It
was my first Christmas in Greece. Christmas in Athens in those days was a minor
holiday; there were no carols, trees or decorations to speak of. I was pregnant
and homesick and couldn’t understand much of anything. The kind Trimis family
called me their nyphi—their bride—and used another word which sounded like
Ka-ee-men-ee. When I began to understand Greek, I discovered that the word
meant “poor little thing.”
I
had dismayed the family by having to excuse myself from the dinner table when I
saw the treat they had prepared in
my honor for American Thanksgiving: Octopus. Now
I wanted to redeem myself by making an American treat for them: Fruitcake.
With
a great deal of help and with notes scribbled in phonetic Greek, I assembled
all the ingredients. I had karidia
(nuts), phrouta (fruit), zahari (sugar) voutero (butter) and alevri (flour.)
There was no Greek word for baking powder, which was simply called bay-ek-keen.
The
enormous kitchen was well-appointed, with a European range and oven, a
point-of-use water heater, and a real ice box for which a block of ice was
delivered every week. I mixed my ingredients according to a recipe I had come
by somehow, put the cake pan in the oven, and was perplexed that the heat
settings didn’t go as high as 350 degrees.
The
family suggested I use the highest setting and cook the fruitcake a little
longer, but after about twenty minutes, it became obvious that something was
burning. That’s how I learned about the difference between Celsius and
Fahrenheit. 350 degrees Fahrenheit is 662 Celsius.
The
Trimises were very sorrowful that my American cake looked like a very large
charcoal briquette. I wrapped it up in a napkin and took it to my room.
Sometimes I would nibble on it, occasionally finding a piece of candied fruit
which had survived the cremation.
