World Food: Guatemala

5 DISHES YOU SHOULD TRY (AND WHERE TO TRY THEM)

1Pepián

Often dubbed ‘Guatemala’s national dish’, this rich, velvety stew is a highland comfort food handed down through generations of Maya. Tomatoes, pan-toasted pumpkin and sesame seeds, dried chilli and cinnamon give the sauce its sweet, nutty flavour and smooth texture. It’s usually spooned over chicken, served alongside rice and tortillas or tamales. At Café Sabor Cruceño in Santa Cruz on Lake Atitlán (amigosdesantacruz. org), your order comes with lake and volcano views, plus the warm glow of knowing that all restaurant profits go to helping the local community.

2Jocón

Another traditional Mayan meal is the vivid green jocón, a warming stew made with coriander, mint, green jalapeño chillies, ground sesame and husked tomatillos. Eaten with chicken, pork or beef, jocón is pepián’s darker, spicier sister dish, and no exploration of Guatemalan cuisine is complete without tasting both. Try it at Flor Maya restaurant (+50 27 7631 303) in the highland city of Quetzaltenango, where the 2,330m elevation only adds to the experience.

3Kak-ik

Blanketed with misty cloud forests, the central Alta Verapaz region is home to both Guatemala’s national bird (the quetzal) and the Q’eqchi Maya people. In their language, the suffix ‘ik’ means chilli, giving a clue to one of the key ingredients in this iconic dish. Kak-ik is a warming turkey soup made from a spiced red broth that includes cinnamon, cloves, tomatoes and chillies. The colour comes from ground achiote, a historic ingredient used by the Maya as a dye. The best place to try kak-ik is at El Peñascal (+50 27 951 2102) in regional capital Cobán.

4Garnachas

Local markets are the beating heart of Guatemala’s towns and villages, and street food is the fuel that drives them. Top of the street menu here are garnachas, tortillas goldenfried on a griddle and then piled with savoury toppings like ground beef, refried beans, shredded cabbage, cheese and mustard. They are available everywhere from street-food stands, especially on national holidays and at festivals; you can even order them as a starter in restaurants.

5Rellenitos de plátano

Desserts and cakes aren’t as much of a national institution in Guatemala as in some countries, but these traditional sweet croquettes are made from cooked and mashed plantain, which is then moulded into oblong balls, filled with refried beans (sometimes mixed with chocolate or cinnamon), deep-fried and topped with sugar. They’re not as toothachingly sweet as Brits and Americans might be used to, but those served at El Adobe restaurant in Guatemala City (+50 22 221 0567) are among the best in the business.

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DID YOU KNOW?

Guatemala is the birthplace of chocolate, which was discovered by the Maya. They consumed it as a bitter drink flavoured with chilli and spices, and even buried their royals with chocolate pots as offerings to the gods. Cacao pods were so valuable that the Maya traded them as currency. Today, chocolate shops in many Guatemalan cities offer excellent chocolate-making workshops.

WANDERLUST

RECOMMENDS

Amalia’s Guatemalan Kitchen: Gourmet Cuisine with a Cultural Flair (£41; Bookhouse Fulfillment) was written by Amalia MorenoDamgaard, a classically trained Guatemalan-American chef, and has 170 Guatemalan recipes with Mayan and Spanish influences.

Culture awaits in Crete

Ten fascinating surprises well worth seeking out on Greece’s largest island

eyond Crete’s

Bwell-known beaches awaits a unique civilisation worth exploring. Located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia Minor and Africa, for the past five millennia the island has hosted Minoans, Mycenaeans, Romans, Arabs, Byzantines, Venetians and Ottoman Turks. They left an array of fascinating cultural treasures in their wake that can still be seen today. Here are ten sites that you should seek out.

1THE PALACE OF KNOSSOS

Tales of King Minos and the Minotaur come alive at Knossos. The greatest Minoan palace, five kilometres south of Crete’s capital, was destroyed around 1380 BC and never built over because it was considered cursed. It was discovered in 1878 by Cretan antiquarian Minos Kalokairinos and excavated in 1900 by British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. With over 1,500 rooms it truly resembles the labyrinth of myth. Highlights include the royal road and ‘theatre’, the world’s oldest throne, Europe’s oldest plumbing, and reflecting ‘lustral basins’ that brought light into the palace’s depths. Don’t miss the Tripartite shrine overlooking the central court, where ceremonies and perhaps even ‘bull leaping’ took place. Copies of the frescoes and the mysterious ‘horns of consecration’ adorn the site.

Sail back in time

(this page; top) Spinalonga, a former leper colony, can be reached by boat from Agios Nikolaos, Elounda and Plaka

2THE ANCIENT CITY OF APTERA

Located 200m above Megala Chorafia, east of Chania, Aptera was mentioned in

the Minoan Linear B tablets discovered by Arthur Evans. It reached its peak in the 3rd century BC when it was one of the most important city states in Crete and famed for the skill of its archers. According to myth, its curious name (translating to ‘featherless’) comes from a singing contest between the Muses and the Sirens – the latter lost and in a fit of pique pulled out their white feathers, forming the islets that spread out in Souda Bay far below the ancient city. Nearly 4km of Aptera’s walls survive today and can be explored on foot. Alongside these you’ll also find two Roman-era cisterns that are the size of cathedrals, an arcaded building that may have been a parliament, and a theatre.

3MEDIEVAL VILLAGE OF ETIA

Located amid silvery olive groves on the Ziros-Chandras plateau in between Sitia and the south-coast town of Makrigialos, the village of Etia was an important Venetian possession of the De Mezzo family. It had a population of 500 at its height, and the De Mezzos built themselves a magnificent fortified villa here in the 15th century, with their hospitable motto, ‘Intra vostra signoria senza rispetto’ (‘Enter without any inhibitions’), still in place today. The village was abandoned in the 1950s, but in recent years the big villa has been restored. Considered one of the best examples of its kind in southern Europe, it provides a beautiful setting for the prestigious Casa dei Mezzo annual chamber music festival in June.

4SPINALONGA ISLAND

In the 16th century, Venetian engineers dug a channel through the Spinalonga peninsula to form an island from which to defend their fortress on land. This was taken by the Turks in 1715, but in 1903 Spinalonga took on a new name: the ‘Island of Tears’. By then, it was a home to Cretans afflicted with leprosy, making it one of the last leper colonies in Europe. It only closed in 1957, and both Werner Herzog’s film Last Words and Victoria Hislop’s novel The Island memorably evoke the unique if lonely community. Many of the houses have recently been restored, and the island, which is reached via a half-hour boat ride from Elounda, is currently a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage status.

Remains of the past

(this page; clockwise from top left) The Palace of Knossos; Etia’s Venetian villa; the remains of the theatre at Aptera; an ancient wine press at Vathypetro; the Minoan Palace of Zakros; Sitia’s Kazarma Fortress

5KAZARMA FORTRESS

Sitia, the largest town in eastern Crete, is built in an amphitheatre over the sea and has a charming traditional feel to it. Made famous for its sultanas and wine, it often gets overlooked by visitors; those who do come to visit relish its atmosphere of Greek-style dolce vita and its laid-back waterfront tavernas and beaches, where you might even meet a pet pelican. The Venetians were here too, and in the 13th century built a castle they called the Casa di Arma (‘weapon house’) on top of Sitia, which became ‘Kazarma’ over time. Although the Venetians abandoned the fort in 1651, its mighty walls remain intact and offer fabulous views over the town and sea far below.

6MINOAN PALACE OF ZAKROS

Isolated in a remote but spectacular setting by a beach at the foot of a cliff in Crete’s far east, Zakros was the last great palace to be discovered on the island and the only one fully excavated after the Second World War. It was destroyed around 1450 BC and was never rebuilt – hence the number of luxury goods found here. It may well have acted as a trading hub for merchants in the eastern Mediterranean and it has yielded a number of unique finds. One story goes that Archaeologist Nikolaos Platon found Minoan olives so well preserved in one of the sacred wells that he ate one and said it still tasted good! A wealthy town (one house had over 30 rooms!) has been partially excavated nearby.

7THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE OF VATHYPETRO

Above Knossos, in the lofty village of Archanes where the ancient Minoans are believed to have spent their summers, the villa of Vathypetro was built around 1580 BC. Its perfect setting would be shattered by an earthquake just 30 years later, only for it to be rebuilt. It resembles a mini Knossos, with a large central court and tripartite shrine. Because of the loom

weights and potters’ wheels found here, archaeologists believe Vathypetro was a craft centre. It also has the oldest wine press ever found in Greece. Even today, the area is surrounded by vines, and every August the first fruits are offered by the growers to a nearby church, just as they have always done.

8HERAKLION ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM

During Crete’s period of autonomy at the turn of the 20th century, a law made sure that all antiquities found on the island would remain there. This recently renovated museum houses one of Greece’s oldest archaeological collections, with finds from Neolithic to late Roman times. The sublime art of the Minoans is the highlight, including intricate gold jewellery and seals so fine they were made with a proto-magnifying glass. The stone and crystal vases and cups are unrivalled; the frescoes are full of joie de vivre and as mysterious as they are delightful. Don’t miss the enigmatic ‘Phaistos Disc’, stamped with a spiral of indecipherable symbols and examples of the Linear A writing system, thought to be Europe’s oldest form of writing.

9LATE MINOAN CEMETERY OF ARMENI

Armeni, 10km south of Rethymnon, was named after the Armenian soldiers that were granted land here by Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas, who conquered Crete from the Arabs in 961. Far older, however, are the Late Minoan chamber tombs spread out across a three-hectare cemetery. The most monumental, no. 159, is reached via a 15.5m dromos (walkway), 25 steps and a two metre-high entrance. Along with Crete’s largest collection of ceramic larnaxes (ornate ceramic sarcophagi), Armeni’s graves yielded stone vases, cylinder seals from the Middle East and a helmet made out of boar tusks. Bring a torch to explore.

Ancient treasures

(clockwise from top left) The Heraklion Archaeological Museum offers a glimpse into Crete’s storied past; the museum’s Phaistos disc has an example of the oldest writing in Europe; you can also see the Malia Bee, which was found in a tomb in Crete; the cemetery at Armeni

10 MUSEUM OF ANCIENT ELEUTHERNA

South of Rethymnon, on the north-west slopes of Mount Ida (Crete’s highest peak), stand the ruins of ancient Eleutherna. Founded around the 8th century BC, it survived into early Byzantine times when it was struck by an earthquake, leaving behind extensive ruins of its walls, a tower, a bridge, an aqueduct and Roman cisterns, all immersed in a lush setting. The city and its necropolis have yielded some amazing finds, now housed in a new museum. Here you’ll see gold jewellery, ceramics and a bronze shield found in the Tomb of the Warriors that dates back to 820 BC. Yet another example of the incredible treasures you’ll find in Crete.

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