ΠΑΣΤΟΥΡΜΑΣ

«Μες το μαχαλά πέφτει κουμπουριά

 οι Ζεϊμπέκηδες χορεύουν στου Δελή Θρακιά
Πίνουνε ρακί τρώνε παστουρμά
και χτυπάνε τα ποδάρια με τα γεμενιά

 

 Παλληκάρια ένα κι ένα με σαλβάρια κεντημένα

και χρυσά κουμπιά
 Έχουν τα σπαθιά στα χέρια και στο στόμα τα μαχαίρια
 Γεια σας ρε παιδιά!»

 

The above lyrics, penned by the immortal Pythagoras Papastamatiou captured my imagination like no others during my childhood. Listening to Dalaras’ version, amidst the tinny tinkling of the santouri, I pictured myself as one of the Zeimbekides, prancing around in a gold buttoned, embroidered shalwar, while waving swords and clenching daggers between gritted teeth. In making a foray upon the kitchen utensil drawer in order to lend verisimilitude to my daydream, I almost inflicted upon myself a grievous injury, at which time, I was forcibly dispossessed of my accoutrements of manhood by my progenitors and summarily despatched into the backyard, there to purge myself of my embroidery-loving proclivities, through re-education by labour.

 

Two questions pertaining to the song remained unanswered. Who were these Zeimbekides of whom Pythagoras spoke so highly? My grandfather’s response, was curt and bone-chilling as it was incomprehensible: “These were the Turks who lived in the mountains around our villages. They would become μαστουρωμένοι and come down to kill and rob people.” Resolving not to idolize zeimbekides further, I posed my next question: “What is pastourma?” At this juncture, my grandmother interjected loudly: Παστουρμάς is something that when eaten, causes your wife to run away from you for days.”

 

I marvelled that in a period after which I had divested myself of any convictions as to the potency of magic beans and sundry other ingredients of fairy tales that could serve to distort the laws of nature, there actually existed a food that could exercise such an effect upon people. For years, I pondered over the circumstances that would compel someone to seek the assistance of other entities in order to repel their wives, settling on evil step-mothers as a prime example. Then, at one fortuitous Christmas, my uncle brought a plate of shavings of a dark, pungent meat to the table. Gingerly piercing the yielding flesh, covered with some sort of spice mixture with a fork, I slowly lifted it into my mouth only to be carried away by an intense conjunction and confluence of flavour and texture. I found myself craving more and more and before anyone could stop me, I had polished off half the platter. “Someone stop him,” my uncle’s Smyrnan mother giggled derisively, “before he turns into an Armenian.”

 

For the next blissful hour, I savoured the taste of the fenugreek-spiced pastourma in my mouth, listening to my uncle boast to his mother that he had, through a process of investigation and elimination, managed to track down the best pastourma, that it was made of camel meat as all true pastourma should be and that it was just a good, of not better than that of Miran Pastourma. This Miran Pastourma, as I came to know during repeated and almost obsessive visits to Athens, is a famed pastourma and soutzouki charcuterie business and market in Athens, in operation since. Rightly considered the charcuterie of the connoisseurs, its founder, Miran Kourounlian, is thought to have been the man who brought pastourma to Athens for the first time, in 1922. It says much for the potency of all he purveys, that despite the current Greek economic crisis, Miran is expanding its business and has doubled in size to accommodate increased demand, which is why I am planning a foray.

 

Miran is probably the reason why in the old days after the Asia Minor catastrophe, whenever Athenians would come across an Armenian, they would remark deprecatingly: “It smells like pastourma in here.” Armenians themselves claim pastourma as their invention, especially the ones around Caesaria, modern day Kayseri, where the art was perfected, yet this is disputed. Some evidence does suggest that a preparation of wind dried beef has existed in Anatolia since at least Byzantine times, known as pastron, meaning pressed, while the Turks claim it as a heritage of their nomadic horse-riding ancestors who preserved meat by placing slabs of it in pockets on the sides of their saddles, where it would be pressed by their legs as they rode. In modern Turkey today, there exist, as I discovered to my infinite delight, some twenty two separate types of pastourma, which is why I rate Anatolia not only my ancestral, but also culinary homeland.

 

The making of pastourma, either via camel, by far the preferred option, water buffalo, or beef, is simplicity in itself. One takes the meat, salts it or allows it to dry, before coating it with a paste of crushed garlic, hot red pepper powder, cumin, and crushed fenugreek, known in Greek by its Turkish appellation, tsimeni. It is then hung it in a dark breezy place for a couple of weeks to dry and absorb the paste and is then ready to serve.  Served with eggs for a filling breakfast or savoured on its own the way the purists do, it sets the tastebuds tingling and the pores expanding in sweet bliss.

 

The secret to the power of tsimeni is this: Intact fenugreek seed has no smell until it is crushed like garlic. When the two are combined, this creates an irrepressible explosion of odour that assails one’s olfactory senses even from a distance. The chemical substance enters the human system and announces its righteous and harmonious presence in joyous breath, sweat, and digestive waste, sometimes for days. It is upon this flimsy pretext that my extended family has combined to a) ban my uncle and I from attempting to recreate our own pastourma and b) permit us to consume the said comestible only under strictly controlled conditions of isolation. During those times, when I submit to the inexorable and voracious inner passion, I am shunned, banished from the boudoir and treated as a pariah. And yet, despite of my humiliation, I am inordinately and pungently felicitous and at peace. 

 

When the time comes, should I be translated from this transient place to the abode of repose, wherein there is neither pain, nor sadness nor sighing, I pray that this comes in the form of a small wooden table, containing a small bottle of ouzo and a platter of pastourma. It is there that I wish to contemplate eternity, all the while listening, alternately to the lyrics of the Pastourma song: «Αααα, για το ούζο μεζεδάκι παστουρμά – παστουρμά,σαγανάκι κεφτεδάκι με κυμά ,» or G Krimizakis’ classic «Δυο καφενεία, δυο σινεμά, / παστέλι ούζο και παστουρμάπολλά κορίτσια, λίγοι γαμπροί / και το βραδάκι κρύο βαρύ.Τι Λωζάνη, τι Κοζάνη» while my spouse, sainted by her long-suffering stoicism, holds her dainty nose disapprovingly.

 

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

 

First published in NKEE on Saturday 14 December 2013