Trahana Soup

2015, Kofinou. I'm in the kitchen with Aunt Loula making trahana. Her real name is Maria, my father's sister. He gave her that nickname back when they lived in Agios Ambrosios of Kyrenia, and it stuck. I love it whenever she visits and we cook together because every time, Aunt Loula remembers stories that hold something special, adding flavor and emotion to a traditional Cypriot recipe. She shows me how we make the dried trahana. We mix the yogurt with a little milk and leave it for two days to sour. Every other day, we add double the amount of milk. Then, she confides in me that Grandma Vasiliki, back in the 60s, used to add lemon juice as well as juice from white sour grapes to the recipe. This way, she helped the milk sour faster, resulting in her trahana having a long and tangy flavor.