{"id":2907,"date":"1979-01-01T11:23:00","date_gmt":"1979-01-01T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/?p=2907"},"modified":"2022-02-13T11:27:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-13T11:27:02","slug":"the-kings-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/1979\/01\/01\/the-kings-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"The King’s Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The ritual continues to preoccupy the entire nation throughout the month of January, often not coming to a full halt until February, as countless thousands of pittas are cut in homes, schools, offices, and businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The focal point of the ceremony is a coin, buried within the pitta, which brings good luck to whoever gets it in their piece. Each piece of pitta is assigned to a recipient \u2014 the Deity and inanimate objects as well as mortals \u2014 according to long-established protocol that varies slightly from place to place. In families, the first piece most commonly goes to the Lord, the second to the Church, the third to the Home. The remaining pieces go to members of the family, usually according to age, with pieces sometimes set aside for absent loved ones. In institutions, the third piece goes to the school, office or business, and the rest of the pieces to the hierarchy in descending order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is widely believed that the Vasilopitta takes its name from St. Basil (Agios Vasilis), one of the Fathers of the Greek Church, who is associated in Greece with the New Year, much as Saint Nicholas, or Santa Claus, is with Christmas in the Western World. (In recent decades the two saints have gradually merged in Greece so that Santa Claus is interchangeable with Saint Basil.) There is probably little connection, however, between the Vasilopitta and St. Basil beyond the similarity in names. Basil (Vasilis) means “king” or “royal”. The Greek tradition is almost certainly related to the Gateaux des Rois, the King’s Cakes prepared in certain regions of France on Twelfth Night, and similar seasonal festivities in other parts of Europe, where the recipient of the coin or other token becomes the Mock King or Lord of Misrule. All of these customs trace back to the ancient Roman celebration of the Saturnalia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up until about ten years ago, official pitta-cutting sessions were more-or-less restricted events. With the advent of television, this has changed and now the entire nation can be participants \u2014 without getting a piece of the cake, of course \u2014 by simply sitting at home before their sets and watching as public officials cut an unending procession of pittas. Since every public official, and every ministry, regiment, and organization of any significance must have its moment of glory cutting its cake on television, these ceremonies are strung out over the month of January, with a few stragglers performing their ritual on the home screen in February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, there are thousands and thousands of unheralded sessions taking place in schools, clubs, and other institutions throughout Greece. Business slows down in offices while secretaries make the necessary arrangements and work comes to a halt completely when senior executives and staff members gather around for the lengthy ritual. There are those who express concern over the loss of man hours which are devoted to the pitta practice. Although small firms may feel the dent, there is some consolation to be drawn from the knowledge that in its small way the pitta provides a bit of stimulus to the economy. For weeks on end, flour mills and other enterprises work at full capacity producing the necessary ingredients, while thousands of bakeries and patisseries, and tens of thousands of their employees, busily knead, shape, bake, wrap, and deliver Vasilopittas, and chickens all over the nation work overtime laying the millions of eggs necessary to keep the nation supplied with pittas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wrong Numbers<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

W\u0395 HAD a long, fruitful, long-distance conversation recently with our friend Kyria Maria who mans the telephone centre in the tiny, mountain village of Koupia in the Peloponnisos. We brought her up to date on our news and were brought up to date on her news and the latest developments in Koupia. Although we have become bosom buddies with Kyria Maria, and authorities on the on-going saga of Koupia, we have never met her. Nor have we ever been to Koupia. As Athenians are all too well aware, no matter how carefully they dial, the chronically spastic telephone system regularly puts them through to the wrong number, whether they are calling locally or long distance. Our friendship with Kyria Maria has blossomed over the telephone lines since we invariably get through to Koupia when calling our own village fifty kilometres away. Although telephone technology in Kyria Maria’s region, as in many rural areas of the country, has not reached the stage where homes have private lines, and one must call through the telephone centres, they are hooked up to direct dial with Athens, most parts of Greece, and much of the world, enabling callers in Europe, North America, Australia, and other places to dial a wrong number to just about anywhere in Greece. If they’re lucky, callers from abroad may even get through to our Kyria Maria. A friendly, curious soul, who is a wealth of information on the comings and goings of her fellow villagers, she has a natural flair for spicy details to which she uninhibitedly adds plenty of seasoning, well worth the cost of the wrong, long distance call. This is not true of the operators in other villages we regularly dial-a-wrong-number to. Many of them, in fact, are downright testy and when we recognize the acid tones of one we have grown familiar with, we hastily hang up rather than be subjected to a lecture on our stupidity for dialing-the-wrong-village. And it is certainly not true of most of the sour types we regularly get through to when dialing-a-wrong-number within Athens, particularly between the hours of three and six in the afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although few people in the countryside nap in the afternoon, in Athens the siesta remains sacred. When calling within the city during those hours, we usually take extra care when dialing, but the telephone system is oblivious to our delicate manoeuvres and most afternoons we get at least one sleepy voice that in a few seconds bursts into loud expletives accusing us of deliberately disrupting its sleep and being responsible for its shattered nerves. As disconcerting as these outbursts may be, we must confess that we are not unsympathetic and, indeed, indulge ourselves in them regularly, particularly when we emerge from our bath to answer the phone and some stranger at the other end responds to our “hello” with the question, “Who are you?” and then insistently demands to know why we are not Kosta, Maria, or Mitsos’s taverna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although citizens, whether in the roles of callers or answerers, can at least vent their spleen on each other, we are the collective victims of an even more dastardly variety of wrong number: the recorded announcement giving the weather forecast, the latest news, the national lottery results or, worse, telling us to insert a ‘seven’ between the eight and the number following it. One may rant and rave that they did not dial an eight, but the disembodied voice goes on and on until that final click followed by a ghostly silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But our real bete noire is someone by the name of “Mr. Papadiscopoulos”. We have not the faintest idea who “Mr. Papadiscopoulos” is, but we’re convinced he’s up to no good \u2014 if we’re to judge from the wispy female voices that call daily, seductively asking for him, and promptly hang up when we bellow, “Who is Mr. Papadiscopoulos?” We first posed the question \u2014 calmly and in dulcet tones \u2014 when the calls began some years ago because we simply wanted to contact Mr. Papadiscopoulos and ask him to please tell his friends to dial more carefully \u2014 or we would contact Mrs. Papadiscopoulos .and tell her about all those females calling him! But the only response our questions have brought is a pause and then a click.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the years we have grown obsessed by “Mr. Papadiscopoulos” and our queries have, grown to shrill screams, but we have never managed to find out who he is, not even when “Mr. Papadiscopoulos” himself has called \u2014 which he occasionally does when he dials his own number and gets our number and asks if there are any messages for him. The first time we heard him say, “This is Mr. Papadiscopoulos. Are there any messages for me?” we lost our heads completely and hysterically pleaded with him not to hang up until he had told us who he was. As we desperately tried to explain our predicament, he broke off the connection. Since then we have tried various tactics to lull him into submission such as saying coyly, “Yes there are, Mr. Papadiscopoulos, and we’ll tell you all about them if you tell us who you are and give us your correct number,” but to no avail. Mr. Papadiscopoulos promptly hangs up before we can blow his cover, mumbling to himself that he got through to the lunatic again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the Post Office<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A CONTRIBUTION to our Trials and Tribulations of City Life Department from a City Dweller:
There is nothing I enjoy more than a heated fight to relieve the monotony of those interminable waits in line at the post office and one such altercation livened things up a bit one recent afternoon. The events preceding the drama were routine. A modest half-dozen of us were waiting in silence before the stamp-and-registered-letter window when an elderly gentleman in the parcel line, discovering he was in the wrong place, tried to insert himself in our midst. I waited expectantly. A few scowls were sent his way, but there were no protests and the interloper was allowed, presumably because of his advanced years, to join our line, fourth from the front. At the head of the line, meanwhile, a woman had been monopolizing the clerk for at least ten minutes with a forbidding number of odd-sized envelopes, all of which seemed to require that a form be filled out with multiple carbons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why isn’t there another clerk selling stamps?” a man in front of me started to grumble to no one in particular. Things were beginning to stir. “This is a disgrace,” he continued, more loudly as heads turned to nod in agreement.”The public is made to wait for no good reason, while the employees stand by idly watching them.” Sure enough, only a single clerk was on the job while four others sat behind the counter doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing. One of the female clerks was methodically filing her fingernails and the others, at regular intervals and in various combinations, were chatting and gossiping with each other. When they were not amiably discoursing about friends and relatives, they stared vacantly into space. Spotting an individual seated at a desk behind the counter \u2014 he was clutching an idle pen with authority \u2014 the Grumbler correctly assumed he was the manager and demanded that he open another wicket to expedite the business of both public and post office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“My dear sir,” replied the manager, swiftly rising and moving to the counter, “That is impossible.” He proceeded to explain indignantly that employees who register parcels can under no circumstances sell stamps, and vice versa, and that if he knew anything about business and the division of labour he would not make such foolish requests. The Grumbler replied angrily that he wasn’t interested in how he ran his post office, and all he wanted to do was buy a few stamps and leave. The manager, visibly eager to do battle \u2014 he was probably bored with sitting there holding his pen \u2014 launched into a lengthy tirade that touched on the subjects of taxation, businessmen, national pride and the bad-mannered-public-at-large. Insults were hurled back and forth, bystanders joined in a chorus supporting the Grumbler, registering new complaints and suggestions that all postal clerks be replaced by stamp-dispensing machines. Clinging to the last vestiges of his authority, and throwing all dignity to the wind, the manager raised his voice even louder to be heard above the din, his face growing red and his eyes bulging in the process.
The spectacle eventually dissolved into an inconclusive finish without the fisticuffs I had been waiting for. The principals turned their backs on each other with dramatic flourishes. The Grumbler, looking like the triumphant Warrior, bought his stamps and left, the Indomitable-Defender-of-the-Status-Quo, still breathing hard, returned to his position behind his large desk and resumed the contemplation of his pen, and I stepped up to get my stamps. The clerk turned to watch the second hand of the clock move from the half minute mark and when it arrived at the twelve she turned and walked away. The manager roused himself for a moment to call out to me that they had closed for the day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WITH the approach of the holiday season, we braced ourselves for the annual appearance of the Vasilopitta\u2014 the ceremonial sweet bread or cake, which is the traditional symbol of welcome for the New Year. Commonly referred to as the pitta (not to be confused with the ubiquitous, flaky variety containing such fillings as cheese or spinach), it makes its official debut on the first of the year when it is ritualistically cut up. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1357,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-town"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2908,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2907\/revisions\/2908"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-athenian.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}