By 1995, we had already been farmers for two years.
We left Athens and moved to a village near Lamia. There, we built a small farm with chickens, ducks, calves, a goat, rabbits, and we cultivated vegetables in the fertile plains of Spercheios.
“Out of necessity,” I began to explore home economics to manage the farm’s produce.
I interviewed every grandmother in the village, read books, experimented, and put everything I learned into practice. Soon, our table was filled with our own products — goat cheese, eggs, bread, tomato paste, sun-dried tomatoes, vegetables for the whole year, olives, handmade pasta, jams, trahana, pickles, spoon sweets, meat, sauces, lard, cured meats…
With my passion for cooking since I was a child, I embraced tradition and began creating my own recipes. Trials, successes, failures — it was my University!
A magical world! A treasure hidden in pots and pans!
By the end of that summer, I decided to take a more professional approach to food processing. The jars had started “talking” to me — they needed names and a way to travel beyond the kitchen shelf.
During a trip to Athens to visit family and friends, I stopped by Thanasis’ house — a necessary stop for the best hospitality, lovely teas, good conversation, and to stock up on our goodies.
Conversations with Thanasis always cleared the fog.
Few people in life truly engage with your personal challenges, but Thanasis was one of them — sometimes even to the point of being annoyingly caring.
He was the person who grounded me in reality. I wanted someone who would dare to tell me exactly what they thought, without worrying if I’d like it or not. His love was a given. He was like a second father to me.
He was the one who gifted me 100,000 drachmas — enough to buy a gas cylinder, a burner, a large pot, a sack of sugar, and jars so I could start making products, not just for home, but to sell.
The next step was finding a name for these products.
We sat in the courtyard of his neoclassical house in Mets, drinking coffee and brainstorming.
We were looking for a short word — something that would remind you of food, sound cheerful, be catchy and memorable…
Many ideas came and went until we found yiam.
Thanasis became both the Godfather and the sponsor of our venture — he even designed our brand image! With his pencils, he sketched countless jars and labels, full of details. The first jars had handmade labels, then came photocopies, and when stores began to stock them, we moved to printed labels at a print shop.
Many years have passed since then. Thanasis is no longer with us, but in truth, he’s everywhere around us, every day.
He named us, and he will always be with us!
Avra Panousopoulou
