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Masticators
Dinner on the dreamy harbour of Limenas Meston is a feast
of fish and folklore. Our new friend Kostas Papamichalakis ,
still fit to flirt at ninety-odd, explains why mastic only
grows in certain parts of southern Chios. "Long,
long ago, there was a king of Egypt whose son became a Christian.
The king was so furious that he exiled his son to the deserted
island of Chios. After two years, the guilt-ridden king sent
some minions to see if the prince was still alive. 'Tell the
prince that if he repents I will forgive him,' he told them.
'Otherwise, tie his legs to two horses and drag him across
the island until he sees sense.' The king's men found the
prince, alive and well and unrepentant. They duly dragged
the weeping prince for miles and miles, until eventually he
died. The places where the prince's tears fell are where mastic
crystals flow like tears from the trunks of the trees."
An aromatic sweetener, mastic is used in a multitude of ways-from
toothpaste, shampoo, and sun block, to liqueur, paint, and
incense. Recent evidence suggesting mastic is effective in
treating ulcers has prompted a Japanese pharmaceutical company
to order 60 tons from the Mastic Growers' Co-operative, a
figure equal to the total production for last year. It seems
the mastic industry, once in danger of being wiped out by
cheaper, petroleum-based products, is about to boom again.
There are 24 mastic villages scattered across Chios' gently
rolling southern hills, each with its own distinct character
and dialect. Olympi is a chunky fortress; Armolia a
string of pottery stores; Vouno little more than
a bend in the road. The Moorish graffito designs etched onto
the buildings of Pyrgi create a giddying, black-and-white
kaleidoscopic effect as you explore its narrow streets. In Vessa ,
a slate-and-stone mirage camouflaged on an olive-and-almond
plain, women bake bread in outdoor ovens while their husbands
kill time in the kafepandopoleion (coffee shop and store).
The twentieth century seems to have passed these villages
by.
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