The annual saint's feast day celebration in this particular rural Greek village involves the offering of a St. Phanourios' Pie, which must be baked according to certain strictly defined rules. One year Evanthis is overcome by a rush of creativity during the baking of this pie and comes up with something quite attractive which is filled with pastry cream. As is the custom, each year the village priest blesses the pies and they are distributed to the town's beggars (usually cripples of some sort) who eagerly await their feast offering. This year, the priest quickly spies the offending curiosity while making the blessing and makes a comment to Evanthia's daughter about it. Then, while the worshippers are outside in a procession, the beggars come in and grab the pie, fighting over it at the edge of a cliff. Eventually it falls over the edge, and the beggars can just see that a pack of stray dogs are enjoying the unlucky pastry.