Στην ταβέρνα του χωριού…
Ανάμεσα στα βαρέλια του κρασιού, τα βουτσιά όπως τα λέμε οι Κεφαλονίτες, βρίσκονται μπακιρένιες κατσαρόλες για το τζάκι, λάμπες λαδιού, λάμπες θυέλλης, ένα άροτρο (αλέτρι), ένας ζυγός, και ένα Ιταλικό αεροπορικό βλήμα από βομβαρδισμούς στην περιοχή, την περίοδο 1940-1943.
It is said that Kefalonia has 365 villages, one for each day of the year, and they never leap (tee hee, see what I did there?) It’s rather impossible to zoom in on the dot I call home on Google maps and keep count, so maybe, that exact number is an urban legend, but the thing is there are lots! There are villages whose names I’ve never heard of and villages I may have heard of but have never been to. Most of them are inhabited all year round—not just during the summer months, as is the case for many scenic villages all over Greece.
While back home a couple of months ago on Easter break, we “paid tribute” to our favorite local tavern in one of the said three hundred sixty and five. Now, I’ve been to the place a thousand times before, but it has never occurred to me until now that it might be fun to share with you bits and pieces of rustic decor and Kefalonian history!
The little tavern displays quite a few copper pots & kettles, a selection of oil & wind lamps, and, of course, lots of wine barrels, some antique, some new & functional, holding this season’s wine.
Here are some of my favorite items:
A hammered copper pot with an iron ring, so as to be hung over the fire…
This oddly shaped item you see between wine barrels, that used to be an animal-driven (horse or ox) plow, called [a-le-tre] or [a-rot-ro] in Greek…
This below is the part that it would be attached to. I don’t know the correct English term, and oddly enough all my googling was rather unsuccessful, but it is called a [ze-gos] in Greek. It is, basically, a double (zegos = binary) collar for oxen to wear the plough/plow with. Do let me know if there’s a specific word for it in English!
Last but not least, an Italian bomb shell fragment from WWII (from an actual air force bombing I mean)…
Then suddenly it dawned on me: I have so many items like these at home too! I have my great-grandmother’s coal iron, a copper pepper hand-mill, a copper tobacco hand-mill, quite a few oil lamps, an antique incense burner, and a nautical astrolabe—my favorite by far! I’ll have to show you soon.
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