Karpathos, though mountainous and wild, has proven fruitful and offers rich products such as grapes, citrus, olive oil and honey.
Many of the locals are engaged in fishing and thus supply the taverns with skarous (marshmallows), sardeles (sardines), sargous (white seabream) and vlachous (dogtooth grooper) that are quite widespread on the island.
The rich vineyards in northern Karpathos produce excellent grapes, from which the famous wine is produced.
The wine of Karpathos is of exceptional quality, delicious and quite different. The most popular is semi-sweet red wine produced mainly in the mountainous Karpathos, Othos and Volada. The most well-known varieties of the island are the athiri, fokiano, as well as the Cretan thrapsathiri and the Cycladic gaidouria.
Karpathian cheeses have a strong taste and are an essential element of the residents’ diet. The most widespread is the very soft manouli, the armyrotiri, which, as its Greek name suggests, is a very salty and hard cheese, with which the locals usually accompany their pasta and meriari.
Honey is a product that housewives of Karpathos often use in their sweets, sesame honey, xerrotegana and baklava. Thyme honey dominates summer produced honey varieties, sage dominates spring produced and heather dominates winter produced.
Alochorta are small herbs that are usually eaten as a salad. They grow on cliffs between thorns.
The specialty of Karpathian gastronomy is macarounes, pasta like tagliatelle accompanied by the famous sitaka, a dairy-like yoghurt.
Tourtes are pies with crust that resembles kourou pie. Filled with myzithra and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
Samples of the sophistication of Karpathian artistic inquiry and its attachment to the traditional professions are wood carvings, iconostasis, sofas, pagalia, furniture, and handmade footwear (stevania, slippers) which, fortunately, are still manufactured in Olympos.
What still characterizes the island is the female costume (daily and formal) of Olympos, the kavai and the sakofoustano.
Remnants of old female costume – tsemperi, techremi, fota – can be found in old women, in Mesohori and especially in Spoa.
Some farmers and livestock farmers still were stevania shoes which are remnants of the traditional male costume and are manufactured in Olympos.
Many other types of folk art (dishes, mastrapades) and traditional professions are preserved in individual cases in villages such as Halkiades (blacksmiths), weavers, basket weavers.
What is worthy of admiration and probably does not exist to such an extent elsewhere is the organ construction.
In all the villages, there are people of every age who make lyres, champs, lutes, violins, and most of these people are the same organ players.
Traditional products of the island, dominated by honey and wine, are sold in many of the island’s shops, mainly in the town of Pigadia.
