Syros: Reviving the old market of Hermoupolis

Producers, chefs and people active in the field of Syrian gastronomy participated in a colorful event entitled “Old Market of Hermoupoli”, organized in Syros on April 20-21, with the central idea of ​​reviving the Chiou Street market, in the center of Ermoupoli, west of Miaouli Square. Until a few decades ago, Chios hosted a thoroughbred food market. Now it has a mixed character, with fruit shops, multi-grocery stores and fishmongers, alongside shops that have nothing to do with gastronomy.

In an attempt to return Chios Street to what it once was, Mr cultural body Hermoupolis Heritage, together with friends of the island’s gastronomy staged an event that managed to remind Syrians and visitors that a food market is a cornerstone of the community. “We are a group of Syrians, around ten people, who deal with catering and gastronomy. The “Old Market of Ermoupoli” was the first of a series of actions that we proposed to producers of the island, which they warmly embraced. They liked it very much”, explains Yiannis Zygomalas, a native of Syria and one of the organizers of the event.

Using the industrial space of the Textile Museum, in an enclosed courtyard decorated with lights, an old-time market was set up: the greengrocer with his fruit and vegetables (Syrian peppers and tomatoes, Vatikian onions, Tyrnavite pears), the cheesemonger with the fine goat cheese, the butchers with their cold meats priced in drachmas and with inscriptions that revived the spelling of another era (glyna 2 drachma, siglyna 3 drachma), the coffee shop with the spilled wine glasses on the round tray, covered by plates of appetizers, the counter with the pickles and sweets of the spoon and in the background the large mirror with the black and white family photos and a Greek flag waving. At one table a company with guitar, bouzouki, accordion and double bass was playing and around it the guests were humming along to the song, nibbling on meatballs and fries from the paper funnel.

And if the setting had brave doses of retro, it was not nostalgia that dominated the action, but an unprecedented vitality from the protagonists-producers, who had donned the role of their lives, wearing the clothes of another era. The fisherman with the folded blue jeans is indeed a fisherman, except that instead of breadcrumbs, he probably puts the fish in styrofoam. The greengrocer of the setting is a real greengrocer of Chios Street, the egg man is a producer of eggs, the cheese seller is his partner and wife, the bakers and the coffee makers are chefs. Everyone more or less practices a profession related to production or gastronomy, which is why it is valuable that they managed to unite their voices under the collective request to revitalize the Chios Street market. “The result exceeded our expectations. We welcomed twice as many people as we expected. There was a lot of excitement. Imagine a grandfather came who reverently waited to enter and when they asked him if he was okay, he says “kids, I’ve learned to wait in my life, I’m the little umbrella in the picture”. These are unique moments”, describes Zygomalas.

The tomorrow

The “Old Market of Hermoupoli” was the first of a series of events that will take place in the next period in Syros and aim to awaken the reflexes of Syrians regarding the culture of everyday life. “In essence, our purpose in these events is to remind the world what Ermoupolis and Syros are. The island has an amazing culinary history of urban cuisine, using Greek products but influences coming from Europe. There are still female cooks, old, who at a young age had them in the big urban houses and cooked a certain cuisine. We have to discover this kitchen from the beginning, it is part of our history”, says Zygomalas.

None of the above would have happened, of course, if it were not for the Hermoupolis Heritage cultural organization of Dimitris Stavrakopoulos, who made the initial call to the friends of the island’s gastronomy. It is an important institution that organizes experiential cultural actions around the history and identity of old Syros. Its seat is the textile factory of Zisimatos, which produced socks, towels, bathrobes and closed abruptly in the 1980s. Today, the old factory has been turned into a Textile Museum, where not only the equipment but also the whole atmosphere of industrial Syros survives.

More at hermoupolisheritage.com.