Haloumi Family Business

Posted by Sarah Waldrip on Jun 20, 2011 | 0 comments

Over and over, I am mesmerized in Cyprus. And it’s not the modernized cities, as fascinating as they are with their curious differences you don’t expect surprising you at every turn, but rather it’s the simple beauty of the common people’s homes. It is there, in the small homes and family residences outside the cities, where I find Cyprus to be the most charming, and where I am sure my heart will remain once I leave.

We took our second trip out last week to shoot footage for our documentary, and we ended up in the small town of Pano Deftera, about 10 km south of Nicosia. I was excited to see when we arrived that the location was the home of our subject and her family. We were lucky enough to see and speak to many of them, including her daughter, three granddaughters, one grandson, and one elderly gentleman who seemed to be the grandfather and patriarch of the family (I never asked, which I regret).

This family’s central business was clear from the moment we stepped out of the van: haloumi, the traditional cheese of the Cypriot people. The sheer productiveness of the home and the people living there was obvious too; the driveway was bordered with long tables, being used to dry hundreds of little round sour-milk patties (sounds disgusting but the Cypriots use them to make a traditional kind of soup), and the actual haloumi-making was already in full swing inside the garage-turned-cheese factory.

As we walked on around to the back of the house, we saw there were beautiful grape vines shading the patio where freshly picked olives were drying on another large table. Of course, the source of the olives, their parent tree, was soon spotted just one house over, and the ever present citrus trees again dotted the front and back lawn with orange and yellow lumps, produced faster than the residents could eat them. This family home was impressively sophisticated, yet, also exceedingly simple; I have begun to realize that this is a signature characteristic of Cyprus as a whole. Charming, simple, sophisticated but with practical taste; I was again intrigued. The bust of Aphrodite watched over the back door of the home, something I have seen several times now; love was clearly welcomed and treasured there.

I think it is safe to say I don’t really enjoy the cheese-making process itself, the smell being so strong of soured milk, but the end product was absolutely delicious. And in resonance with all of my other experiences visiting a Cypriot in their home, we were offered many other foods and drinks, including juice, water, coffee, fresh bread, fruit, cucumbers and more. The olives on the table were also delicious, though I seemed to be one of the only ones who thought so (they are, after all, one of my favorite foods, and have been all my life).

I was deep in thought that morning about many things, but I simply could not get over how delightful the whole scene was. I found myself wishing that I too could enjoy a home like that some day, with the necessary comforts available to me, either in my backyard or from the kindly neighbors who will trade bread for my cheese, for instance, without all of the extraneous luxuries to distract and increase the sense of need for more. In fact, being there made me feel how obvious it really is – that we need so little to love and be happy.

Then the cheese-maker said something that bothered me deeply… She explained that she has had a lot of trouble keeping up her cheese-making business, because new laws have made it illegal for her to sell her cheese in grocery stores unless she owns and operates a larger factory (a home operation simply wasn’t good enough, and that’s all she could really explain in laymen’s terms). Now she could only sell it at the fresh-market two days a week, or trade/sell it with her neighbors and residents of her small town.

The thought of America at once rushed into my mind, and at that moment it appeared greedy, unfair, vulgar and distasteful, and I was reminded again how much our society takes for granted what we have, discredits and discourages those who are passionate about things other than money and material wealth, and squashes out the simple beauties I find so charming about Cyprus. Yet, we Americans seem increasingly far from understanding the happiness this family has already found in their work and in each other; our culture is filled with depression, addiction and antagonism. I feel guilty on behalf of our culture for pressuring other ones to move “forward” and “prosper”, like us, when it is we, perhaps, that could stand to take a step back and reconsider our values…

The haloumi family business may soon be a thing of the past, but the memory, for me, is timeless.