DOCUMENTARY SUMMARY

The eighty inhabitants of Eglouvi, Lefkada’s most mountainous village, cultivate an organic crop in their fields on the Vouni Plateau, at an altitude of 1000 meters. This is the renowned Eglouvi lentil, considered the best lentil in the world.

The Vouni Plateau contains the unique, ancient settlement of Volti, with its stone houses and threshing floors.

The Eglouvi lentil is preserved with the other seeds at the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Regions (ICARDA) in Syria, with the code number ILL293.

After the New Year, the women of Eglouvi don their traditional dress and sow their lentil seeds, “with the pagan spirits,” as they say. They then leave the seeds to sleep under the snow. When spring comes, the women return and skillfully weed them. In the summer when the lentils mature, the women uproot them by hand and bring them to the threshing floor, keeping the seeds next year’s sowing.