Antikristo

Antikristo (Greek: αντίκριστο, literally "facing Christ") is a traditional Cretan way of roasting a whole young lamb, named for the way the carcass is arranged in the shape of a cross before an open fire. The butchered lamb is skewered on a long iron rod and suspended by two forked green sticks set in a V, the metal spit resting in the notches so that the meat turns slowly and evenly as the wood burns down. No marinade is used, only coarse sea salt rubbed into the skin, and the cut is cooked for several hours until the outside is deeply browned and crusty while the interior stays unusually juicy for a whole-roasted animal.

The technique is most associated with Easter (Pascha) celebrations in Crete and the wider southern Aegean, and is also prepared at family gatherings and the long summer feasts called panigyria. In rural villages the cook works with a single rod and a woodpile of olive branches, pistachio wood or wild thyme branches, each contributing a different aromatic note to the crust. Sides are deliberately simple: oven-roasted potatoes that catch the drippings, horta (wild greens boiled and dressed with olive oil and lemon), and a village salad of tomato, cucumber, feta and oregano. Antikristo is also served in some mountain tavernas of the Psiloritis and White Mountains ranges, where the slow, open-fire cook is part of the same wood-fire cooking tradition used for the smaller kokoretsi and biramiki of mainland Greece.