B22 - Households of Mani

Households in Mani were simple and had basic utensils made of clay and copper, which were used to cover the daily needs and prepare the meal. At the center of the house was a “sofras” with low stools next to the fireplace, where food was cooked in a copper pot called “kakavi”, which hanged from a “kremastala”.

Housewives also used to hang the pork over the fireplace: it was cut into strips, smoked with various herbs from the land of Mani and then preserved with salt in large oil pitchers. Fish and olives were also preserved with salt in oil pitchers, as well as quail hunted with big nets in the area of Tenaro during their migration period to the countries of Africa.

Hand mills for grinding wheat and stone mortars for breaking coarse sea salt were put in the corner. Further away was the trough, in which women knead loaves, which they then shoveled in a wood oven that was built in a corner of the courtyard. The paraphernalia of hunting, the trifle and the net for quail were neatly and carefully put even further.

Picture: Courtesy of Yiannis Vourlitis, “Image Bible of Mani”, Adouloti Mani Publications