Greece - Korina Miller [55]
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The Illustrated Greek Wine Book by Nico Manessis is the definitive guide, tracing the history of Greek wine and profiling leading Greek winemakers and wine regions. Also check out www.greekwine.gr.
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Beer
Greeks are not big beer drinkers, consuming about half the EU per capita average. The most common beer is locally brewed Amstel and Heineken. Major Greek brands include Mythos and Alfa, while smaller brewer, Craft, has draught beer on tap at bars around the country.
Boutique breweries produce some fine brews. Look out for Vergina, a lager produced by the Macedonian Thrace brewery, the organic Piraiki beer made in Piraeus, Hillas from Rodopi and Crete’s Rethymniaki blonde and dark lagers. Corfu produces a unique nonalcoholic ginger beer called Tsitsibira.
Hot Beverages
A legacy of Ottoman rule, Greek coffee has a rich aroma and distinctive taste. It is brewed in a briki (narrow-top copper pot) – traditionally on a hot sand apparatus called a hovoli – and served in a small cup. It should be sipped slowly until you reach the mudlike grounds at the bottom (don’t drink them) and is best drunk metrios (medium, with one sugar).
The ubiquitous frappé is the iced instant coffee concoction that you see everyone drinking. Espresso coffee also comes in a refreshing chilled form (freddo) or freddo cappuccino.
While tsai (tea) is usually a sorry story (hot water and a cheap-brand teabag), the chamomile and tsai tou vounou (mountain teas) that grow wild all over Greece are excellent. Crete’s endemic Diktamo (dittany) is known for its medicinal qualities, while the island’s other reputedly medicinal tipple (found in many parts of Greece) is rakomelo – warm raki with honey and cloves.
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EAT YOUR WORDS
Get behind the cuisine scene by getting to know the language. For pronunciation guidelines Click here.
Food Glossary
STAPLES
MEAT, FISH & SEAFOOD
FRUIT & VEGETABLES
DRINKS
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Environment
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THE LAND
WILDLIFE
NATIONAL PARKS
ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
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THE LAND
Think Greece and you’ll likely picture rugged mountains, indigo water and innumerable islands. These are certainly the dominating features of the Greek landscape which was shaped by submerging seas, volcanic explosions and mineral-rich terrain. Mountains rise over 2000m and occasionally tumble down into plains, particularly in Thessaly and Thrace, while the Aegean and Ionian Seas flow between and link together the country’s farthest flung islands.
No matter where you go in Greece, it’s impossible to be much more than 100km from the sea. The country is made up of a mainland peninsula and around 1400 islands, of which 169 are inhabited. The mainland is 131,944 sq km, with an indented coastline stretching for 15,020km. Meanwhile, the islands fill 400,000 sq km of territorial waters and are divided into six groups: the Cyclades, the Dodecanese, the islands of the Northeastern Aegean, the Sporades, the Ionian and the Saronic Gulf Islands. The two largest islands, Crete and Evia, are independent of the island groups.
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The Greek Orthodox Church is the second-largest landowner in Greece.
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During the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous and even later geological periods, Greece was a shallow oxygen-rich sea. The continuous submerging of land created large tracts of limestone through the whole submarine land mass. Later, as the land emerged from the sea to form the backbone of the current topography, a distinctly eroded landscape with crystalline rocks and other valuable minerals began to appear, marking the spine that links the north and south of the mainland today. Limestone caves are a major feature of this karst landscape, shaped by the dissolution of a soluble layer of bedrock.
Volcanic activity once regularly rocked Greece with force – one of