The hay of Kosmas

The "hay»Was for me a culinary experience unprecedented. I tried it for the first time at Winery "o Admiral" in Kosmas Kynouria. There I first heard about how it is made and then I crossed the information in Leonidio.

So in a few villages of Parnonas such as Kosmas and Vaskina from March to April they collect some types of grass -radically they are washed, cleaned, washed and hung with a thread to dry in the shade but with good ventilation. After a week of drying per string, they put them in bags where they wait their turn. At this stage they do look like hay, or one would say with dried mint. But when they are boiled, they rejuvenate and acquire an incredible freshness and taste, as if they had just been picked from the ground. The great art of creating them is to dry them properly. The more they will lose their ability to recover, because they will have become a dried plant, the less they will rot.

This technique, of course, is old and was intended to preserve the grass out of season.

Dehydration, pickling, making sweets, pickles, smoking, placing, in oil, vinegar and fat were the ways they traditionally kept their food out of season.

Of course now with the refrigerators things have changed and a lot of greens are placed in the freezer.

But some customs are kept like that of hay in Kosmas.