Return to Transcripts main page
Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown
The Greek Islands. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired May 08, 2016 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00] ANTHONY BOURDAIN, CNN HOST: People, who come here, stopping in Naxos, are they island hopping, or are they coming in this -- this the destination?
LAMBROS, BAR OWNER AND GUIDE: Well, I mean, island hopping happens a lot during the summer. So, you know, as someone who's arranged to have like a two-, three-week vacation in Greece will probably want to visit like at least two or three islands.
BOURDAIN: So how many islands in this island group?
LAMBROS: The Cyclades?
BOURDAIN: Cyclades.
LAMBROS: It's about 15, maybe more. There's Andros, Tinos, Mykonos, Syros, Paros, Naxos...
BOURDAIN: And too -- and Jermaine.
LAMBROS: That's it, and more.
BOURDAIN: Right, and the rest.
LAMBROS: And the rest, yes.
BOURDAIN: A lot of history here in the Greek islands. On Naxos in particular, where Zeus himself was said to live. Where his son Dionysus frolicked and presumably drank and threw orgies and dropped E, and danced all night to the B.C. version of EDM.
These days you have to go over to Mykonos for that. Anyway, Lambros here runs a bar in Athens, but comes out here frequently to get away from it all.
LAMBROS: If you were a Greek, you would definitely dig boarding a boat and leaving for the Cyclades. You know, there's this air of mysticism about them, like an arcane feeling, that definitely doesn't exist in the other islands, the archipelagos in Greece.
BOURDAIN: A big glass of Raki on the rocks.
LAMBROS: And a big glass of regular...
BOURDAIN: Oh jeez, that's a - it's a little more than I would sort of -- well, I'll have a sip.
LAMBROS: Yamas. Good morning.
BOURDAIN: Yamas.
LAMBROS: Yes, it kind of puts the day into perspective when you start off with a -- with a drink.
BOURDAIN: Ah. Wow, it's a perfect day for the beach.
LAMBROS: It's a perfect day, yes.
BOURDAIN: I like the wind here, and actually it's one of the really cool things about this island is it's that breeze, you know, that always.
LAMBROS: It's like our main past-time, talking about the wind. Wind's coming, the wind's leaving, which beach do you go to when the wind is coming from the north.
BOURDAIN: Really?
LAMBROS: The south. Yes, most islands want to claim that actually like Odysseus, Ulysses was from there.
BOURDAIN: Right.
LAMBROS: Or homer was from there. It's -- everyone wants to claim, you know, a bit of fame from the mythology to their islands.
BOURDAIN: I can tell you this, Ulysses was kind of a dick. He left his wife alone for how long? And how far was he from home? He wasn't that far.
LAMBROS: he wasn't that far.
[21:05:00] BOURDAIN: I mean, he was just dicking around in the islands, you know. He couldn't go home and, you know, throw the wife a quick one, you know, before -- and then he gets pissed because she's got to look elsewhere?
LAMBROS: He came up with this unbelievable story.
BOURDAIN: Yeah, but baby -- I don't know...
(CROSSTALK)
LAMBROS: He went back home, and he said, "Darling, you won't believe what happened to me."
BOURDAIN: There were these chicks. They were singing. They, they lured the ship into the rocks, and they weren't hot, though. They were really ugly.
LAMBROS: I think you summed him up perfectly.
BOURDAIN: there you go, the Iliad. I see a lot of empty villas, like a lot of half-finished construction.
LAMBROS: Yeah, they all stopped like a few years ago.
BOURDAIN: Right.
LAMBROS: Money just ran out.
BOURDAIN: Right. No, I don't want to talk about the financial crisis. It's bumming me out. It's harsh in my total buzz. The pressures of the outside world, I don't want to think about.
I'm on a Greek island here. It's a beautiful day. I'm planning on passing out on the beach shortly. You know, maybe some watercolors, do a little cooking, more napping, eating, napping. Contemplate mysteries of the universe or nap, either one.
LAMBROS: Or nap, either...
BOURDAIN: Or eat cheese. All of those are honorable options. I mean, that's a vacation to me, is staying put and doing nothing. I wanted to get away from it all. Coast gently, gently into another season of television. No sharp edges, easy. Late summer of 2015 in the Cyclades and it feels a million miles from the Greece you see in the headlines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Greek banks have remained closed for the entire week. Now the depth of their financial woes is becoming painfully clear.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Athens has asked its people whether they accept stringent reforms as part of the country's second bailout.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 40,000 Greeks have hit the streets.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The country could find itself kicked out of the euro. Athens could just be roads away from finical disaster.
BOURDAIN: That Greece they say, is teetering on the edge of economic apocalypse, broke, in peril of being foreclosed on by the disdainful European powers. On top of that, there's a refugee crisis.
Greece, probably the least prepared, least equipped to take in thousands of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere, is being flooded with desperate women, children, men. They wash up on their shores alive and dead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not just a question of Greece now.
BOURDAIN: And yet here, on Naxos, one of thousands of Greek islands, you could for now if you chose to, remain blissfully ignorant of what's happening elsewhere. Pretend that everywhere is just like here, beautiful, sleepy, delicious food, everything is just fine.
John Steinbeck said any man who pits his intelligence against a fish and loses has it coming. But the Greek fishing trade didn't stand a chance when hit with the one-two punch. First, of diminishing fish stocks, then the financial crisis and slacking demand. Is life good on Naxos compared to the mainland?
GEORGE, FISHERMAN: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Really?
LAMBROS: Yeah, I mean well, if you come from this island with the fresh air and the sea.
BOURDAIN: Right.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Really? This gentleman is a fisherman.
LAMBROS: George is a fisherman. His name is fearless George.
BOURDAIN: Fearless George.
LAMBROS: Yes, yes.
BOURDAIN: So, as I understand it, in many, if not all of the Greek Islands, the government or the E.U. is offering buyouts to fisherman? They're basically saying, "We'll pay you to not fish."
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: They're trying to get the older, domestic fishermen out of the way, basically in order to...
BOURDAIN: The little guys.
[21:10:00] LAMBROS: Yes, the little guys in order to get more commercial fishing being imported into the land. Quite a few have sold out their businesses, their boats and moved in to like tourism.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Up here? I mean, as far as the -- the economic crisis, I mean, you've got the whole E.U. crunching down on poor Greece. Greeks are being depicted as basically lazy, addicted to social welfare. What happened?
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: I'm pretty sure he means the politicians.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: And the people -- and the people are paying for the complete wrongdoings of the politicians.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: So yes, it's a shame really. Anyway, we had a good spell living on other people's money for about 40 years was -- was good fun.
[21:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PANOS, DIVE MASTER AND GUIDE: The wreck was a cargo ship, and crashed on the reef in 1982, so it's 34 years inside of the water.
BOURDAIN: Diving in the Cyclades is some of the best in the med and I was told this wreck was filled with stolen doubloons and Nazi morphine. Panos, my dive master, has certainly never heard these rumors. No treasure down there, nothing sinister or...
PANOS: maybe there is inside, in the engine room. I never get there so I don't know what is inside. The rumor is that they crashed it on purpose in order to take the insurance and so nobody was injured. Everybody was safely transferred to the Port of Ayama (ph). That's a rumor, of course.
BOURDAIN: How many times have you been down to that wreck?
PANOS: Hundreds of times.
BOURDAIN: Hundreds of times?
PANOS: Hundreds of times.
BOURDAIN: And it never gets old? You still have fun?
PANOS: Yes. Every time is special.
BOURDAIN: The Greek islands when compared to the rest of the country are doing pretty well. Tourism on Naxos, in fact, is on an uptick. I don't know what your family told you when he said, "You know, I'm going to go to Naxos and I'm going to run a dive center."
I know my parents would've said, "You should do something sensible with a future, like banking." As it turns out, this was a sensible career choice, I guess. So cheers to that.
PANOS: Yes, yamas.
BOURDAIN: Around 25 percent of the nation is unemployed now. They say that about 40 percent are living close to the poverty line. That's apparently the mainland? And yet tourism is stable and maybe even growing.
PANOS: Well, it is, it is getting bigger even though it is completely opposite with a crisis.
BOURDAIN: So people are basically saying, "Oh, financial crisis, beautiful islands, beautiful country."
PANOS: Yes.
BOURDAIN: "Now is the time to go because we can get it for cheap."
PANOS: Tourism is the only thing I believe that saved Greece. Apart from this area, every other thing collapsed.
BOURDAIN: It's really beautiful.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SINGING IN GREEK)
[21:20:00] BOURDAIN: Medea, Antigone, Helen of Troy after deity Demeter. Greek women have always been known for their beauty, their fierceness, their strength, their willingness to fight for what they believe in.
And these ladies who call themselves the stray bitches, these women are very much part of that tradition. When I mentioned that I was drinking Ouzo before, I kind of...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a reaction.
BOURDAIN: There was a reaction.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We prefer Raki.
BOURDAIN: Okay, so I will be drinking Raki on the rocks.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bravo. Yamas.
BOURDAIN: The stray bitches. Who are the stray bitches?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Us.
BOURDAIN: What are they?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a theatrical musical group, with political -- whoa -- with political issues. And it speaks a lot about what we live today in Greece in Athens.
BOURDAIN: I've seen you described as anarchists.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ah, no, I don't like stereotypes.
BOURDAIN: Right.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't like characteristics. Yes, of course, I like very much the anarchy philosophy of course. It speaks about solidarity and the common good because all life in Greece now is very hard.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: During the '90s, it was all this wealth and prosperity and we were all okay with this. But now it's time to talk about politics and make political statements.
BOURDAIN: A lot of the world, Greece is being depicted as Greeks got used to not having to pay taxes. The stereotype is...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is a great - look...
BOURDAIN: Is it true or not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But that's a very nice strategy to create a stereotype of the people you want to exploit. And say they are lazy, they're terrible, AIDS propaganda, we can let them...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From the moment we build our state, we build it on loans. The great powers, England, France, Russia, helped us to build our state so we owe from this moment. The truth is that never this nation took care of the citizens. They didn't give back anything, nothing, to the people, so why to pay your taxes?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's distrust.
BOURDAIN: A basic distrust is that people are going to spend the money well?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not like -- it's not like a mentality thing that comes from our genes, from our cells. We are not like the lazy people.
BOURDAIN: So what happens? Should Greece be in the E.U.?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Here for the people in Greece, it is a feeling that "Oh, if we go out of the European Union, we are lost." We are as people may be ready to risk to go in another direction because this direction doesn't work for us.
BOURDAIN: Nobody's suggesting we return to an agrarian wonderland where we are all going to farm together and live in a commune, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why not?
BOURDAIN: You like this idea?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, why not?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some of us will, some of us.
BOURDAIN: If I put a yogurt in the refrigerator, and I put my name on it, "Tony," and someone takes a bite out of it, I've got a problem.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really?
BOURDAIN: Yes. This is why I don't live in a commune.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because someone will be taking my yogurt?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, but if you didn't have a yogurt, you would like to eat from someone else's.
BOURDAIN: And I will.
[21:25:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SINGING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Hey, man, how are you doing?
LABROS: Hi, tony, how are you?
BOURDAIN: Good now.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SINGING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Yes, an idyllic mountain village, Apiranthos. The sort of place where you can still walk in to a town square and find yourself caught up in a celebration.
This one celebrates Greco-American actor John Stamos's return to "Full House." Then get ready for wine, Raki and being hand-fed by strangers.
LABROS: I think there was sending off of a villager to go to the army, basically a good reason for everyone to, you know, let -- let some steam out.
BOURDAIN: Whoa.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh.
LAMBROS: Yes, yes, yes. (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
[21:30:00] BOURDAIN: Lamb, pig?
LAMBROS: This is lamb, this is pork, and this is pork.
BOURDAIN: And the famous potatoes, of course.
LAMBROS: And the famous potatoes. This is called the Rosto, which is a traditional Naxos style of pork.
BOURDAIN: Whoa, good sauce. It's like tomato and peppers or...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: Prasi (ph), yes, wine -- wine, tomato sauce, pepper and garlic.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK), yamas.
BOURDAIN: Yamas.
LAMBROS: Yamas. (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
STEFANOS, WINE MAKER: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: So you make wine?
STEFANOS: I make wine, yes. I make good wine.
BOURDAIN: Born here?
STEFANOS: Well, not born here. I came from Naxos when I was 23 years old.
BOURDAIN: From?
STEFANOS: Athens. BOURDAIN: Athens, so very different life here?
STEFANOS: I believe here, you live every moment of your life. Yes, you feel really the freedom.
BOURDAIN: Oh, thank you. This village, what do people here do for a living, farm, tourism, both?
LAMBROS: No, I guess a combination.
BOURDAIN: I noticed a lot of churches, little chapels.
LAMBROS: There are shit loads, and it's basically the continuation of the original temples, be the temples of Apollo or even Zeus or Athena or something.
BOURDAIN: They switched over?
LAMBROS: They switched over to churches.
BOURDAIN: Hey, you guys thought pagan idolatry was fun? Check it out. It's much more fun and we'll slide right in there and you won't even notice.
LAMBROS: Seamlessly. Yes.
BOURDAIN: Important island in mythology though.
LAMBROS: Extremely.
STEFANOS: It is the old Dionysus Island here. Yes, it is.
BOURDAIN: God of wine, women in song, basically.
LAMBROS: And madness.
BOURDAIN: And madness? One of the things I like about Greek mythology is that the gods were all deeply flawed. I mean, they had some serious problems. They were always, you know, sleeping with humans. They were jealous. They get angry. They weren't pure. They weren't perfect. They weren't divine. They were...
STEFANOS: They were humans.
LAMBROS: Yes, but every now and then, Dionysus would appear and like everyone would say -- and then let's all have a great time. Why not?
UNIDENTIFIEID MALE: (SINGING IN GREEK)
[21:35:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SINGING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: I mean, you want this, right? Of course you do, but you can't have it.
YANNIS, FARM OWNER AND GUIDE: One pepper or two?
BOURDAIN: No, one is good, one is good.
YANNIS: And did you try a pepper? It's different.
BOURDAIN: All right. It's beautiful, thank you.
MARIA, FARM OWNER AND YANNIS' WIFE: Ok, here we eat a lot, OK? You can eat as much as you like.
BOURDAIN: Thank you. A family farm, this one dates back to the Venetians, mom, dad, daughter Maria, her husband Yannis, who happens to be the Aegean regional governor. Let the food begin -- stuffed pepper, the famous potatoes.
YANNIS: Naxos potatoes.
BOURDAIN: Coq au vin, a slow-cooked rooster?
YANNIS: Rooster, rooster with red sauce.
BOURDAIN: And a...
YANNIS: Rabbit.
BOURDAIN: Rabbit, oh yes.
YANNIS: Yamas, welcome.
BOURDAIN: So how does that mean the rest of the country is not doing so well, but apparently here is pretty good?
MARIA: Yes.
[21:40:00] BOURDAIN: What's different about Naxos?
YANNIS: It's...
MARIA: Self-sustained.
YANNIS: Self-sustained. For example, in Naxos, you can find 140,000 goats and lambs, and also, half of the population cultivating the land, so they are farmers.
BOURDAIN: So it's not just a tourist economy. You produce stuff here. You grow things.
YANNIS: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Let me ask a difficult question. I'm not going to ask you this question because you have to be diplomatic about difficult questions like this. I'm going to guess your father doesn't. So who caused the Greek financial crisis? What happened here?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
MARIA: He's not optimistic. He says we have a -- (SPEAKING IN GREEK)...
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
MARIA: We need years. (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: What does it mean to be Greek? What are the characteristics that all Greeks either do or should aspire to?
MARIA: She says, above all, the family. (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
YANNIS: This means Greek. Greek remains here.
MARIA: We are bound to the land, the land of our ancestors.
BOURDAIN: The farm itself, how long has it been in the family?
MARIA: This was bought by other grandfather of my father in 1901.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
MARIA: For us in the family, it's a very special place, and especially for me and I believe for my father. It has a special vibe. There's a good energy, this land.
[21:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Please translate -- so I went to the beach today. I'm lying there having a good time, suddenly like 200 nudists show up. Late afternoon, I find myself on a fishing boat ruminating on matters of great importance.
So here's my question. It's a philosophical question. Greece is the home of philosophy, as we know it. Why are the first people to take off their clothes the last people you want to see naked?
GEORGE, FISHERMAN: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Yes, I totally agree with whatever he just said. Oh, yeah, here we go.
BOURDAIN: Oh yes, what do we got?
GEORGE: Octopus salad.
BOURDAIN: Lambros is there, and George of course, and George's son, Niko.
LAMBROS: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
[21:50:00] GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Ah, mashed fava beans. It's amazing.
LAMBROS: This is like as traditional as you get. All these dishes are either uses an appetizer before the main dish which is the soup or as breakfast.
BOURDAIN: Breakfast?
LAMBROS: They have this for breakfast, maybe a couple of beers, and then they go to sleep again for a few hours.
BOURDAIN: Now you're talking my language.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
BOURDAIN: Beautiful. All the fish he catches, it's sold on the island, or sent to Athens?
LAMBROS: Mostly to Athens.
GEORGE: Niko.
BOURDAIN: What kind of fish is this?
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: Olive oil and lemon.
BOURDAIN: Man, this is some professional-quality stuff.
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: You need to eat more.
BOURDAIN: Ah, the broth is fantastic.
GEORGE: Yamas.
BOURDAIN: Yamas, thank you.
LAMBROS: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
NIKO, GEORGE'S SON: (SPEAKING IN GREEK) LAMBROS: He liked his dad doing it and he likes doing it himself. (SPEAKING IN GREEK).
BOURDAIN: I was going to ask.
NIKO: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: Where there's a will, there's a way, he says. GEORGE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
LAMBROS: This is going to be just a great pleasure to tell -- he said when they were at the right age, something like 14, he took him to the brothels and took him to the whores and told them to realize they are all out to get your money.
Get them a few drinks, have a good time, go completely nuts while you're young, and everything so you're going to be a bit laid back on the whole woman issue when the time comes.
BOURDAIN: When you're 50?
LAMBROS: Maybe, maybe.
BOURDAIN: Ok, OK, glad I asked. All right, not really.
LAMBROS: So this is ouzo.
BOURDAIN: Oh, sweet. I'll have some of that.
[21:55:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOURDAIN: My rented villa is pleasant enough, but to be perfectly honest, lonely. Is it worse to be someplace awful when you're by yourself or someplace really nice that you can't share with anyone?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.
BOURDAIN: How are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yamas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it is very typical Greek sunset, the famous Greek sunset.
UNIDENTIFIED: The grasses, the boat, wow.
BOURDAIN: That looks good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Looks very good.
BOURDAIN: Oh man, that is really good.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The good food makes you happy, very happy.
BOURDAIN: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Opens your heart.
BOURDAIN: And there are a lot of countries where they're really, really poor but they're super serious about food.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like where?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like here? Don't go, don't go very far. BOURDAIN: People who are not Greek, come to the Greek islands for the first time, come to Naxos, what should you do here? You should drink Raki for sure.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For sure, to eat...
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Get drunk with Raki also.
BOURDAIN: Get drunk. It's not enough to just drink it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, get drunk and sing and dance.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Don't tell me what you ate. Tell me who you ate with.
BOURDAIN: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (SPEAKING IN GREEK)
(LAUGHTER)
[22:00:00] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yamas.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yamas.
