On scrumptious Hellenic nourishment and extremely unsuccessful language learning

After many requests from a very special friend, it has finally been cooked – a post about two of the things I most enjoy doing. No, not travelling and learning; much more basic pleasures – communicating with fellow humans and eating (and if you put the two together, you have an absolutely delighted Archie!). I will share with you my VAST knowledge of the Modern Greek language (I took two lessons and am now able to read an insufficient number of words), while making you jealous with a very small sample of all the scrumptious food I´ve been having (to learn much much more about Greek cuisine click here). I hope you all enjoy it and especially you, C! It has been the hardest, most time consuming post I have written up until now and it still seems far from complete.

 

I shall start by talking about basic human needs – bread and wine. Greek bread is delicious, usually covered with sesame seeds and extremely cheap – a loaf is around 0.50 Euros in any local φούρνος (“fournos” – bakery). There is also a bread-type snack that one can buy anywhere on the streets from little carts – some circular things which can either be like soft like bread or crunchy, covered in all types of seeds, and called κουλούρι (“koulouri”). I´m no specialist in wine but I have tried, besides regular white, red and rosé wine, two specific types of wine which I am now a fan of – Santorini Vinsanto (sweet red wine, VERY expensive), which I tried in Crete and Moscato from Lemnos (sweet white wine, not so expensive) in Brettos, which was the first destillary in Greece, now turned into a very cute little bar in Plaka.

One thing I love about Greece is that a 0.5l bottle of water can´t be sold for more than 0.50 Euros and that every time you go out for food or drinks, you always have free tap water with whatever you order (which is very sensible in a country where summer seems to last for ¾ of the year). One thing I hate about Greece is the price of coffee – a regular espresso, for example, will be about 1 Euro or more (take into consideration that I come from a country where coffee is extremely cheap. And lovely). But people in Greece don´t usually drink the regular black coffee (and especially not the Greek coffee, which I can relate to) but iced coffee – either “frappé” (covered with foam) or “freddo espresso”.

Greeks love to spend long hours in a café, drinking and socializing.

Moving on to proper food, if you´re eating out you have two basic options – you can either have some Greek fast-food, which basically consists of σουβλάκι (“souvlaki” – meat on a stick), γύρος (“gyros” – a sort of wrap with meat and chips inside, which you can see in the first photo, next to a cute little bottle of rakomelo), σπανακόπιτα (“spanakopita” – spinach/herbs pie) or τυρóπιτα (“tiropita” – cheese pie) – both of which appear in the second picture; or you might prefer a regular Greek restaurant, which in Greece is called ταβέρνα (“taverna”). And a great thing about eating out in Greece is that you can just do so at any time of the day and until very late at night – you could, say, be getting some souvlaki at 10am or some lunch at 4pm.

In a taverna, one always has σαλάτα (“salata” – salad, which always includes a huge chunk of feta cheese on top) and usually orders several different μεζές (“mezés”), which consist of something very much like Spanish tapas. If you go out for a meal with a big group of friends, mezés are great because you can have a big variety of delicious food. With your meal, besides water, a very typical alcoholic drink is Τσίπουρο (“tsipouro”) or ρακή (“raki”) – I haven´t quite grasped the difference between the two, but I think it´s Geography related –, which is a strong distilled spirit (40-45% alcohol), is produced from pomace (the residue of the wine press) and can come in two types – pure or anise-flavoured (called ούζο or “ouzo”). My personal favourite is ρακόμελο (“rakomelo”), which is produced by combining raki/tsipouro with honey and several spices, such as cinnamon (I did say I am greedy!).

This is what a table looks like when you go out to eat in a Greek restaurant – filled with so much delicious looking food you don´t even know where to start. I decided not to give any order to the food pictures I´m showing because it´s this lack of order and variety that I so love in a Greek meal. The first picture shows, at the front, what is left of some σαγανάκι (“saganaki”), which is basically fried cheese (who would have though that fried cheese could be so amazingly delicious!?); on the right is some octopus and right at the back, some fried courgette with cheese (YUM!). In the second picture there are some κεφτέδες (“keftédes”), which are fried balls made of vegetables (in this case) or meat. To its left you can also see τζατζίκι (“tzatziki”), which is yogurt mixed with garlic, cucumber, salt, olive oil and sometimes some lemon juice too (it goes well with everything!).

In the first photo, besides Fix beer (very similar to Portuguese beer, which is generally lager), you can see a big plate of γίγαντες πλακί (“gigantes plaki”), which is a dish consisting of giant beans cooked in tomato-based sauce. It looks pretty boring but the taste proves differently. In the second, a big plate of cheese and tomato pie (one of my other favourites – I usually stuff my face with it!).

   

If I had never thought of frying cheese, then I would have never even conceived the idea of dipping it into honey – if taste buds could cry, mine would have done so after the first bite! The second photo shows a huge plate of fried Γαύρος (“gavros”, which is a type of fish) – not my cup of tea, since I generally don´t enjoy small fishes, mainly because I can´t handle all the tiny little bones. The third one shows some cabbage leaves stuffed with meat (I think it was cabbage) – stuffing stuff is a very Greek thing to do – you can stuff tomatoes, vine leaves, peppers, etc. These stuffed delicacies are called Ντολμά (“dolma”) and my favourite are the stuffed vine leaves with rice.

Although it is very easy to be a vegetarian in Greece (there are numerous options), meat is the obvious local preference! The second photo shows one of my (other – oh, there are just so many delicious things!) favourite fish dishes – fried μπακαλιάρος (“bakalários” – which all you Portuguese readers must have guessed what it is. Yes, bacalhau or cod. I´m not quite sure but I think the Greek name might actually come from the Portuguese name. For those of you non-Portuguese readers, cod is probably the most iconic ingredient of Portuguese cuisine – according to our online encyclopedia, we have over 1000 recipes for using it and it´s what we eat at Christmas. Surprisingly though, I had to go to the UK to try delicious smoked cod for the first time! Oh I digress… but I feel like I could talk about food and the Portuguese culture for years!). As I was saying… This fried cod is always accompanied by a garlic and bread/potato mash sort of thing.

If you are cooking at home, the best place to buy fruit and vegetables is at the local (and weekly, in Elefsina´s case) markets, for here these items are much cheaper. Comparing prices of food in Greece and Portugal (my best example), I could say that fruit and veggies are generally cheaper (if bought in the local market), but things like meat, eggs and fish are a bit more expensive. Non-Greek items, such as peanut butter, pesto and smoked salmon are quite expensive – my theory is that Greek food is so yummy that Greeks just tend to eat more of their own food and not so much international food, like in the UK. Another evidence of that is the fact that it´s not that common to find international restaurants, even in Athens! Sushi is uncommon and extremely expensive; I am yet to find a Chinese restaurant (in Portugal they are everywhere!); I have only seen two Indian restaurants and they were quite expensive; etc. And, to my huge astonishment, even McDonalds isn´t that common – I have only seen about two or three of them around. I think after Greek food, the most common might be Italian.

And now on a sweeter note – I have just realized I don´t have any photos of desserts or other Greek sweet things! I apologize and blame it on their deliciousness and my greediness – the last thing I think about when I´m about to eat them is taking a photo. I promise that an even more mouth-watering post is yet to come!

To sum up and to cut it short (after all this, I am starving!!), I would like to say that Greek cuisine is one of the best surprises I have had so far during my Hellenic experience.