Rick Stein's Best Mediterranean Food Highlights | Compilation | The Travel Edit

0:00 I was just thinking this has to be one of the most photographed

0:03 shots in the world with the dome of Salute in the distance there.

0:07 And how substantial it is.

0:10 And you sort of think that out of extreme adversity comes something like Venice.

0:14 Because if you think Venice started as a result of the end of the Roman

0:18 Empire and all these hordes of Goths

0:21 and Visigoths were streaming into Italy murdering, raping, pillaging.

0:26 And people came to these squelchy islands of sand

0:30 clay just to get out of all the destruction.

0:33 And gradually they built up this.

0:36 They became the largest trading nation in the world.

0:41 But still when you look at it,

0:42 to me there's just a little air of impermanence

0:46 about it because Venice is sinking, the water's rising.

0:51 But that makes it perfect.

0:53 I don't like permanence.

0:56 At my age, why would I?

1:00 Even when I was at school I knew that Venice was sinking

1:03 into the mud and the sand to eventually [music] end up like Atlantis,

1:07 lost beneath the waves.

1:11 [music] One of my favorite places here,

1:12 and I think it's as important as any museum, is the Rialto fish market.

1:18 It's got the freshest fish I've ever seen.

1:21 And for a fish lover, it's a sheer delight.

1:26 But now [music] the developers want to get their hands on it because

1:30 they say the local population is dwindling and this prime piece of property

1:37 [music] can do its job in a much cheaper area out of the city.

1:40 Hence the defiant flags with the Venetian lion saying, "Rialto,

1:45 do not touch." Luca Fullin is the son of a prominent hotel owner here.

1:56 It's very nice to see the younger generation

1:58 taking over like it is with my sons.

2:01 Although young, he's seen a few changes and feels

2:04 the tide of tourism is getting ever stronger.

2:08 Do you feel proud to be Venetian?

2:10 [music] Yes, I'm feel proud and I'm love this city.

2:13 In the last years a lot of people are

2:16 living Venice and the demographic numbers are going down,

2:20 you know, from the '90s 120,000 living here and now we are only 55,000.

2:26 But I want still to keep the traditional and local project.

2:30 are people leaving then?

2:32 Is it You know, the the price of properties goes up, some tourism reasons.

2:39 So that's why, you know, a lot of people are leaving.

2:41 But especially for the properties price, you know,

2:45 it goes up in the last years in a crazy way, crazy way.

2:49 But maybe at this point we need some more Venetian, you know, living the city.

3:01 I said to Luca I wanted him to cook one of my favorite dishes of all time,

3:06 that spaghetti vongole, pasta with clams.

3:11 Okay, so first of all some olive oil.

3:14 Then I will use a little garlic.

3:18 I was interested to see that he chose these clams telline.

3:22 It showed to me that he knows [music] a thing or two.

3:24 They're so deliciously sweet.

3:30 Okay, now the tellines they start to open.

3:36 [music] We use uh There you go.

3:38 We use a little bit of wine.

3:40 Okay?

3:42 Okay.

3:42 So you see, they start to open one by one, you know.

3:46 And they have inside a little bit of sea water.

3:49 So this make the dish even more intense the taste.

3:53 And then to use a little bit of broth, of sea bass broth.

3:58 So you obviously enjoying this.

3:59 When did you start cooking?

4:00 How long have you been doing it for though?

4:02 Since I was very young, you know, with with my grandmother first.

4:06 She started to teach me how to cook.

4:08 And this was one of the one of the first

4:10 dish actually made me do at home, you know.

4:13 So she gave me the passion for the kitchen.

4:16 Have you done any TV before?

4:18 No, never.

4:19 Well, it's a really good idea to do something you're very

4:21 very familiar with then you can concentrate on talking to me.

4:27 [laughter] So what's next then?

4:28 So after this we we are boiling the pasta.

4:31 And that's always boiling in every Italian kitchen, the pasta boiler.

4:35 Yeah, exactly.

4:36 Great.

4:37 I need one of those.

4:38 I won't cook completely the pasta in the boiling water.

4:42 I want to end the pasta be cooked in the telline.

4:45 So the pasta will get the flavor.

4:47 the first time I tasted this years ago in Venice.

4:49 I thought, they cook that that pasta in the broth.

4:52 But you finish it in the broth.

4:54 Absolutely.

4:54 That gives more flavor to the dish.

4:56 And that's how you get that sort of light very gleamy finish to this dish.

5:01 Well, I never realized that before.

5:04 So here we are.

5:08 Now you can smell it's good though.

5:10 Smell it, smell it.

5:14 Luca chops up parsley and chives.

5:17 That's what I like about making these programs.

5:19 You're always picking up new things.

5:22 By finishing the pasta off in the pan,

5:25 it gives it more depth of flavor and a better texture.

5:28 There we go.

5:29 So see how creamy is this pasta?

5:31 It's fantastic.

5:31 I'm loving it.

5:32 Some little olive oil.

5:36 He finishes the dish off with grated bottarga.

5:39 All the trendy chefs in Italy and around

5:42 the Mediterranean are using this year's star product, bottarga.

5:48 When I knew I was coming to Venice I had to make a beeline for the Lido, [music]

5:52 that long stretch of sand and pine that shields Venice from the Adriatic.

5:58 It's a place where the great and the good

6:01 and the not so good came for centuries.

6:04 Byron swam the length of it.

6:06 In fact, he swam everywhere in Venice.

6:08 And people like the Windsors would come here to bathe.

6:12 Winston Churchill would sit on the beach chomping on a cigar staring at the sea.

6:18 D.H.

6:18 Lawrence would get very grumpy over the displays of opulence and luxury.

6:26 [music] And Thomas Mann spied a striking Polish boy on the beach

6:30 and turned him into the centerpiece of Death in Venice.

6:37 These very expensive beach tents at the Grand Hotel Excelsior made it

6:43 really easy for me [music] to think of the knights and foot soldiers,

6:47 all 35,000 of them, who were trapped here in 1202.

6:51 [music] They couldn't afford to pay the fare

6:56 to the Venetians to ferry them to the Crusades.

7:01 Just looking down this row of tents which are beach huts,

7:06 they could have been the knights' tents.

7:07 This is where they were camped.

7:08 I bet it was just here.

7:10 Then the Lido was just a strip of sand,

7:12 but you could sort of imagine them in the early

7:14 morning like this sort of stumbling out of their tents,

7:17 maybe some armor hanging up, probably in their vest,

7:20 bit of chain mail, the odd horse hanging around,

7:23 a fire going, thinking, "Where's our boat?" This famous hotel,

7:30 the Excelsior, [music] is almost an architectural

7:34 statement of the journey I'm about to take, a mixture of West meets East.

7:40 It was here I met up with Robin Saikia,

7:43 a British writer who like many before him fell

7:47 in love with Venice and the Lido in particular.

7:51 Ecco qua.

7:52 Oh, look at that.

7:56 Maestro, risotto coi go.

7:56 Buon appetito.

7:58 Well, I know about this dish cuz it's made with little gobies which

8:02 are sort of things little boys catch in rock pools back in Padstow.

8:06 It is very typical of Venetian cooking

8:08 that's just quite sort of lowly ingredient.

8:12 They never overdo it.

8:13 Very very simple.

8:15 Never more than two or three ingredients.

8:17 The result is always fantastic.

8:20 Tell me about the Lido.

8:21 I mean, it's such a total contrast to to Venice itself, isn't it?

8:25 Completely.

8:26 This stretch of land was where Venice really all began.

8:30 Um you you had this city a thousand years ago starting from scratch.

8:35 They had nothing but this wonderful beach

8:38 and the island up at Torcello and the lagoon.

8:41 That was it?

8:42 That was it.

8:43 And they had to survive and find a way

8:45 of building this extraordinary city we see today.

8:47 But it all started here.

8:49 That's where that's where the romantic origins of the city really are,

8:55 out on this stretch of beach.

8:57 Oh, fab.

8:59 There you go.

9:00 Grazie.

9:01 And this is uh bigoli?

9:04 Bigoli in salsa.

9:05 Bigoli in salsa.

9:06 Bigoli in salsa.

9:07 Grazie, maestro.

9:09 Thanks.

9:10 It's perfectly in order.

9:12 If you dine as a Venetian,

9:13 you will have five courses, all of them manageable like this.

9:18 What you might call an elegant sufficiency.

9:20 It's it's absolutely the right amount.

9:23 just onion with a bit of anchovy in it.

9:26 The sweetness of the anchovies goes with the onion.

9:28 Pasta cooked to perfection.

9:31 And you know, what more could you what more could you want?

9:36 [snorts] Well, I know you have a a way of using your hands

9:38 to say something's really special which is I think it's like war no.

9:43 Yeah, not bad.

9:44 A bit Anglo-Saxon, a bit like my dancing.

9:46 I mean, work on that I think.

9:51 Scampi alla busara.

9:53 Oh.

9:59 [music]

10:00 Oh, that looks good.

10:02 Look at that.

10:03 Wow.

10:04 Fritto Misto.

10:06 Oh, great.

10:09 Una birra piccola?

10:10 Grazie, maestro.

10:12 This looks fab.

10:16 I just love your book about about the Lido.

10:18 Just tell me how you came to write it and just

10:21 the way you found the Lido in the first place.

10:23 Yeah, well, I I used to come here as a kid when I was so high,

10:28 but I was here on a school trip when I was about 15 and there were 10 of us.

10:33 Two of us got left behind after the trip

10:36 finished and we were staying over at the Seguso.

10:39 Our art master said, "There are three things I don't want you to do.

10:42 Don't go to Harry's Bar, don't drink grappa,

10:44 and don't go to the Lido cuz you'll be picked up and you'll

10:47 end up dead in a swimming pool somewhere by Lake Garda." So,

10:52 anyway, that night we went down to Harry's,

10:54 drank a bucket full of grappa, came over,

10:57 met a group of other young guys, piled into a car,

11:00 down to Al Barone on the beach, spent all night drinking wine and cooking fish

11:05 on a wood on a wood fire on the beach.

11:07 Great.

11:08 And at that moment, I suddenly realized that there was

11:11 this sort of unbuttoned paradise of a beach out here,

11:16 only 15 minutes away from this museum city.

11:19 So, for me, it's a very romantic and very resonant place.

11:23 Left to my own devices, I like driving about in search for good lunch.

11:28 I just think I can spot a wholesome restaurant at about 400 yd.

11:35 Korčula is a very fertile island and these are

11:38 the vines that make the grapes for the famous Grk, the local white wine.

11:44 It's spelled g r k.

11:46 It's fabulous, but it's as rare as hen's teeth.

11:52 I stopped at the little restaurant in the village

11:54 of Pupnat where Biljana and her mom cook local seasonal dishes.

11:59 It's the middle of May and the dish

12:01 of the day here is baby goat stew with fresh peas.

12:07 Whether you can find this in the height of the tourist season, I've no idea.

12:12 But, it's baby goat, over fried onions and garlic and pancetta

12:17 and that's made locally in the village.

12:21 Now, also from the village, white wine.

12:26 [music] Next, salt.

12:31 Homer, the ancient Greek philosopher,

12:33 not the one from The Simpsons, called it a divine substance.

12:39 Pepper and cloves, a hint of the East there.

12:43 And now Biljana's special tomato [music] sauce.

12:47 She makes this by reducing the fresh tomatoes with wine and olive oil very

12:51 slowly and makes huge batches of it while the tomatoes are plentiful and cheap.

12:59 Now, paprika for a little background heat.

13:04 And last but one, parsley.

13:06 Now, it's nearly done except for the peas.

13:10 I like the fact that these weren't your normal frozen ones.

13:14 They had more of a pulse-like flavor.

13:23 Soon we'll I think it's over.

13:25 Um, she knows best.

13:27 She's really keeping an eye on on Biljana,

13:29 making sure that she's doing exactly in the family way.

13:34 Is she?

13:36 She is.

13:40 Seal of approval.

13:43 [laughter] Mhm.

13:51 Very good.

13:52 I'm glad you like it.

13:53 Well, I'll tell you why I like it because it it tastes of where it comes from.

13:58 Um, um, we don't get enough goat meat back in back in the UK, but it is lovely.

14:04 It's so different to lamb.

14:06 It's sort of and because it's young goat, it's very tender.

14:09 What I also like about it,

14:11 I sound like I'm a sort of one of those food, you know, in competitions.

14:14 What I also like about [laughter] it is the fact that the goat's got texture.

14:18 It's not cooked till it's all mushy and I love

14:21 the peas in here because they're not like little frozen peas.

14:25 They've got substance.

14:25 [clears throat] They're a bit floury.

14:27 Floury, yeah.

14:28 And the paprika, do you cook with a lot of paprika?

14:30 Uh, when cooking stews.

14:32 It's a very lovely stew, I must say.

14:35 Thank you.

14:35 [music] Thank you.

14:35 I'm glad you like [bell] Marco Polo allegedly was born here in Korčula.

14:47 I'm not sure the Venetians would agree with that.

14:50 But, what is certainly true is he was

14:52 captured in a naval [music] battle just off Korčula,

14:55 the water out there between the Venetians and the Genoese.

14:59 And he was imprisoned by the Genoese and during that time,

15:01 and this is very serendipitous,

15:03 I think, he dictated the Travels of Marco Polo to his cellmate.

15:09 And I'm fairly certain without that time in prison,

15:11 he wouldn't have bothered to dictate anything.

15:13 He'd be too busy doing deals.

15:16 As it is, the book was electrifying to Europe

15:19 because people just didn't know about the Orient.

15:21 But, the bit that appeals to me, allegedly,

15:24 yes, allegedly, he brought pasta back to Europe.

15:28 And I keep thinking,

15:30 where would the Italians have got their spaghetti from otherwise?

15:36 Having a famous celebrity linked to a town

15:39 means a great source of wealth for the community.

15:42 Well, ask the people of Stratford-upon-Avon.

15:46 So, Marco Polo, intrepid explorer and merchant, [music] great sea captain,

15:52 and a bringer of riches from the East, came from Korčula and not Venice.

15:57 Well, I put the question with a smidgen

16:00 of disbelief [music] to a local, Tony Losić.

16:04 Do you believe that Marco Polo was born here?

16:09 Uh, I do.

16:11 Good.

16:11 Definitely.

16:13 But, it's not proven.

16:14 That's one thing.

16:16 If I would say that I don't believe, then they would actually probably burn me

16:20 on a stake here in the middle of the square.

16:21 Fair enough.

16:22 I can understand that.

16:24 But, he had business interests.

16:26 evidence where he was born.

16:27 That's That's actually the problem between Venice and us concerning Marco Polo.

16:33 This is house of Marco Polo.

16:36 So, that's where he was standing and watching far down south like,

16:41 "Okay, where are my ships coming in?"

16:43 But, basically, this house is built about 200 years after Marco Polo was born.

16:49 Wow, you know.

16:50 There's a lot of conjecture about Marco Polo.

16:52 This may have been his house.

16:53 It probably wasn't.

16:55 Everything about him, but how important was he to the Western world, I suppose?

17:00 For the Western world,

17:01 he was I think he was the most

17:02 important because he opened the gates to the Orient, actually, for everyone.

17:06 And uh he was definitely from Korčula.

17:12 [laughter] I'll believe it.

17:16 So nice here, though, I must say.

17:18 It is lovely.

17:19 I'm traveling south to Preveza, a few hours from Ioannina,

17:23 leaving the mountains and the lakes behind.

17:25 [music] I'm looking forward to some fish from the sea.

17:30 The fish from the lake was lovely, but sea fish is the thing that makes me tick.

17:39 To my right is [music] the Roman city of Nicopolis.

17:42 It was built nearly 2,000 years ago and it still looks fabulous.

17:51 Although it's pretty derelict, it still has the semblance of a complete city.

18:00 I can imagine throngs of people in the foreground selling vegetables,

18:05 herds of goats and camels, tents, a market with smoke coming from food stalls,

18:10 soldiers on the battlements, etc., etc.

18:15 But, what has this got to do with cooking, I can hear you sigh.

18:19 Well, quite a lot because I believe the Greeks and the Romans

18:23 were pretty clever where they [music] built their towns and their cities.

18:27 It seems to me the most important thing to them was a supply of good food.

18:32 And here in Preveza, that meant fish, loads of fish, and oysters.

18:40 One of the things that I find very endearing about Roman mosaics

18:45 [music] is that quite often they're like this, a celebration of fish,

18:51 of game, of hunting, anything to do with food.

18:54 [music] But, thinking about it, of course the Romans would have built

18:58 a city here because of all those great prawns,

19:00 the oysters, the mussels, the clams, the fantastic fish.

19:04 And the whole area is so fertile.

19:07 Obviously, sometimes it was strategic,

19:09 but a lot of the times it was where they could get really good food.

19:12 I mean, simply just think of cultures during [music] oysters.

19:21 [music] This is the Greece I know and love.

19:34 This is lovely warm breeze with a slight sort of scent.

19:37 It's always it in Greece.

19:39 There's a sort of smell of I suppose it's herbs almost,

19:42 but I Yeah, I think it is and I just feel I'm back.

19:52 [music] Thank you.

20:01 Well, look at those.

20:02 I mean, smell them.

20:05 Oh.

20:06 Do they get any fresher than that?

20:09 What would I do with them?

20:10 Well, I'll put them on the barbecue.

20:12 What would you do with them?

20:14 I mean, I I know you can bake them or you can fry them, but basically,

20:18 I love them barbecued cuz you just get

20:20 that lovely smell and taste from the shells.

20:24 And what would I serve them with?

20:26 Well, a Greek salad and some chips.

20:29 And what would I drink with it?

20:30 A glass of retsina.

20:34 Here in Preveza, they told me this, how to cook prawns.

20:39 Basically, lots of hot olive oil, then red onions along with one chopped leek,

20:47 garlic, two large cloves roughly chopped, ouzo, of course,

20:53 for that touch of [music] aniseed, shake it up, baby,

20:58 and then you must give it a Greek Orthodox blessing, like so.

21:04 Next, [music] tomato puree let down with a bit of water,

21:09 parsley and cayenne pepper, feta cheese, I knew that was coming.

21:17 Basil roughly ripped up, and serve.

21:21 A touch more cheese, and voila, or isou, as they say in these parts.

21:30 Kalimera.

21:31 Sardine or anchovy?

21:33 Sardine.

21:34 Sardine.

21:34 Lovely looking.

21:36 Fresh sardine.

21:36 Oh, yeah.

21:38 Beautiful.

21:40 Preveza is a sort of place I really like and feel comfortable in.

21:45 It may sound a bit daft, but it reminds me of Padstow.

21:49 It's a holiday destination for sure, but that's not its reason for being.

21:54 Its mix of fishing, boat repair,

21:56 and agriculture make it far more interesting and enjoyable.

22:00 Otherwise, it's just bars, hairdressers,

22:03 and lots of shops selling scented candles.

22:08 Kalimera.

22:10 Kalimera.

22:11 Kalimera.

22:22 Now for lunch, gray mullet.

22:24 Not the most popular fish back at home, but in Greece, it's revered.

22:29 It's caught way out at sea,

22:30 [music] far away from the muddy estuaries and outfall pipes.

22:35 Here, they split it open, baste it [music] with lots of olive oil, and grill it.

22:41 The fish has to be a good size, at least a kilo,

22:44 [music] so that the flesh is good and stake-y.

22:47 All it needs is a dressing of oil and lemon, and that's it.

22:51 You wouldn't want anything else, except, [music] well, maybe a Greek salad.

22:56 Wow.

22:59 I suppose I look a bit sad [music] eating on my own,

23:01 but actually, I rather enjoy it and do it often.

23:04 Normally, I've got a book to read, but this time,

23:07 I've [music] got a camera to look at.

23:08 Bit weird, but there you go.

23:10 I tried to get a smaller fish, but you know, in Greece,

23:13 it sort of has a habit of not working how you want it.

23:16 I started my journey in Venice,

23:18 and it was a Venetian who coined the name of the town, Messolonghi.

23:22 Meso means middle, longhi means lakes.

23:26 The town in the middle of the lakes, famous for its salt,

23:30 its stance in the Greek War of Independence,

23:32 and I suppose, the reason I'm here, it's fish.

23:36 So many lovely [music] fish, thanks to these shallow, fertile lagoons.

23:44 Sit down as quick as possible.

23:47 [music] [laughter] Did we get that?

23:53 Sorry, I'm a bit heavy.

23:57 [laughter] How embarrassing.

23:57 I must go on a diet.

23:59 It's no good having all these lunches, but anyway, back to the fish.

24:06 Think of these enormous lagoons as a trap for unsuspecting fish,

24:10 wild fish from the sea.

24:12 The lagoon is a very tempting place for fish cuz it's warm, it's shallow,

24:16 there's loads of food, and it's a lovely place for them to breed.

24:21 And so, in the winter months,

24:23 the fishermen open the rickety gates to the open sea,

24:27 and when the weather starts to get warm, they close them.

24:31 The fish breed and grow, and voila, you've got fish, as much as you want.

24:37 Clever.

24:44 [music] Everywhere I've been on this journey, Byron's been there before me,

24:51 but this, here in Messolonghi, is where his life ended.

24:55 His heart is supposed to be buried here.

24:58 He gave his money, his name,

25:00 and everything he had to the Greek fight for freedom from the Turks.

25:07 I'm really drawn to Byron.

25:09 Uh why he left Britain, we don't really know, but at that time,

25:13 [music] he was termed mad, bad, and dangerous to know.

25:17 I suspect he was probably bipolar,

25:20 so he had massive phases of creativity and enormous charm,

25:25 but then the other side of being bipolar are

25:28 these times when you are filled with self-loathing and doubt.

25:33 And he came to Greece and got involved [music] in the War of Independence.

25:37 And I suspect he thought, "This is my cause." I mean,

25:40 it was like maybe Mick Jagger or Angelina Jolie suddenly coming

25:45 to a small part of the world [music] and taking on the cause.

25:48 No wonder the Greeks loved him,

25:50 and no the Greeks still have a lot of affection for the British.

25:54 And a Turkish Ottoman general at the time said,

25:58 "Before we were fighting the Greeks,

26:01 now the world, thanks to this man." Talk to you soon.

26:11 [music] Petros Parahios is a master of making bottarga.

26:17 That's fish roe salted and dried.

26:20 It's a wonderful [music] delicacy that I personally love,

26:24 and it's really famous in Messolonghi.

26:26 Particularly delicious grated [music] on pasta, it's a lovely taste of the sea.

26:36 Well, this is very nice, I must say.

26:38 Nice.

26:39 Sort of how I dream of Greece, really, a nice bar in a square.

26:43 What I'd really would like to talk to you about is what's special,

26:47 what what does everybody like to eat here in Messolonghi?

26:50 Everything that comes from the sea.

26:53 Actually, it is funny, but if you you are from this area,

26:57 and you go to a place or a house, and you're a guest, there is a 100%

27:01 possibility that they will offer you fish or seafood.

27:05 If they offer you meat,

27:08 you will understand that this person does not originate from Messolonghi.

27:11 Really?

27:12 Yes.

27:12 So, that everybody's that [clears throat] enthusiastic about it.

27:15 So, if I talk to anybody here,

27:18 say, "What's your favorite food?" They'd say fish.

27:21 They will say fish, or they can't even say which fish.

27:24 Really?

27:25 And also, the cats do not eat fish.

27:28 The cats don't eat fish?

27:29 What's the matter with them?

27:30 They are fed up with fish.

27:32 What, they've had too much fish all their lives?

27:33 Yes.

27:34 Well, I'm blowed.

27:35 They are the only cats in the world that they see the fish,

27:38 you know, doing like this.

27:40 Cake, yeah, [laughter] fish.

27:42 Something like this.

27:47 If someone was making a study of fish eating in the Western world,

27:50 [music] then look no further than Messolonghi.

27:55 There are more fish shops here than anyone I know could believe.

27:58 [music] Fish shop to the right of me, fish shop to the left.

28:04 Every few yards, another fish shop.

28:11 There's fish shops on every corner in this city.

28:14 I was just thinking, don't have a go at me back home.

28:18 If you take somewhere about the same size [music] somewhere like Winchester,

28:21 as far as I know, there's not one fish shop there.

28:24 Well, here's another one just a few yards down the street.

28:26 We've got sardines, we've got some bream, mullet, [music] eels, bass.

28:31 I just noticed over there, here's one.

28:33 And here we have some more more bream,

28:38 garfish, mullets, and down here, here's another one.

28:42 It's a bigger one.

28:44 This is amazing.

28:45 This is, you know, absolutely where I want to be.

28:49 I mean, here we've got some sardines, we've got some large bass,

28:53 they're really large mullet, again, some bream, more bream over here.

28:58 I mean, it's just total nirvana.

29:00 And here's another one.

29:02 I mean, this is sensational.

29:03 So, here we've got like sardines.

29:06 No, no, I'm just talking.

29:08 Big mackerel, chunky mackerel.

29:10 I'm in absolute heaven.

29:11 Greece is a really good country for thinking.

29:14 It's warm, and there's lovely walks like this along beaches like this.

29:19 And I was also thinking, if this was Italy, would this beach look like this?

29:23 Would it have this informality with just a few Greeks sitting in deck chairs?

29:28 No.

29:29 For a start, the beach would have been swept.

29:32 It would be filled with deck chair concessions.

29:36 There'd be pizza and pasta shacks at the back,

29:40 and it would cost you lots of euros to get anywhere near the water.

29:51 This is the famous Bay of Navarino.

29:53 The very last sea battle under sail happened here nearly 200 years ago.

30:00 Through these straits sailed 22 ships, British, French, and Russian.

30:06 And inside the bay were nearly 70 ships and boats from the Ottoman Empire.

30:12 The subject on hand was peace.

30:15 The Ottomans were slaughtering the Greeks and all of Europe wanted it to stop.

30:21 And so the British were here to look for a peaceful solution.

30:25 However, it's said the Ottomans took a pot shot at a British ship.

30:31 And then all hell broke loose.

30:34 It finished with the sinking of the entire

30:37 Ottoman fleet and the loss of their sailors.

30:43 Admiral Codrington, the leader of the peaceful mission,

30:47 got a huge telling off by the politicians in the hierarchy back at home.

30:52 After all, he was supposed to be a peace envoy.

30:55 But, without doubt, his actions, not that they would be copied today,

31:00 shortened the war with the Ottomans and made Greek independence viable.

31:07 The Greeks really loved Admiral [music] Codrington.

31:11 Notice he's got pride of place.

31:14 The other two, the French and the Russian, are just round the back.

31:24 [music] For some reason, I'm in a serious holiday mood.

31:38 I think it's Greece, really.

31:40 And this farm come taverna, run by Nakos and his wife Georgia,

31:45 is just a few miles from Pylos.

31:47 You'd never find it, but I think it's what Greek dreams are made of.

31:51 Good food straight from the farm, homemade wine, and a fabulous setting.

31:58 [music] Now, this this rooster is the reason I'm here because there's a famous

32:06 dish with chicken and pasta that I've heard about, but never tasted.

32:11 The basic rule here in this taverna is

32:14 that [music] if it's not reared and grown here, it's not on the menu.

32:20 I couldn't help noticing wandering around

32:22 the back of the taverna this fabulous garden,

32:25 kitchen garden, I suppose.

32:27 I'm just looking at it and there's loads of tomatoes growing,

32:30 loads of beans, lots of onions, courgettes over there, aubergines over there.

32:36 I was thinking this actually is producing vegetables for the taverna.

32:42 It's not like some of our trendy places back home with these very,

32:47 very pretty herb gardens with a few vegetables.

32:51 Is that for the kitchen or is it for the journalists?

33:01 You can just tell by the look

33:02 of this, this chicken is straight from the farm yard.

33:07 That is how it's always been on farms.

33:09 Let's face it, you're not going to kill a chicken

33:11 and keep it in a bag for a couple of days.

33:14 No, it's straight in the pot.

33:16 Look at that skin, golden and fatty.

33:20 Now, I just learned an important culinary process in in Greece,

33:25 which is called kapamas, this dish.

33:27 Basically just means taking the rooster, jointed rooster,

33:30 and frying it in lots of olive oil, and I mean lots, [music]

33:34 and then adding tomato sauce and cinnamon and simmering it till all's cooked.

33:39 And kapamas means heavy.

33:41 And I think it is going to be heavy,

33:44 but they say it also means extremely delicious.

33:47 [music] And they serve it with a tiny pasta,

33:49 which is just broken up pasta, called hilopita.

33:54 [music]

33:53 And the combination, I know cuz I've had it many times here, is wonderful.

34:00 I love this pasta, hilopites.

34:03 Little squares of egg pasta made in the summer months with whole

34:06 wheat flour mixed with milk and dried for use in [music] the winter.

34:11 It's lovely.

34:13 Just this in a well-made stock and sprinkled with some mizithra cheese.

34:19 It's a real delight.

34:26 People say, "Oh, Greek food, it's so it's too simple,

34:29 it's too easy." But you miss the point.

34:31 When it's made with really good ingredients like

34:33 this, why would you want anything more complicated?

34:36 It just works.

34:39 By any standards, this was top-class food.

34:42 The place was just right.

34:45 And I've always said that I much prefer lunch to dinner any day of the week.

34:50 A long lunch with friends, good wine,

34:52 and lovely food is one of the great reasons why we're put on this earth.

34:57 I'm sure about that.

35:02 [music] The Turks ruled Greece for centuries.

35:05 But they gave this area, the Mani, a wide berth.

35:10 I'm not taking my eyes off this infernal road.

35:14 I can't stand heights.

35:16 Down there somewhere at the bottom is one

35:18 of the most important places in Greek mythology.

35:22 It's the entrance to Hades, the gateway to hell.

35:29 I'm traveling with Rupert Smith,

35:31 a classical scholar and one of those Englishmen who relish morsels

35:35 of Greek history like a cormorant with a shoal of sprats.

35:42 I'm pretty glad this is a paved road, I must say.

35:45 Yeah.

35:45 I'm not a great what lover of hairy roads like this, but It's

35:50 good It's a good view from this side of the car, isn't it?

35:52 Oh, I bet.

35:53 Sorry, but I'm enjoying being the other side.

36:04 God, that is so special.

36:06 Pretty good, isn't it?

36:07 So, this is somewhere not many tourists get to.

36:09 It's a village, it's called Mundanistika.

36:11 Mundanistika.

36:13 The people of Mani mainly fought either between villages Yeah.

36:17 diverse clan chieftains fighting each other or within villages,

36:22 hence um each house having its own tower.

36:25 So, like these are two neighbors.

36:27 Yeah.

36:27 They would be shooting at each other.

36:29 They could be, yeah.

36:29 If they were having a feud, a vendetta.

36:31 The towers, pretty as they may be,

36:33 are an indication of what a vicious and violent place this was to live.

36:37 You know, they were permanently fighting each other

36:38 for this barren land you can see over here.

36:40 Yeah, you just Is it worth fighting Why is it worth fighting for?

36:43 That's cuz cuz all That was all they had, you know,

36:45 they didn't have any lush meadows and they just had these hillsides,

36:48 which they had to chop up into tiny terraces to, you know,

36:51 just to support themselves.

36:53 And um that's how life went on.

36:55 They they'd stop occasionally,

36:56 they would have a truce or a treva in uh using Italian word for some reason.

37:00 Um when they needed to go and bring in the harvest

37:03 or if there was a funeral or a baptism or a marriage,

37:06 you know, life had to go on in that respect.

37:07 They had to feed themselves and had to marry each other and what have you.

37:10 In fact, there was one extraordinary case where um two families were fighting.

37:14 They were They were two from different villages.

37:15 It was one family um from the north fighting another in the south.

37:20 Shooting each other across across a very narrow area.

37:23 And one of the attackers saw a woman who

37:26 was going back and forth um or young young

37:29 woman going back and forth between the the uh

37:31 in and out of the tower where the defenders were.

37:33 And he thought, "Cor, I like her." And he said, "Right, stop.

37:37 I want to have a truce.

37:38 I want to marry that girl." And don't believe it, but he they stopped.

37:44 They called a priest.

37:46 And they were married right there, bang in the middle of the battle.

37:48 And then they went back shooting each other.

37:53 I've never been to a place like it.

37:55 It's like a ghost village.

37:57 Just looking into one of these houses.

38:00 Will it be a kitchen?

38:01 I don't know.

38:02 But there are all the clues.

38:04 Mostly to the drudgery that was the women's work,

38:08 harvesting the grains, crushing the olives, making the bread.

38:12 The men would be keeping lookout and having

38:15 the odd pot shot from tower to tower.

38:20 Life, like the landscape, was as hard as it gets.

38:24 Why didn't they pack up and go to Messolonghi or go to Athens

38:27 or I think they would say they would say freedom is the answer.

38:31 They could live the way they wanted to live um and you know,

38:34 not bothered by the whoever was in charge, mainly the Ottomans.

38:37 When the Greek War of Independence came along,

38:39 they had their own rallying cry separate from the rest of Greece.

38:42 The rest of Greece had a rallying cry, freedom or death.

38:45 Whereas the people of Mani,

38:47 cuz they felt they were already free, talked about victory or death.

38:50 So, you know, that was that was their view.

38:51 They were free, the rest of Greece was in chains.

38:53 have probably It doesn't look like it,

38:56 but in a way I sort of thinking of Cornwall now,

38:58 really, because in a way Cornwall's like a peninsula

39:01 of the end of the rest of Britain.

39:03 And there's a certain sense of independence and individuality about it.

39:08 topographically extremely similar.

39:10 If you carpet this in sort of green and flowers,

39:13 you would have you would have Cornwall.

39:15 Yeah.

39:15 Shall Trelawney live?

39:17 Shall Trelawney die?

39:19 There's 40,000 Cornishmen will know the reason why.

39:24 Victory or death.

39:25 Victory or death.

39:31 We spent a [music] long time up in that almost deserted village.

39:36 And we met one of the only inhabitants [music]

39:38 who gave us some superb wild mountain oregano to take home with us.

39:44 They say the generosity of the money is a second to none.

39:48 I've often found that the harder the landscape,

39:51 the more generous [music] the people are.

39:59 [music] I honestly had no idea this beautiful place is here,

40:02 but for me it cried out like a siren from the Odyssey.

40:06 Come to me, I've got fresh sardines waiting for you.

40:14 This is how I think of Greece.

40:15 Look at those little darlings straight from the grill.

40:20 A carafe of cold retsina and the inevitable Greek

40:24 salad which I eat every day with great delight.

40:31 I was looking at what we call a call sheet

40:33 which is what you have every day to see what's happening.

40:36 It says travel through the money with with Rupert talking about the village

40:43 with the with the towers in it which is was really interesting.

40:46 But then he just said, "Actually,

40:48 I had some very nice sardines at this place called quail bay." Quail bay?

40:52 Port of Port of the quails, yeah.

40:53 And as soon as I heard fresh sardines I thought Mhm.

40:56 [clears throat] History is one thing,

40:58 fresh sardines is something totally different.

41:00 This is where East nearly meets West, Monemvasia, the Gibraltar of the East.

41:08 I came here in my early 20s with my brother John.

41:12 This rock marked the end of our travels.

41:17 If I remember rightly, very few people lived here then.

41:21 There was a bit of building work going on, but I recall

41:23 [music] some of the locals being rather skeptical about actually living here.

41:28 They said it's full [music] of ruins.

41:30 Leave it to the rats and spiders.

41:35 There's only one way into [music] this place, an archway,

41:39 too narrow for a car, nice for a donkey.

41:42 Monemvasia actually means one way in, and this tunnel has a kink in it.

41:48 I think it's to stop invading armies in their tracks

41:51 and give them a bit of surprise when they turn the corner.

41:54 And then you actually turn the corner and I'm in Clavelli.

41:59 No, I'm only joking.

42:06 40 years on, I hardly recognize the place.

42:09 It was a ghost [music] town.

42:12 It's been restored, I think,

42:14 with great love for the old [music] Byzantine ways and traditions.

42:18 I just wouldn't fancy lugging my suitcase to the very top.

42:25 I'm quite enjoying the wandering around Monemvasia because when I came here

42:28 before it was virtually derelict and apparently

42:32 just filled with snakes and rats.

42:34 So, this is quite a recent bit of building.

42:37 But obviously this here is probably 2,000 years old, Greek or Roman.

42:42 And you sort of think, "How could they have done that?" Right?

42:46 They would have found this bit of marble somewhere

42:48 and just stuck it up there as a lintel.

42:51 But the chickens are upside down.

42:53 Couldn't they just have seen the chickens would be upside down forevermore?

42:57 No, builders.

43:02 This is where the famous Malmsey wine,

43:05 much loved in England in the 15th century,

43:07 came from and it was exported in greatly barrels called butts.

43:12 And that immortalized, of course,

43:14 in Shakespeare's Richard the Third where the Duke

43:17 of Clarence is drowned in a butt of Malmsey.

43:21 And possibly the best bit of dramatic irony ever,

43:24 he asked what he thinks is the jailer in the Tower of London for a cup of wine,

43:28 but in fact it's one of the assassins.

43:30 And the assassin says "Thou shalt have wine enough, my lord." Anon.

43:44 Barrels [music] of Malmsey wine were shipped

43:47 from here by Venetian and Genoese traders [music]

43:50 to eventually end up in England.

43:52 But when Constantinople fell to the Turks 500 years ago,

43:56 everything [music] changed.

44:00 Port and Madeira wine eventually took over in popularity from [music] Malmsey.

44:09 I remember my favorite wine [music] merchant in the world, Bill Baker,

44:13 who sadly no longer with us, telling me the story of Malmsey.

44:18 He said it was the tipple of all the well-to-do people in England.

44:21 [music] It had a taste of honey and dried fruits,

44:25 and it was exotic, delicious, [music] and expensive.

44:33 Maybe these vineyards near Monemvasia supplied

44:36 the grapes [music] for the original Malmsey.

44:39 But their owner, Yorgos and Bedis [music] and his wife Ellie,

44:43 have made it a lifetime dream to bring

44:45 it back to the place where it [music] began.

44:48 Which I think is quite amazing after 500 years.

45:00 Hello.

45:00 Hello.

45:01 Ellie?

45:01 Ellie, very nice to meet you here.

45:04 Welcome, welcome.

45:05 And Yorgos?

45:07 Yorgos doesn't speak any English,

45:09 but wine has a way of making people understand each other anyway.

45:13 It really does.

45:15 I wonder why.

45:17 I often find myself in a situation like this and we get on like a house on fire.

45:23 Oh, it's nice and cool.

45:25 Good lord, it's very nice actually.

45:27 It's sort of working cellar.

45:29 I mean, so many times in France they look

45:31 like they're there for visitors, but I love this.

45:34 Thank you.

45:34 That's really nice.

45:41 I wish my friend Bill could have been here to try this.

45:44 It's like tasting history because no other wine

45:47 was more famous during the Middle Ages than Malmsey.

45:52 It was called Malvasia by the Venetians.

45:55 But it will always be Malmsey to me.

46:03 Oh.

46:05 That's so good.

46:05 It's full of warm sunshine.

46:07 It's It's unctuous.

46:09 It's lovely and sweet.

46:10 It's got lots of fruit in it.

46:13 I just want to carry on drinking it.

46:16 But tell me why he felt so

46:19 passionate about reintroducing Malmsey or Malvasia again.

46:23 He recreate again this wine because it was lost for many many years.

46:29 And he want to make this all as present

46:32 to his country and the the people of here.

46:36 And this wine is for all the world from our little place.

46:41 The fact he's brought it back I think is fabulous.

46:44 I first came here in the 70s and I'd

46:47 heard about Malmsey in Monemvasia and I thought,

46:50 "Oh, it'd be so good to get some." But of course there wasn't It wasn't.

46:54 And I just when I heard that you were producing it again I thought,

46:57 "Great." In a nutshell, there was a great deal of wine making in this region,

47:02 Anatolia, and wine was enjoyed by both Christians and Muslims.

47:07 But in the 1920s came partition.

47:10 The Greek families who lived in this part of Turkey

47:13 were told to pack their bags and go back to Greece.

47:17 Similarly for the Muslims who lived in Greece, the same story.

47:22 The trouble here was that it was generally

47:24 the Christians who made the wine and tended the vineyards.

47:28 So, the vineyards became overgrown, then useless, and finally lost.

47:40 We talked about grape, but we never tasted it.

47:44 Would you like to taste?

47:45 I'm worried.

47:45 I'm worried.

47:48 So sweet.

47:50 Absolutely bursting with flavor.

47:53 The grape should be tasty and delicious to make good wine.

47:58 But I thought I heard somewhere that it didn't matter with wine grapes.

48:01 They don't taste like table grapes do.

48:04 They are very different and I believe they are more tasty.

48:08 If it is not tasty, you can never make a good wine.

48:11 You make the wine in the vineyard, not in the winery.

48:15 So, every time I taste your wine in the future, I'll be back here.

48:19 You are always welcome.

48:26 Now, the best wine is the wine that you enjoy.

48:28 I hope you will like it.

48:32 I'm thinking deep, dark velvet, tobacco, licorice, all that sort of thing.

48:38 How am I doing?

48:39 Excellent.

48:40 Excellent.

48:41 Now, tell me what I should be saying.

48:43 The most important thing is if the wine is good or bad.

48:47 Good.

48:47 Thank you.

48:48 Very nice to hear that.

48:50 Cheers again.

48:54 I got the feeling that Yiannis keeps pretty

48:56 much an open house here at the vineyard.

48:59 There were women cooking really good stuff

49:01 flatbreads for the wine buyers and the visitors.

49:05 I just watched those two ladies make these Those lemes they call them.

49:08 And I've actually watched them about five times

49:11 because it's just so mesmerizing watching them do it.

49:15 While I was watching them I was thinking like when you're

49:18 a child and you watch your mother making maybe just some shortcrust pastry,

49:22 it it has that same sort of effect.

49:25 But there's something incredibly comforting and reassuring about people,

49:29 particularly women I think, making something like these.

49:33 It just I I that's where my love of cooking came from originally.

49:38 It was just watching my mom cooking cuz that's

49:40 the same feeling I get watching them and this.

49:45 I watch them make say savory ones, but this one with some tahini and some sugar.

49:51 Oh.

49:52 Now I just want a little glass of tea.

50:04 This is a food journey,

50:06 but I had to come to the exquisite ancient city [music] of Ephesus.

50:11 Well, everybody does it seems.

50:13 Lovely sweet figs here, perfect for a hot day.

50:17 And I like old ruins, especially if I can find any distant reference to food.

50:33 This was a rich, comfortable place to live.

50:35 [music] It was Greek, but then the Romans turned it into one

50:39 of the most prosperous ports in the Aegean.

50:44 My mom sent me a postcard from Ephesus when I was away at boarding school.

50:49 A big postcard and I remember I think

50:51 it was one of the amphitheaters and I thought,

50:53 oh, I've got to go there sometime.

50:55 But the thing that interests me is over there there's that plane,

51:00 there's the cars in the distance, the trees and all of that was sea

51:05 a thousand years ago and gradually it silted up.

51:09 Now in Padstow, cuz I have to put this on a human scale,

51:13 we have a dredger going up and down the estuary every

51:16 day trying to keep it clear and succeeding for small boat.

51:19 But imagine if you were here and this was one of the biggest ports

51:25 in the Mediterranean in Roman times and gradually seeing it all go, all fade.

51:31 How awful would that be?

51:33 Fate, inexorable fate would be taking its toll of your life.

51:40 Before the sea went away, people would have lived very well.

51:44 Many would have been rich and the food would have been exotic.

51:48 They had cookery books, I suppose to be more accurate cookery scrolls,

51:53 how to cook lamb stew with garum or roasted flamingo

51:57 in aspic for your mates after a day at the Colosseum.

52:02 [laughter] Look at that.

52:08 A pomegranate tree with ripe fruit.

52:10 Isn't that beautiful?

52:12 What could be more splendid than that?

52:15 And they would have had pomegranates a plenty, oranges, lemons,

52:20 grapes, olives, herbs, lovely green vegetables from Anatolia, fish, goats, lamb.

52:29 They would have done all right.

52:34 [music]