Greek cuisine

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Greek cuisine is the cuisine of Greece and of the Greeks. It is typical of Mediterranean cuisine^[1] accompanied by commonalities with the cuisines of the Balkans and Anatolia.

The fact that Greece is a country with a highly variable landscape, climate and traditional background, as well as its historical interaction with many different foreign cultures, makes Greek cuisine one of the most diverse and interesting ones in Europe.^{[citation needed]} Several traditional variations of the cuisine of Greece (eg. Cuisine of Crete) are also widely considered as ideal examples of healthy eating.

Contents 1 Main Ingredients 2 Origins 3 Appetizers 4 Soups 5 Famous Greek dishes 6 Desserts 7 Drinks 8 References 9 Notes 10 See also 11 External links

[edit] Main Ingredients

The most characteristic and ancient element of Greek cooking is olive oil, which is present in almost every dish. It is produced from the trees prominent throughout the region, adds to the distinctive taste of Greek food. The basic grain in Greece is wheat, though barley is also grown. Important vegetables include tomato, eggplant, potato, green beans, okra, green peppers, and onions. Honey in Greece is mainly flower-honey from the nectar of fruit and citrus trees (lemon, orange, bigarade trees), thyme honey, and pine honey from conifer trees. Mastic is grown on the Aegean island of Chios.

Compared to other Mediterranean cuisines, Greek cuisine uses most often oregano, mint, garlic, onion, dill, salt and bay leaves. Other common spices include basil, thyme and fennel seed. Many Greek recipes use sweet spices in combination with meat, for example the use of cinnamon and cloves in stews and nutmeg in dishes containing white sauce. Greek flavour is often characterised by the use of mint and nutmeg. Other typical ingredients are lamb, pork, kalamata olives, feta cheese, grape leaves, zucchini and yogurt. Dessert items are dominated by nuts and honey.^[1]

The terrain has tended to favour the production of goats and sheep over cattle, and thus beef dishes tend to be a rarity by comparison. Fish dishes are also common, especially in coastal regions and the islands. A great variety of cheese types are used in Greek cuisine, including Feta, Kasseri, and Mizithra.

Some dishes use filo pastry. Too much refinement is generally considered to be against the hearty spirit of the Greek cuisine, though recent trends among Greek culinary circles tend to favour a somewhat more refined approach. Traditionally, Greek dishes are served warm rather than hot.

[edit] Origins

Contemporary Greek cookery is typical of Mediterranean cuisine, making wide use of olive oil, grains and bread, wine, fish, and various meats, including poultry and rabbit.^[1] Some popular dishes show particular commonalities with Ottoman cuisine.

...despite the disintegration of the Ottoman political empire, we can still see the survival of a large region which could be called the Ottoman culinary empire. The Balkans, Greece, Anatolia and the Fertile Crescent... are common heirs to what was once the Ottoman life-style, and their cuisines offer treacherous circumstantial evidence of this fact. Of course, they represent at the same time a good deal of local or regional culinary traditions. Besides, one should not forget that it is typical of any great cuisine in the world to be based on local varieties and on mutual exchange and enrichment among them, but at the same time to be homogenized and harmonized by a metropolitan tradition of refined taste. Turks and Greeks may seem as hostile as could be imagined,... but nevertheless their culinary traditions show,... that they have much more in common than many of them believe.^[2]

Some dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece: trahanas, skordalia, lentil soup, retsina, pasteli; some to the Hellenistic and Roman periods: loukaniko; and Byzantium: feta cheese, avgotaraho, paximadi. There are also many ancient and Byzantine preparations which are no longer consumed: porridge as the main staple, fish sauce, salt water mixed into wine, etc.

Many dishes come from the Ottoman tradition (which in turn was influenced by Arab and Persian cuisines), and their names reveal Arabic, Persian or Turkish roots such as moussakas (Arabic), baklavas (Arabic), tzatziki (Turkish), yuvarlakia (Turkish), and keftedhes (Persian). It is difficult to date when these dishes entered Greece. Many probably entered during Ottoman times, but there was earlier contact with the Persians and the Arabs. Some dishes may be pre-Ottoman, only taking Turkish names later; Dalby, for example, speculates that grape-leaf dolmathes were made by the early Byzantine period.^[3] A few dishes are influenced by Venetian (Italian) cuisine, such as pastitsio, makaronia me kima. Recently, American food has also become more popular in Greece, with local fast-food chains such as Goody's springing up.

Typical Greek food is simple, colorful and packed with robust flavours. Although many dishes show influences from Greek past, they have a distinctive style of their own which has changed little over the years. Greek cuisine has a long tradition of fine cooking and the full range of Greek dishes usually remains undiscovered by the tourist.^[4]

[edit] Appetizers

Meze is a collective name for appetizers, typically served with wine or ouzo. Dips are served with loaf bread or pita bread. In some regions, dried bread ('paximadhi') is softened in water.

• Greek Salad: The so-called Greek Salad is known in Greece as Village/Country Salad (Horiatiki).
• Tzatziki: yoghurt with cucumber and garlic puree, used as a dip.
• Taramosalata: fish roe mixed with boiled potatoes or moistened breadcrumbs.
• Horta: wild or cultivated greens, steamed or blanched and made into salad, simply dressed with lemon juice and olive oil. They can either be eaten as a light meal with potatoes (especially during Lent, in lieu of fish or meat).
• Dolmades: grapevine leaves stuffed either with rice or vegetables. Meat can also be included.
• Spanakopita: spinach wrapped in filo pastry.
• Tyropita: cheese (usually feta) wrapped in filo pastry.

Many other things are wrapped in filo pastry, either in bite-size triangles or in large sheets: kotopita (chicken), spanakotyropita (spinach and cheese), hortopita (greens), kreatopita (meat pie, using ground meat), etc.

• Boureki: individually wrapped vegetable and meat fillings in filo pastry or dough. Also called by the diminutive -pitaki, e.g. tiropitaki.
• Deep Fried vegetables (courgettes, aubergines, peppers) or mushrooms ("tiganita").
• Saganaki: fried cheese (plain, but also including other ingredients such as shrimp).

Some dishes served in Greek restaurants (especially outside Greece) are not Greek at all, for example hummus bi tahini, the famous Lebanese dip.

[edit] Soups

• Fasolada, a bean soup defined in many cookery books as the traditional Greek dish. It is made of beans, tomatoes, carrot, celery and a lot of olive oil.
• Fakes, is a lentil soup and one of the famous everyday Greek soups, usually served with vinegar and olives.
• Revithia, a chickpea soup
• Mageiritsa, is the traditional soup at Easter usually made of lamb offal and eaten late Saturday before Easter Sunday.
• Psarosoupa 'fish soup': can be cooked with a variety of fish types, and several kinds of vegetables (carrots, parsley, celery, potatoes, onion) which are being blended and olive oil.
• Avgolemono 'egg-lemon' soup: chicken, meat, vegetable, or fish broth thickened with eggs, lemon juice, and rice.
• Trahana soup
• Patsas, a tripe soup
• Bourou-Bourou, a vegetable & pasta soup from the island of Corfu

[edit] Famous Greek dishes

• Moussaka (eggplant casserole). There are other variations besides eggplant, such as zucchini or rice, but the eggplant version ("melitzanes moussaka") is most popular, so "moussaka" alone is assumed to mean "with eggplant".
• Kleftiko: literally meaning "of the thief", this is lamb slow-baked on the bone, first marinated in garlic and lemon juice, originally cooked in a pit oven.
• Stifado: beef-onion stew with red wine and cinnamon. Rabbit or game (e.g. hare) are also cooked stifado-style
• Souvlaki, Anything grilled on a skewer (chicken, pork, swordfish, shrimp). Most common is pork or chicken, often marinated in oil, salt, pepper, oregano and lemon.
• Baked stuffed vegetables (yemista), tomato, pepper, or other vegetable hollowed out and baked with a rice filling.
• Gyros, meat roasted on a vertically turning spit and served with sauce (often tzatziki) and garnishes (tomato, onions) on pita bread; a popular fast food. Sometimes confused with souvlaki served in a similar way. Idea derived from the Turkish dish called döner kebab.
• Soutzoukakia Smyrneika 'Smyrna soujouk' large meatballs with cumin, cinnamon and garlic and served in a tomato sauce.
• Spetsofai, a dish with country sausages, peppers, onions and wine. Originates from Mt. Pelion.
• Keftedes fried meatballs with oregano and mint
• Grilled octopus in vinegar, oil and oregano. Accompanied by Ouzo.
• Bekri Meze 'drunkard's snack', diced beef marinated in wine, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaves, olive oil and cooked slowly.
• Pastitsio, a baked pasta dish with a filling of ground meat and a Bechamel sauce top.
• Grilled lamb chops (païdakia) with lemon, oregano, salt and pepper
• Yahni, a variety of stews based on meat, fish, or vegetables cooked with onions, tomato, and olive oil

[edit] Desserts

• Baklava, a popular sweet dessert, of filo pastry layers with nuts, sugar, syrup, and cloves.
• Loukoumades, similar to donuts , loukoumades are essentially fried balls of dough drenched in honey and sprinkled with cinnamon.
• Karidopita, a walnut cake.
• Vasilopita, Saint Basil's cake or King's cake, traditional for New Year's Day.
• Tsoureki, a traditional Easter sweet bread, also known as 'Lambropsomo'.
• Koulourakia, buttered cookies.
• Kourabiedes, buttered (can also include olive oil) cookies with powdered sugar and almonds, mainly made during the Christmas period.
• Melomakarona, cookies soaked in syrup of honey (meli in Greek thus melomakarona) and sugar, topped with walnuts and almonds, also traditional during Christmas.
• Yoghurt with honey
• Ghalaktoboureko, custard between layers of filo. The name derives from the Greek "ghala", meaning milk, and from the Turkish börek, meaning filled, thus meaning "filled with milk."
• Milopita me Pandespani, apple pie with powdered sugar
• Rizogalo 'rice-milk' is rice pudding
• Akanes, a delicacy of Serres, is a variation of the Turkish delight.

[edit] Drinks

• Wine is the most common drink in Greece. Legend claims that wine was invented on the island of Icaria. Until the 1980s, most Greek wines were not of the finest quality, but more recently they have come up to international standards.^{[citation needed]}
• Beer is widely drunk; common brands include Vergina, Heineken, Amstel, Mythos, Alfa Hellenic Lager, Fix, Henninger, and Kaiser, all of which are produced locally, some under license.
• Ouzo (an 80-proof clear alcoholic beverage that is flavored with anise; it turns milky white with water or ice; the best said to be produced on the island of Lesbos).
• Tsipouro or (esp. in Crete) raki (Mostly home-brewed, a clear drink similar to ouzo, often with higher alcohol content, and usually not flavored with herbs. The city of Volos at the centre of Greece is well-known for its Tsipouradika (literally: tsipouro places)
• Retsina (a white wine that has some pine tar added, originally as a preservative, but nowadays for the flavor; this is an Athens region specialty. It should not be aged.).
• Mavrodafni Sweet, liquor-style, red wine with higher alcohol percentage than normal.
• Metaxa, a brand of sweet brandy, 40% alcohol content.
• Greek coffee, a derivative of Turkish Coffee, made by boiling finely ground coffee beans, and is served thick and strong, and often sweetened.
• Greek frappé coffee a foam-covered drink derived from spray-dried instant coffee that is consumed cold.

[edit] References

• Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece, London, 1996. ISBN 0-415-11620-1. (Mostly about ancient and Byzantine food.)

[edit] Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c} Spices and Seasonings:A Food Technology Handbook - Donna R. Tainter, Anthony T. Grenis, p. 223
2. ^ Bert Fragner, "From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World: a culinary adventure" in Sami Zubaida, Richard Tapper, eds., A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London 1994. ISBN 1-86064-603-4.
3. ^ p. 190
4. ^ The Book of Greek Cooking, Lesley Mackley p. 8

[edit] See also

• Greek Macedonian cuisine
• Turkish cuisine
• Middle Eastern cuisine

[edit] External links

• Epikouria Magazine Devoted to the fine foods and drinks of Greece
• Kerasma, a Greek quango promoting Greek cuisine.