Hot peppers have been a part of the culinary culture of Greece for about four hundred years. Until a generation or two ago, Central Macedonia was the center for pepper cultivation, specifically around the area of Aridea.
Read more...Okra falls into that category of food -like eel and snails- that you either love or despise, mostly because of their slippery, mucous-like texture.
Read more...Potatoes in Greece had a comic, telling start. Legend has it that the New World crop arrived, during the tenure of Greece's first Prime Minister, Ioanis Kapodistrias, in the 1820s.
Read more...One never quite thinks of garlic as having a season, but in Greece the plant's cycle is evident at market. In spring, right around the start of Lent, tender stalks of fresh garlic arrive at greengrocers' and farmers' markets.
Read more...The quince is like a deceitful beauty. It has a voluptuous shape, a heavenly aroma, an attractive appearance. But once you bite into it, it shocks you with its hard, tart nature. The quince needs sugar or honey to be edible, and it is probably the only fruit that can't be eaten raw.
Read more...I was first introduced to the regal pomegranate by a Greek folklorist, several years ago. She was giving a talk on the symbolism of food, and it became obvious that of all the fruits in the Mediterranean garden, the pomegranate, with its turret like calyx, its rough, papery skin and honeycomb of blood-colored beads within, is one of the most ancient and mythical. From earliest times, the pomegranate has been the fruit of fertility, of death and rebirth, of hope.
Read more...I was all prepared to spend this column basting the humble turkey with encomia. After all, the bird with the pop-up thermometer is the one most of us dress for the Christmas table. But Fate intervened in a phone call. It was my friend Vangelis in a culinary quandary.
Read more...Greeks enjoy a dubious claim to fame as the EU's largest consumers of red meat, and that in a country, where until just a generation ago meat was an expensive rarity, savored at best once a week, but more likely even less frequently, a few times a month and on holidays.
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Avgotaracho: Greece’s Caviar Avgotaracho (bottarga) -a Mediterranean delicacy of cured fish roe- is produced in Greece primarily from the flathead mullet caught in Greek lagoons, and especially in Messolonghi.
Read more...Octopus, squid, cuttlefish, and shellfish make for some of the best bounty and Greeks enjoy them wholeheartedly.
Read more...In a sea-bound country like Greece, with its seemingly endless coastline and hundreds of islands, it stands to reason the bounty of the sea would find its place on the table. Greeks eat lots of fish and seafood, in lots of different ways.
Read more...The art of making cheese is as old as the tale of Ulysses, who walked in on the cheese-making Cyclop, in Homer's epic, to find him nestling his small, fresh, white goat's milk cheese.
Read more...Greek yogurt, called giaourti, is thick and creamy, nothing like the runny commercial yogurts found in Western Europe and in the U.S.
Read more...Greece is blessed with an immensely rich flora, with hundreds, if not thousands, of species of wildflowers and herbs, and it is this natural wealth that makes Greek honey the absolute best in the world.
Read more...Natural Greek Olive Oil Soap is known to moisturize and soften your skin without exposing it to the chemical additives typically present in regular soap. Produced in Greece for centuries, it is recommended for sensitive skin.
Read more...There are dozens of olive varieties in Greece, and by and large oil olives are different varieties than the ones cultivated to be cured as table olives. Oil olives tend to be smaller. Generally, they are harvested from the end of October, in some places through February, depending on the part of the country.
Read more...In Greek popular culture, olive oil is no less significant. For one, so deeply rooted is olive oil in the Greek psyche, which we don't even bother qualifying it -Greeks use the generic "oil" to refer to olive oil, the way some Asian cultures use the word for rice to refer generically to food.
Read more...Olive oil is used symbolically in the rituals of the Greek Orthodox Church. For example, when babies are baptised they are anointed with olive oil
Read more...The etymology of the Greek term is often given as oros oρος "mountain" + the verb ganousthai γανοῦσθαι "delight in"! Greek Oregano grows even wildly on almost every other Greek mountain and comes in many varieties that are used to spice food, especially salads or tomato based dishes.
Read more...Mastic is a resin obtained from the mastic tree! In Greece it is known as the "tears of Chios," being traditionally produced on that Greek island, and, like other natural resins is produced in "tears" or droplets. Originally liquid, it is sun-dried into drops of hard brittle translucent resin.
Read more...On the north of Greece, in the beautiful area of Kozani grows the amazing flower called Saffron! The Greek Saffron is considered to be the best in the world and it has been used as medicine and as a wonderful food spice since ancient times!
Read more...I don't know if it's been my travels of late in the Peloponnese, or my perusals through Indian cookbooks, in search of something different to cook for dinner, or something a cook friend said to me the other day, about how spices make the world seem smaller, but my kitchen sensibility has been tuned to cinnamon in the last few weeks.
Read more...The lentil is Middle Eastern in origin and was one of the earliest cultivated crops. It is at least 10,000 years old, and in many countries, India in particular, it has long been an indispensable part of the diet. (Lentils are nutritional powerhouses, full of protein, vitamin B, iron and phosphorous.)
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Heliciculture, or snail farming is the process of breeding land snails for human consumption, and more recently, for cosmetics use. For centuries, humans have used snails either as food or jewelry.
Read more...Bread is the most important staple on the Greek table. No meal is complete without it, and few Greeks eat without it. It is both a food and a utensil, held in one hand to scoop up the delicious savory sauces and remains on many a plate of food.
Read more...Paximadi comes from the word Paxamas that used to mean baker. It begun as a way to preserve bread but it has now turned into a very popular and very nutritious basis for many dishes.
Read more...Loukoumi (plural: loukoumia) derives from the Turkish word Lokoum, an oriental sugar-based confectionery, known in Western Europe as Turkish Delight. They are made in Greece, Turkey and other eastern countries of the Mediterrenean!
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Zagori is an area of great natural beauty and unique architecture in the Pindus Mountains in Epirus in Northwestern Greece. The area is of about 1.000 square kilometers and contains 46 villages. Zagoria villages is called by Greeks “Zagorochoria” meaning the villages behind the mountain.
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In 1989, Professor of Byzantine Studies, Helen Ahrweiler is appointed Chairman of the Cultural Centre Pompidou in Paris