“There are times in Greece when you feel you could live with as little forethought about food as Elijah; meals appear as though laid at one’s elbow by ravens.” So wrote Patrick Leigh Fermor in Mani, his travelogue about the southern Peloponnese.

Writing this while staying in Kardamyli, the town near Leigh Fermor’s home, I could not feel that this was a time for any Greek to be under a duty to be generous.