Meni Valle

Hi Meni and thank you for talking to me. First of all, when I was thinking about talking to you, I went to my bookshelf and I opened your third book, Everyday Mediterranean, and it lifted me from the lethargy of cooking that I had got myself into. I have always loved cooking, but I had got into a bit of a rut and I was looking through your book and I thought, I want to cook everything. Yesterday I baked the bread; the olive oil flat bread, and I also made the one pot chicken risoni and I have a whole new lease on my cooking life!

That’s wonderful. You’ve got to love a one pot dish, don’t you?

Especially on a Friday! But that’s your thing, isn’t it, to share; you’re a food educator as well as a writer and a cook and you obviously have a real desire to share your passion with other people.

Definitely. I do teach secondary school too and I teach kids from Year 7 right through to VCE and I have taught Food Studies for many years now. But I do cooking classes with adults in their homes and present at conferences and I love talking about the food I grew up with, I suppose and sharing that with other people. It’s healthy, for a start; I mostly cook a Mediterranean diet at home. But it’s also easy to make. I love what happens in a kitchen when everyone gets together to cook and the stories that happen at the kitchen table. I love to share food and conversation around food.

Beautiful. Now, you have Greek heritage, but you were born in Australian is that right?

Yes. My Dad came out to Australia in 1956. He always said to me it was when the Olympics were on, so 1956. My mother came out a couple of years later and they got married here. I was born and raised in Richmond, you can’t get more Greek than that, I think. And now I’m back in the place I grew up in and I love it. My first trip to Greece was after my mother got quite sick, maybe 15 years ago and I decided that I needed to see where my mother was born and get to know my family. I knew of them and would get cards and letters from aunts and uncles and cousins, but I hadn’t met any of them, so I decided I had to go, and it changed my life. I became more involved in learning about the food and culture and heritage and all the traditions we have, and I go back as often as I can these days.

It’s so beautiful. I was just watching the video on your website about Ikaria and it looks so lovely and the people look amazing; so friendly and open and healthy.

They are. They are very generous people. They have a philosophy called philoxenia, which means ‘friends of strangers’, so they believe that it doesn’t matter whether I know you or not, you are going to be welcomed into my home like a relative, like a friend they have known forever and that is exactly what they do. The very first time I went to Ikaria, I didn’t know anyone there. I had spoken to people and made some connections, but it was a scary thing to go and a big leap of faith that I went. I felt very at home. They are very welcoming and generous people. They are lovely and they have a calm and slow pace about them. The way they live…we should take a leaf out of their book, I think.

Well that is the subject of your latest book, isn’t it? Would you say it’s your fourth of fifth book?

There were the first three and then the fourth one is like a best of from the first three; it wasn’t a book from the beginning. Technically it’s my fourth, even though it is really my fifth!

And that’s all about Ikaria, which is a Blue Zone, so one of those parts of the world we should be aspiring to emulate. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

Yes, the blue zones are five places in the world where people live to a 100 but not only are they living to 100, they are living well, free of heart disease and dementia. When I discovered this, it was quite by accident when I was doing some research and reading and I thought it was really fascinating and because there was a place in Greece that was part of the blue zone, I became even more interested. 

The five places have a common thread: they have a plant-based diet and even more importantly, they have a sense of community. So when I went to Ikaria, I thought that I would be finding out about the food they eat and the Mediterranean diet, to see if it was different to what I already knew; I was really curious about that. But when I left, I left with so much more than that. I went to learn one thing, but I learnt so much more than just about the food. And even then, it’s not just the food they eat, but the way they eat it. By that I mean sitting down at a table with their friends and family and sharing that food. There is a very, very strong sense of community and that is probably one of the most important things for longevity to be quite honest.

There are other things that are part of that, of course. It’s a Mediterranean diet in a holistic sense, so they eat a plant-based diet with beans and pulses and very little meat, some fish and a lot of olive oil. They also exercise daily and naturally by walking around to the next village or to the shops or by working on their farms or in their gardens; they are always active during the day just by their lifestyle. And then of course, they take time to have a rest in the afternoon. That was another of their philosophies.

One of the locals told me, “Here we take the time needed.” Her name is Thea and I stay with her whenever I go, and I asked her what she meant by that. She said it wasn’t just about taking time to do some work or make a dish or do your garden or visit a friend, but you need to take the time you need to rest as well. If you need that rest, you take that time and you do that, that’s important. I think that most of us would agree that we’ve always got an appointment here and there and we are always checking our phones and checking the time. Thea said, “We don’t do that. Don’t worry about this afternoon or tonight or tomorrow; let’s just enjoy right now.” She is absolutely right and how can we incorporate that into our busy, busy lives? We’re not living in Ikaria, obviously, but we need to bring some of those lessons back.

Absolutely. I also thought it was interesting when I was reading about some of the other characteristics of blue zones, and they talked about the empowerment of women. How does that play out in Ikaria?

I don’t know about the other places so much, but I didn’t even realise that untiI got there. They told me that the women were very independent. They have a lot of power which is very different to a lot of other Greek islands. A lot of them would tell me stories or their grandmothers would tell stories of how their husbands would go off to work or war and they were never around, so they took over the work on the farms or in the stores, doing everything and really running the island and that didn’t change when the men came back. The women still ran the island and they still do to this very day. A lot of the stores and the little inns and restaurants, the beekeeper, a lot of the women I met were very interesting, powerful and independent women. They were educated and interesting. And of course, they are always promoting their local produce and the island and really working well together. They are quite an amazing bunch of women.

How does it work for you when you create a cookbook? You go to Ikaria and you cook with the local people and you see the local produce, how do you then decide what recipes you put into the book and do you have to change them for an Australian market?

I must admit, I don’t think I change very many of them at all. The very first time I went there was in 2017 and I ran a retreat there and I have done that three years running. I was going to be going in a couple of weeks, but of course that can’t happen. Before I went, I was approached by some people who had done some of my cooking classes here and they were interested to come with me and learn about cooking in Ikaria, so I created a workshop. I went earlier than the people joining the workshop and did some cooking with the locals. So I have had three years cooking with them and really immersing myself in their lifestyle and understanding them. I think they only way to understand a place is to live it and to be like a local, even if it’s for two weeks or a month.

I hadn’t even thought about a book to begin with, but because there was so much there and there was so much interest and every time I would put a workshop out, it would sell out straight away. The people who came with me said, Meni you should put this in a book because it’s really fascinating what’s happening here and what we have experienced, and it would be lovely to share. That’s how it started, and I started gathering recipes and talking to the locals. Again, they are very generous people, they would just tell me they like to make this or that and this is the way you do it. Of course there was never anything like quantities or method; it was all in conversation, so at the end I have to sit down and make that into a recipe that people can follow and make in their own home. There were some things I changed, but not a lot really; it is pretty traditional and they are simple recipes. I say simple, but then again you need to use the best produce you can get to get a great dish. That’s how that played out and then I started putting little stories in as well so that people can understand the place. I think it’s important to see how people are living.

Can you give me a couple of examples of the dishes that are in the new book?

Sure. One of my favourite ones is Portokalopita, which is an orange pie and that one I tasted at the women’s co-op in one of the stunning little villages there. I tried to get there every morning, actually, it was so nice. The woman told me it was the first cake they made when they opened up their little co-op a few years back. Twelve women have started it because they wanted to promote Ikaria, their produce and all their local delicacies; they make jams and things as well. This cake uses filo pastry and is a little bit different to how I have ever used it. It’s a simple cake and uses a lot of yoghurt and orange and it has a syrup on it; it’s something everyone has to try, it’s divine. The first time I tasted it, I thought, ok I’m coming back for this. They did say it was a cake that people recognised as from the island; people would go specifically for this cake. They put out little tables and started serving coffees and it has become a real hub and everyone loves to go there.

Another recipe I really love is Soufico and I love it because of the story behind it. It is one of their traditional iconic dishes and it is the simplicity of it that I love. It was traditionally cooked every Saturday when the ovens were on for baking the bread. The story goes that there was a woman at home and her husband said, what are we going to be eating today? She goes out to the garden and collects a whole lot of summer vegetables, comes in and cuts them all up. She tumbles them into a baking tray with olive oil and some herbs and seasonings and cooks it. She calls her man and says, sou afica! Which means, I left you some. So that’s how the name came about. What I love about when they tell you this story is you can just imagine someone going out to their vegetable garden and picking vegetables by the apron-full and then taking them into the kitchen and just chopping them up roughly, not even on a chopping board, just in their hand, tumbling them into a tray and cooking them. That sense of calm and joy that comes with something so simple, but meaningful, speaks of the magic of Ikaria’s soul, I think; it really says it all.

That’s beautiful. I love that story.

I love it too and it’s delicious. I do have that in the book, the traditional way they made it, but I’ve simplified it and mentioned you can also so it this way because the traditional way was quite involved, but the simpler way is really good too and I make it almost every weekend because it’s just vegetables and you can use it all week. All the recipes in the book are accessible, I think, to everyone, which is important for me too.

When I’m writing a recipe, I like to think that people can open their fridge or pantry and have most of the things they need to make that dish and not have to go out and buy 12 things they are never going to use again.

I think particularly at a time like now when we are in lockdown, a book like that or even looking at your website and seeing the video of Ikaria, is such a lovely transporting thing to a nice place and nicer time.

It is, actually. I think about their sense of community a lot these days, because we are all in Stage 4 lockdown and it is difficult and I have been reminded of how community is so important for our wellbeing. 

How are they doing in Ikaria?

They are doing ok actually. They didn’t have any cases at all for a long time and then a person who tested positive turned up on the island from somewhere else, but they seem to be doing well. They are pretty isolated and keep to themselves a bit. That’s probably why they live the way they live; they have that old world life. They haven’t really moved with contemporary times. They are stuck in…well, not really stuck, stopped might be a better way to say…they have stopped in a really good time in life. For them, it was back in the sixties when the Mediterranean diet got really popularised and they haven’t moved along in contemporary times and they are quite happy not to. One of the elderly ladies in her nineties told me, “we have things like mobile phones and the internet here, but we don’t use it like you guys do. We don’t let things like that take over our life.”

There’s a lot to be learned from them.

Definitely. The ones in their nineties have all the wisdom and you just want to sit and talk to them for hours and hours because they have so many little gems like that.

Thank you for sharing all that, Meni. It really has been lovely and it has been a lovely reminder to me to of the joy of cooking; using simple food and getting pleasure from it.