Skyros is not one of the famous Greek islands. It does not have the nightlife of Mykonos, the caldera views of Santorini, or the tourist infrastructure of Crete. It sits in the Sporades chain, in the northwestern Aegean, and it is quiet in a way that the more popular islands have not been for decades.

My father’s family comes from Skyros, and I have been visiting since I was a child. Each trip taught me something new about food, because on Skyros, food is still deeply tied to the land, the sea, and the seasons in a way that has largely disappeared in mainland Greece and certainly in Australia.

The Landscape Shapes the Food

Skyros is divided into two halves. The northern part is green and fertile, with pine forests, farmland, and small gardens where families grow vegetables, herbs, and fruit. The southern part is rocky, barren, and windswept, home to the famous wild Skyrian ponies and little else.

This geography dictates the cuisine. The north produces vegetables, dairy from goats and sheep, honey, and fruit. The coast provides fish and seafood. Meat comes primarily from goats and the occasional lamb. There is not much beef on Skyros, and historically, pork was reserved for winter.

The result is cooking that is simple, seasonal, and waste-free. Nothing is thrown away. Stale bread becomes a base for dishes. Vegetable scraps go to the animals. Even the whey from cheesemaking is used in bread or given to the pigs.

Skyrian Specialties

Astakos (lobster) - The waters around Skyros are home to Mediterranean spiny lobster. It is expensive even locally, but on special occasions, it is served simply: boiled and dressed with olive oil and lemon. On Skyros, they sometimes cook it with pasta in a tomato sauce, a dish that is impossibly good.

Goat stew - Slow-braised goat with tomatoes, onions, and herbs, cooked in a wood-fired oven for hours. The meat falls apart and the sauce is thick and deeply savoury. This is peasant food in the best possible sense.

Skyrian cheese - The island produces its own cheeses, including a soft, fresh cheese similar to ricotta and a harder aged cheese used for grating. These are made in small quantities by families and are not commercially available.

Wild greens (horta) - Skyros has an abundance of wild greens that are gathered from the hillsides: dandelion, chicory, wild fennel, and others I do not know the English names for. They are boiled, drained, and dressed with olive oil and lemon. Simple, bitter, and deeply nutritious.

Honey - Skyrian thyme honey is exceptional. The bees feed on the wild thyme that covers the rocky hillsides, and the honey has an intense, aromatic flavour that is completely different from commercial honey.

Avgotaraho - Cured grey mullet roe, a delicacy that Skyros shares with other Aegean islands. It is sliced thin and eaten with bread and lemon. The flavour is intensely marine, like a concentrated essence of the sea.

What the Island Taught Me

Visiting Skyros changed how I think about cooking. In Australia, we are accustomed to having everything available all the time. Any fruit, any vegetable, any ingredient, any season. The supermarket does not know what month it is.

On Skyros, you eat what is available. In spring, you eat artichokes and fresh broad beans. In summer, tomatoes and peppers. In autumn, figs and grapes. In winter, pulses and preserved foods. There is no fighting the seasons, no expecting tomatoes in January.

This forced seasonality produces better food. When you eat something at its peak, grown nearby, picked that morning, the flavour is incomparable. A Skyrian tomato in August tastes like a different species from the pale, watery things in a Sydney supermarket in July.

Bringing Island Wisdom Home

I have tried to apply some of these principles to my cooking in Sydney. I shop at farmers markets for seasonal produce. I buy whole fish and use the heads and bones for stock. I make preserves when fruit is at its cheapest and best. I use herbs from my garden rather than buying plastic packets of imported herbs.

It is not possible to fully replicate island life in a city, and I am not suggesting we all need to keep goats in the backyard. But the underlying philosophy, respect the ingredient, waste nothing, eat with the seasons, is transferable anywhere.

Skyros also taught me that the best meals are not the most elaborate ones. A plate of wild greens with olive oil. Fresh bread with honey and a glass of cold water. Grilled fish with nothing but salt and lemon. These are the meals I remember most vividly, not because of their complexity, but because of the quality of the ingredients and the place where I ate them.

Visiting Skyros

If you ever get the chance to visit, do it. The island has a small airport with seasonal flights from Athens, or you can take a ferry from the port of Kymi on the island of Evia. Tourism is growing but Skyros remains uncommercialized compared to many Greek islands.

Stay in the chora, the hilltop town with its white cubic houses and narrow lanes. Eat at the tavernas by the harbour. Walk in the hills. Buy honey from a local beekeeper. Watch the sunset from the kastro.

And eat everything you are offered. That is always the best advice in Greece.

Kali orexi.