For the fifth consecutive year the Tinos food paths without losing any of their first freshness and enthusiasm and made new, lesser known areas common to their vision. This time they grafted two more unknown from the tourist point of view villages of Tinos. The Beauty and Karkado, which are located inland and do not have the reputation of Kardiani, Pyrgos, Volax, Ktikados, Tripotamos. However, they are villages with significant agricultural and livestock production and many scales of morality and pride.

For those who do not know  Tinos food paths - and they are so few now- is an organized movement of the entrepreneurs of the Association of Stores of Health Interest of Tinos for the utilization of the local nutritional wealth and for its better promotion. Like a fist, The young - mainly - catering entrepreneurs of the island, joined with others of the wider gastronomy (producers, winemakers, confectioners, brewers) in order to highlight Tinos as a remarkable gastronomic destination.

Of the Tinos food paths - before we recount our special experiences this year - I have made the following four proposals since last year, which can describe the meaning and significance of their action.

"Let the dances last", could express the intoxicating celebration of their offering and creation.

"The revolution of collectivities…»The flame of teamwork that ignited 4 years ago in Tinos, becomes a fire and chirps people and cosmopolitan creating an unprecedented climate of collaboration, in Tinos and in the rest of Greece.

"With reason and with a dream" captures all the effort of these young professionals, who are slowly and methodically building the foundations for the establishment of Tinos as a gastronomic destination with a focus on its cultural identity.

"Do it like Tinos" is a plea to the tourist destinations of Greece to imitate in their own way the Tinos food paths.

The Tinos food paths 2019 included the following actions carried out during the week 13 / 19-5-2019:

• «Cooking » at the Old Fish Market in Tinos Town by renowned chefs from all over Greece.
• Speeches on nutrition and gastronomy by distinguished people of taste and nutrition.
• "Magic Circles" in the village of Kalloni of Tinos, with interactive events, artistic installations, hiking between threshing floors and mills, gastronomic delicacies and many stories that we will avoid telling so that you can come and experience them up close.

My boss will describe to you only my two days, a minimal excerpt of what happened on the island of Panagia.

 

Dinner in Kalloni

Thursday 16-5-2019 time 19.00

In her little theater Beauty under his temple Saint Zacharias, a huge tent was waiting for us, for our dinner. The group of Tinian musicians and choirs, counterpoint vocals - welcomed us with three traditional songs.

Like a traveling boat, bread from the wood oven arrived with its rigging, meatballs with decoration and cheese ointment!

The fresh beans, in Kalloni, are cut lengthwise, and so in addition to their taste, you also enjoy their "cut",

A festive Tinian food, -like the wedding pilaf of Crete- pilaf with reddish chopped liver, stole our hearts.

The main food of the dinner was the pork roast, goat oregano with the corresponding delicious potatoes. The portions are very filling and the willingness of the volunteers to enslave you!

 

The oven of Kalloni

Friday 17-5-2019 at 10.00

The next morning we aimed to visit in the traditional wood oven of the village. Unexpected visit, out of schedule. From afar, the carrying of the woods by two girls in arms and some tickling scents hurt us.

The window of the oven is open, so that the capsule can leave, but also so that the buns can be smoked and lead us to the right path. And then, who can resist her offer Manuelas Santamouri, Mrs. Frosos Zarpa and Marizana Alberti.

Three hundred kilos of flour, to make over 5.000 buns for the visitors of Kalloni, all with the same love and the same care.

From Monday to Sunday, from morning until night, the volunteers did not stop baking loaves!

The bakery in Kalloni square comes to life one day a year, on the feast of Agios Zacharias for the village festival. He had to rejoice like that for fifty years, and give his fire generously.

The flour comes, from donors' offers and in the next room the dough is made and the buns are shaped.

Η Sofia Stergioti with the traditional mangoura he grabs the buns through the oven and brings them close to the scoop, while the Katerina Markouizou - she went to the toilet and deleted her lesson in Florina pedagogy to come and help - she uses the modern walkie talkie to be informed about the arrivals of the visitors!

Giorgakis, the youngest volunteer in the village, for ten days, he is omnipresent. The teacher gave him permission… "here you will learn many more things", he told him… and Giorgakis took many real life lessons.

The freshly baked delicious breads are served to the visitors-walkers with cheese, potato pie, kayana, salad, slices of louza and air-cooked sausage accompanied by local raki!

 

Visit to the windmills

Friday 17-5-2019 at 19.00

The walk in the windmills was an introduction to the culture of everyday life of the inhabitants of Kalloni.

A natural lemonade and a lot of care at the reception, welcome to walkers and create a good mood for exploration.

The beauty of Kalloni was the orchards with vegetables and cereals. Three proud windmills ground the wheat, barley, rye and oats of the area and made flour for the needs of the place, but also to be exchanged for other goods (the marbles of the two temples of the area were exchanged for cereals).

The stone constructions withstood, but not the wooden constructions and the roofs of the windmills.

The climb to the top of the mills offered us a panoramic view of the Tinian landscape with its dozens of terraces, strips of land that had been built with centuries of hard work in order to create arable land.

We also admired the art of stone masons.

And without their hats the windmills stand arrogantly and send us their messages.

In the windmills at night with a full moon we saw a moving short film of Marinetas Kritikou entitled "The circle of life". Testimonials of residents, faces sculpted from the hard struggle with the elements of nature.

"We had a house and a yard με We ate what we planted"

In nine words, simple, concise and humble, the description of a whole life.

My father was a miller…

And when it blew hard, the miller lowered the windmill πα cloths. To handle the intensity of the winds.

 

Red thread knit

Then volunteers, after providing the visitors with hats and slippers for the walk, indicate to us that we must follow a red thread that will show us the route and will lead us to its sights. "Red thread tied - wrapped in a spinning wheel - give it a kick to turn - a fairy tale to begin", it was the narrative of this year's event.

We descended to a field, between houses (rural houses) and terraces where carefree local breeds of calves were grazing, and we found ourselves in a forest of Scarecrows of great inspiration.

The walkers mingled with them, were photographed and felt for a moment the artistry of their presence!

Their creators, 700 students from the ten schools of the island (kindergartens, elementary, high schools) who worked intensively to create thirty scarecrows, works of art that were set up at the beginning of the walk!

Most of the students then came by bus to admire their collective work in the presentation area. Art exercises, liberation of the imagination, exercises of cooperation, exercises of landscape experience.

Many of the scarecrows were of exceptional originality, and their marriage to the Tinian unique, and the final result would surely be envied by many artists specialized in "art installations" or land art!

The colors and aromas of Tinian nature, chamomiles and poppies, sparta and daisies are mixed with amulets, colored too, to exorcise not the cows (we will learn below what they mean), but human vanity and toxic people who are the evil spirits of our time.

Then we met, a beautiful garden, in two long narrow terraces, the Moses' garden which had a tragic story.

Many years ago Moses lost his daughter to cancer, and made his pain a beauty, his sorrow a poem and his cry a lily forest, creating a little paradise in Louise's memory.

The film "The cycle of life" by Marineta Kritikou that we saw one night with the moon in the windmills had screenings all day in a barn in Kalloni square. We saw her again - you can't get enough of seeing her - lying on rags that rested on bundles of straw, entering the atmosphere of absolute austerity.

In the only cafe of Kalloni, the Stergioti Giakoumina, aching physiognomy, wife of Moses - the garden of which we had just visited - in a warm space more reminiscent of a living room, will offer us a raki, two appetizers and rare company. This year she completed 60 years in her post.

Our route from Kalloni ends at the neighboring village of Karkados where in the area of ​​the festivals of the church of the Savior -known also known as "Psikri Pisa", since its bell tower has a slight slope- in the ravine, under the trees and the running water was completed our fairy tale, with a dinner in a place of miracles.

The cows they were elves, ghosts, dishonorable creatures with a lot of stories. They frequented rivers and ravines. We heard stories, on our way, from a grandmother's recorded speech. There were still times when people believed and were moved by fairy tales, times when there was room for the miracle. Other times.

And as we sat down to eat after prayer, modern cows They jumped off our table and started dancing, dragging us to the dream space, in the time of the angels. Modern cows had names: Myrto, Eleftheria, Marina, Frangiska, Georgia, Iris, Georgia, Michaela and their dance and their grace enchanted us.

The girls of Kalloni are members of the Cultural Association of Kalloni, Karkados: Marilena, Marilena, Margarita, Maria, Marizan, Marietta, Georgia, Katerina, Marietta, Irini, they took the project on their backs. The old gang of Tinos food paths, o Antonis, Antonia, Aris, Vassilis, Maria, Ninetta  and all "Veterans" they were there, they coordinated, they discreetly supervised, but the children of the 2 villages took the burden of the work and the baptism of fire. What can you say about the boys of the village, they made 150 kilos of sausages with their own hands, cleaned the paths, checked the apples, set up the sets and the table seats!

With so many events and so many moving moments, the dinner was of little importance… The pumpkin soup in the beginning… and the snacks of Tinos as a sweet dessert, were the most characteristic samples of a cuisine of austerity and good taste.

 

Good direction

Michalis Katsaros, the poet, has been suing us for many years: "Do not neglect / Take water with you / Our future has a lot of drought" (poem "I will wait for you"). And us we do not neglect and every year we come to get, water, drop by drop, from the tap of Tinos Food Paths. A few drops that will quench our thirst and maybe inspire us (symbolically set the tin fountain in the Tinian house, at the beginning of the walk of Kalloni).

Boys and girls, 380 volunteers of Tinos Food Paths 2019, thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we wish you good luck!