Oven-Cooked Chickpeas

ON SIFNOS, the most common Lenten dish is these chickpeas, cooked slowly overnight in the communal oven. On Folegandros, the dish is also made on the eve of the Day of the Cross, September 14, the day the Saints Constantine and Helen are said to have discovered the cross on which Christ was crucified.

Perhaps because the island women had to go to church and had no time for more complicated dishes on that festive day, they chose to make this simple one, and the tradition was establis