads of beans, lots of onions, courgettes over there, aubergines over there.
I was thinking this actually is producing vegetables for the taverna. It's not like some of our trendy places back home with these very, very pretty herb gardens with a few vegetables. Is that for the kitchen or is it for the journalists? You can just tell by the look of this, this chicken is straight from the farm yard. That is how it's always been on farms. Let's face it, you're not going to kill a chicken and keep it in a bag for a couple of days. No, it's straight in the pot. Look at that skin, golden and fatty.
Now, I just learned an important culinary process in Greece, which is called kapamas, this dish. Basically just means taking the rooster, jointed rooster, and frying it in lots of olive oil, and I mean lots, and then adding tomato sauce and cinnamon and simmering it till all's cooked. And kapamas means heavy. And I think it is going to be heavy, but they say it also means extremely delicious. And they serve it with a tiny pasta, which is just broken up pasta, called hilopita. And the combination, I know cuz I've had it many times here, is wonderful. I love this pasta, hilopites. Little squares of egg pasta made in the summer months with whole wheat flour mixed with milk and dried for use in the winter. It's lovely.
Just this in a well-made stock and sprinkled with some mizithra cheese. It's a real delight. People say, "Oh, Greek food, it's so it's too simple, it's too easy." But you miss the point. When it's made with really good ingredients like this, why would you want anything more complicated? It just works. By any standards, this was top-class food. The place was just right. And I've always said that I much prefer lunch to dinner any day of the week. A long lunch with friends, good wine, and lovely food is one of the great reasons why we're put on this earth. I'm sure about that. The Turks ruled Greece for centuries. But they gave this area, the Mani, a wide berth.
I'm not taking my eyes off this infernal road. I can't stand heights. Down there somewhere at the bottom is one of the most important places in Greek mythology. It's the entrance to Hades, the gateway to hell. I'm traveling with Rupert Smith, a classical scholar and one of those Englishmen who relish morsels of Greek history like a cormorant with a shoal of sprats. I'm pretty glad this is a paved road, I must say. Yeah. I'm not a great what lover of hairy roads like this, but It's good It's a good view from this side of the car, isn't it? Oh, I bet. Sorry, but I'm enjoying being the other side.
God, that is so special. Pretty good, isn't it? So, this is somewhere not many tourists get to. It's a village, it's called Mundanistika. The people of Mani mainly fought either between villages Yeah. diverse clan chieftains fighting each other or within villages, hence um each house having its own tower. So, like these are two neighbors. Yeah. They would be shooting at each other. They could be, yeah. If they were having a feud, a vendetta. The towers, pretty as they may be, are an indication of what a vicious and violent place this was to live. You know, they were permanently fighting each other for this
barren land you can see over here. Yeah, you just Is it worth fighting Why is it worth fighting for? That's cuz all That was all they had, you know, they didn't have any lush meadows and they just had these hillsides, which they had to chop up into tiny terraces to, you know, just to support themselves. And um that's how life went on. They'd stop occasionally, they would have a truce or a treva in uh using Italian word for some reason. Um when they needed to go and bring in the harvest or if there was a funeral or a baptism or a marriage, you know, life had to go on in that respect. They had to feed themselves and had to marry each other and what have you.
In fact, there was one extraordinary case where um two families were fighting. They were two from different villages. It was one family um from the north fighting another in the south. Shooting each other across a very narrow area. And one of the attackers saw a woman who was going back and forth um or young woman going back and forth between the uh in and out of the tower where the defenders were. And he thought, "Cor, I like her." And he said, "Right, stop. I want to have a truce. I want to marry that girl." And don't believe it, but he they stopped. They called a priest. And they were married right there, bang in the middle of the battle. And then they went back shooting each other.
I've never been to a place like it. It's like a ghost village. Just looking into one of these houses. Will it be a kitchen? I don't know. But there are all the clues. Mostly to the drudgery that was the women's work, harvesting the grains, crushing the olives, making the bread. The men would be keeping lookout and having the odd pot shot from tower to tower. Life, like the landscape, was as hard as it gets. Why didn't they pack up and go to Messolonghi or go to Athens or I think they would say freedom is the answer. They could live the way they wanted to live um and you know, not bothered by the
whoever was in charge, mainly the Ottomans. When the Greek War of Independence came along, they had their own rallying cry separate from the rest of Greece. The rest of Greece had a rallying cry, freedom or death. Whereas the people of Mani, cuz they felt they were already free, talked about victory or death. So, you know, that was their view. They were free, the rest of Greece was in chains. have probably It doesn't look like it, but in a way I sort of thinking of Cornwall now, really, because in a way Cornwall's like a peninsula of the end of the rest of Britain. And there's a certain sense of independence and individuality about it. topographically extremely similar. If you carpet this in sort of green and flowers, you would have
Cornwall. Yeah. Shall Trelawney live? Shall Trelawney die? There's 40,000 Cornishmen will know the reason why. Victory or death. We spent a long time up in that almost deserted village. And we met one of the only inhabitants who gave us some superb wild mountain oregano to take home with us. They say the generosity of the money is a second to none. I've often found that the harder the landscape, the more generous the people are.
I honestly had no idea this beautiful place is here, but for me it cried out like a siren from the Odyssey. Come to me, I've got fresh sardines waiting for you. This is how I think of Greece. Look at those little darlings straight from the grill. A carafe of cold retsina and the inevitable Greek salad which I eat every day with great delight. I was looking at what we call a call sheet which is what you have every day to see what's happening. It says travel through the money with Rupert talking about the village with the towers in it which is was really interesting.
But then he just said, "Actually, I had some very nice sardines at this place called quail bay." Quail bay? Port of the quails, yeah. And as soon as I heard fresh sardines I thought Mhm. [clears throat] History is one thing, fresh sardines is something totally different. This is where East nearly meets West, Monemvasia, the Gibraltar of the East. I came here in my early 20s with my brother John. This rock marked the end of our travels. If I remember rightly, very few people lived here then. There was a bit of building work going on, but I recall some of the locals being rather
skeptical about actually living here. They said it's full of ruins. Leave it to the rats and spiders. There's only one way into this place, an archway, too narrow for a car, nice for a donkey. Monemvasia actually means one way in, and this tunnel has a kink in it. I think it's to stop invading armies in their tracks and give them a bit of surprise when they turn the corner. And then you actually turn the corner and I'm in Clavelli. No, I'm only joking. 40 years on, I hardly recognize the place. It was a ghost town. It's been restored, I think, with great love for the old Byzantine ways and traditions. I just wouldn't fancy lugging my suitcase to the very top.
I'm quite enjoying the wandering around Monemvasia because when I came here before it was virtually derelict and apparently just filled with snakes and rats. So, this is quite a recent bit of building. But obviously this here is probably 2,000 years old, Greek or Roman. And you sort of think, "How could they have done that?" Right? They would have found this bit of marble somewhere and just stuck it up there as a lintel. But the chickens are upside down. Couldn't they just have seen the chickens would be upside down forevermore? No, builders. This is where the famous Malmsey wine, much loved in England in the 15th century, came from and it was exported in greatly barrels called butts.
And that immortalized, of course, in Shakespeare's Richard the Third where the Duke of Clarence is drowned in a butt of Malmsey. And possibly the best bit of dramatic irony ever, he asked what he thinks is the jailer in the Tower of London for a cup of wine, but in fact it's one of the assassins. And the assassin says "Thou shalt have wine enough, my lord." Anon. Barrels of Malmsey wine were shipped from here by Venetian and Genoese traders to eventually end up in England. But when Constantinople fell to the Turks 500 years ago, everything changed. Port and Madeira wine eventually took over in popularity from Malmsey.
I remember my favorite wine merchant in the world, Bill Baker, who sadly no longer with us, telling me the story of Malmsey. He said it was the tipple of all the well-to-do people in England. It had a taste of honey and dried fruits, and it was exotic, delicious, and expensive. Maybe these vineyards near Monemvasia supplied the grapes for the original Malmsey. But their owner, Yorgos and Bedis and his wife Ellie, have made it a lifetime dream to bring it back to the place where it began. Which I think is quite amazing after 500
years. Hello. Ellie? Ellie, very nice to meet you here. Welcome, welcome. And Yorgos? Yorgos doesn't speak any English, but wine has a way of making people understand each other anyway. It really does. I wonder why. I often find myself in a situation like this and we get on like a house on fire. Oh, it's nice and cool. Good lord, it's very nice actually. It's sort of working cellar. I mean, so many times in France they look like they're there for visitors, but I love this. Thank you. That's really nice. I wish my friend Bill could have been here to try this. It's like tasting history because no other wine was more famous during the Middle Ages than Malmsey.
It was called Malvasia by the Venetians. But it will always be Malmsey to me. Oh. That's so good. It's full of warm sunshine. It's It's unctuous. It's lovely and sweet. It's got lots of fruit in it. I just want to carry on drinking it. But tell me why he felt so passionate about reintroducing Malmsey or Malvasia again. He recreate again this wine because it was lost for many years. And he want to make this all as present to his country and the people of here. And this wine is for all the world from our little place. The fact he's brought it back I think is fabulous. I first came here in the 70s and I'd heard about Malmsey in Monemvasia and I thought, "Oh, it'd be so good to get
some." But of course there wasn't It wasn't. And I just when I heard that you were producing it again I thought, "Great." In a nutshell, there was a great deal of wine making in this region, Anatolia, and wine was enjoyed by both Christians and Muslims. But in the 1920s came partition. The Greek families who lived in this part of Turkey were told to pack their bags and go back to Greece. Similarly for the Muslims who lived in Greece, the same story. The trouble here was that it was generally the Christians who made the wine and tended the vineyards. So, the vineyards became overgrown, then useless, and finally lost.
We talked about grape, but we never tasted it. Would you like to taste? I'm worried. So sweet. Absolutely bursting with flavor. The grape should be tasty and delicious to make good wine. But I thought I heard somewhere that it didn't matter with wine grapes. They don't taste like table grapes do. They are very different and I believe they are more tasty. If it is not tasty, you can never make a good wine. You make the wine in the vineyard, not in the winery. So, every time I taste your wine in the future, I'll be back here.
You are always welcome. Now, the best wine is the wine that you enjoy. I hope you will like it. I'm thinking deep, dark velvet, tobacco, licorice, all that sort of thing. How am I doing? Excellent. Now, tell me what I should be saying. The most important thing is if the wine is good or bad. Good. Thank you. Very nice to hear that. Cheers again. I got the feeling that Yiannis keeps pretty much an open house here at the vineyard.
There were women cooking really good stuff flatbreads for the wine buyers and the visitors. I just watched those two ladies make these Those lemes they call them. And I've actually watched them about five times because it's just so mesmerizing watching them do it. While I was watching them I was thinking like when you're a child and you watch your mother making maybe just some shortcrust pastry, it has that same sort of effect. But there's something incredibly comforting and reassuring about people, particularly women I think, making something like these. It just I that's where my love of cooking came from originally. It was just watching my mom cooking cuz that's the same feeling I get watching them and this.
I watch them make say savory ones, but this one with some tahini and some sugar. Oh. Now I just want a little glass of tea. This is a food journey, but I had to come to the exquisite ancient city of Ephesus. Well, everybody does it seems. Lovely sweet figs here, perfect for a hot day. And I like old ruins, especially if I can find any distant reference to food. This was a rich, comfortable place to live. It was Greek, but then the Romans turned it into one of the most prosperous ports in the Aegean.
My mom sent me a postcard from Ephesus when I was away at boarding school. A big postcard and I remember I think it was one of the amphitheaters and I thought, oh, I've got to go there sometime. But the thing that interests me is over there's that plane, there's the cars in the distance, the trees and all of that was sea a thousand years ago and gradually it silted up. Now in Padstow, cuz I have to put this on a human scale, we have a dredger going up and down the estuary every day trying to keep it clear and succeeding for small boat. But imagine if you were here and this was one of the biggest ports in the Mediterranean in Roman times and gradually seeing it all go, all fade.
How awful would that be? Fate, inexorable fate would be taking its toll of your life. Before the sea went away, people would have lived very well. Many would have been rich and the food would have been exotic. They had cookery books, I suppose to be more accurate cookery scrolls, how to cook lamb stew with garum or roasted flamingo in aspic for your mates after a day at the Colosseum. Look at that. A pomegranate tree with ripe fruit. Isn't that beautiful? What could be more splendid than that? And they would have had pomegranates a plenty, oranges, lemons, grapes, olives, herbs, lovely green vegetables from
Anatolia, fish, goats, lamb. They would have done all right.
