Without a word in common, we pass a cheerful if awkward hour, during which I fumble about in my phrase book and Eleftheria fills our glasses from a jug of cloudy pink wine, a local plonk that to me tastes like mild vinegar but is, as we discover upon visits to tavernas here, very popular.
The men show us where we are on the map, and as we’re about to leave, Eleftheria presses upon us a bag of her tomatoes. “Filoxenia,” says Ioannis. Later, I am told this is a Greek word for “the befriending of strangers.”
We finally find our way to Christos Raches and settle in at the pension-style Manetta’s, whose grounds are planted with roses. The view down the mountain is dazzling.
We begin to see “contraposition” in action. The pretty village of stone houses is a fan of shady flagstone lanes lined with clusters of tables and chairs that are rarely occupied until well after dark, the sleepy village of the daytime becoming youthful and festive well after sunset.
Late nights are the essence of life on Ikaria, which, even among the night-loving Greeks, is renowned for its extreme nocturnal ways. To use a fairy-tale word I’ve always loved, time in this corner of the world runs widdershins.
For many natives, even farmers and teachers, the day does not begin till nearly noon. Unless you are staying at a hotel, good luck finding so much as a cup of coffee before then. Businesses open for the early afternoon, then close until seven or so. Restaurants hit their stride after midnight, as do local merchants. (Buying groceries at 1:00 a.m., you will stand in line.)
The tavernas fill up and tables begin to groan with vividly red stuffed tomatoes; fish salted and grilled whole; sharp yet mild feta; galaktoboureko, a pastry filled with silky milk custard; a sublime salad of raw purslane mixed with olives, chopped onion, and just a touch of oil; and the luscious soufiko, Ikaria’s native stew of eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes simmered for an hour with garlic and herbs. These are dishes that do not sanctify their ingredients; they are elemental foods.
Our best meals are in simple places where the kitchen itself is the menu, where you eat outdoors among fruit and flowers. In two tavernas—To Fytema, near Evdilos, and Anna, in Nas—we sit down and wait for someone to usher us in. We are shown dishes on the stove and in the oven; we compose our meal by pointing rather than speaking—though Anna knows a little English. In her kitchen, she opens a Styrofoam cooler to reveal an eclectic trove of raw seafood. “My father catch today,” she says with pride.
No matter how simple the food, evening meals take two to three hours, and by the end Oliver has usually fallen asleep in Dennis’s arms. He can’t keep up with his Greek contemporaries, whose nocturnal routine apparently continues right through the school year. One of the island’s most peculiar charms is the sound, into the wee hours, of young children playing in the streets.
As with most Greek customs, there’s a legend behind the late-night habits. Starting with Icarus, who allegedly fell to the sea just off the southern coast, Ikaria’s history is a saga of hard knocks and misfortune. It was repeatedly invaded and pillaged, for more than a thousand years, by a roster that includes Saracens, Sicilians, and Turks. In the 16th century, the battered islanders abandoned the coast altogether, establishing a hidden life high in the mountains. From two long coasts just a few miles apart, Ikaria’s interior rises dramatically to a steep dorsal range, 3,000 feet above sea level. The landscape is stunning, strewn with granite monoliths and looming boulders, riddled with abundant caves, ravines, and crannies where bunkerlike dwellings could be concealed. Legend has it that today’s nocturnal lifestyle originated in that era—when, to hide from roving pirates, people kept to their camouflaged homes by day, coming out to work and socialize only well after dark.
Ikaria never played a significant role in high Greek culture, and a lack of natural harbors hindered the development of commerce. It has therefore always been poorer than most other islands, its people dismissed as primitive agrarians. This lowly status, combined with its relative inaccessibility because of the turbulent seas, turned Ikaria into a dumping ground for political exiles as far back as Byzantine times, when disfavored members of the imperial family were banished, and as recently as the 1940s, when the conservative government put leftists (the lucky ones) out to pasture.
There remains a countercultural pride to this place, a do-it-our-own-way recalcitrance. Diane Kochilas, an American- Ikarian who is renowned for her Greek cookbooks and who teaches cooking classes in the village of Christos Raches, tells us that the island’s attitude toward its population of goats is a good example. Apparently, on an island with some 7,000 year-round residents, 30,000 goats roam freely about the interior, eating and trampling everything that hasn’t already been ravaged by wildfires (the island’s other scourge). But so far, all efforts to legislate the restriction of goats have met with libertarian protest, and dominant left-wing politicians boast of their pro-goat agenda.
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