Greece - Korina Miller [51]
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Seafood mains include octopus in wine with macaroni, grilled soupies (cuttlefish), squid stuffed with cheese and herbs or rice, and fried salted cod served with skordalia (a lethal garlic and potato dip).
Sweet Treats
Greeks traditionally serve fruit rather than sweets after a meal but there’s no shortage of delectable Greek sweets and cakes, as the proliferation of zaharoplasteia (sweet shops) will attest. Sweets are offered to guests with coffee or taken as gifts when visiting someone’s home.
Traditional sweets include baklava, loukoumadhes (ball-shaped doughnuts served with honey and cinnamon), kataïfi (chopped nuts inside shredded angel-hair pastry), rizogalo (rice pudding) and galaktoboureko (custard-filled pastry). Dodoni and Kayak are excellent local ice cream brands and it is worth looking out for places selling politiko pagoto (Constantinople-style ice cream). Traditional syrupy fruit preserves, ghlika kutalyu (spoon sweets), are served on tiny plates as a welcome offering, but are also delicious as a topping on yoghurt or ice cream.
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REGIONAL SPECIALITIES
While you’ll find the staple dishes throughout Greece, seek out the diverse regional variations and specialities. Some areas have dishes unheard of in other parts of Greece, such as kavourma, the smoked water buffalo made around Serres, or pies made with nettles in northern Greece. Local cuisine is invariably influenced by the produce of the region, from the oil-rich foods of the Peloponnese to the red peppers in Florina, the giant beans of Prespa in the north, to the foraged wild greens and herbs of the barren Cyclades.
The cuisine of northern Greece is influenced by the eastern flavours introduced by Asia Minor refugees, and uses less olive oil and more peppers and spices than the rest of the country. Thessaloniki and its mezes culture has had the gastronomic upper hand over Athens, while northern coastal towns of Volos are known for seafood mezedhes such as fried mussels or mussel pilaf. Ioannina’s specialities include crayfish, frogs legs and kokoretsi, while Epiros is one of Greece’s biggest cheese-producing regions.
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For a cinematic feast, Tassos Boulmetis’ 2003 film Politiki Kouzina (A Touch of Spice) is a bittersweet story about Greek refugees from Turkey, told through a boy’s passion for food.
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The Peloponnese is known for simpler herb-rich one-pot dishes. As the biggest producers of olive oil, it is not surprising that the Peloponnese and Crete have the biggest variety of ladhera (vegetable dishes baked or stewed with plenty of olive oil).
The cuisine of the Ionian Islands (which were never under Turkish rule) has an Italian influence, seen in dishes such as sofrito, a braised meat with garlic-and-wine sauce.
Cretan specialities include spiky wild artichokes, soupies with wild fennel or horta, hohlii (snails) and dakos (rusks moistened and topped with tomato, olive oil and cheese). Volvoi (bitter bulbs) are pickled on Crete and elsewhere.
Santorini and the Cyclades are renowned for their fava (split pea purée served with lemon juice and finely cut red onions), sun-dried tomato fritters and wild capers. On Sifnos, revithadha (a local chick-pea stew) is slow-cooked overnight in a specially shaped clay pot.
You’ll find excellent cured meats across Greece, from the vinegar cured apaki (Crete), olive-oil stored pasto (the Mani) and specialities, such as louza (Tinos and Mykonos) and siglino (Crete and Peloponnese).
Look out for regional sweet specialities, such as amygdhalota (almond sweets) from Andros, and Thessaloniki’s favourite bougatsa (creamy semolina/custard pudding wrapped in a pastry envelope, baked and sprinkled with icing sugar).
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For the largest collection of Greek recipes online try www.greek-recipe.com or www.gourmed.com, or check out Diane Kochilas’ Greek Food TV segments on YouTube.
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Quick Eats
Souvlaki is still the favourite fast food, both the gyros and skewered versions wrapped in pitta bread, with tomato, onion and lashings of tzatziki.