The dish that brought Greek cuisine fame worldwide is, no doubt, a salad. Greeks call it horiatiki; the rest of the world knows it as Greek village salad. It appears on the menus of Greek and Mediterranean restaurants from Athens to Adelaide. It’s simple—a mixture of tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, green peppers, olives, oregano, olive oil, […]
The ancient Greeks had a decidedly more complex palate when it came to sauces than do their contemporary heirs. In today’s Greek kitchen, sauces and dressings tend to be relatively simple and easy to prepare. Avgolemono. This is the fundamental Greek sauce-liaison, used to flavor all sorts of dishes, from soups to stews to stuffed, […]
In ancient religions, eggs (but not necessarily hen’s eggs) played an important role in the fertility rites held during the spring Equinox at the end of March. Eggs were used symbolically in the orgiastic worship rituals held in honor of Dionyssus, as well as in the rituals surrounding the worship of the ancient fertility goddess […]
One of the most curious sights at the Athens Central Market and at itinerant farmers’ markets are the egg-vendors, erstwhile entrepreneurs who sell nothing but…eggs. If anything attests to the importance of the egg on the Greek table it is this commercial specialization. (That’s not to say, of course, that you can’t find eggs in […]
SWEETS IN THE GREEK KITCHEN Seasonal fruit is the dessert of choice among traditional Greeks, a custom maintained to this day both at home and in tavernas. But the Greek sweet repertoire is nonetheless large and diverse. Generally they fall into several categories: spoon sweets; whole-pan baked sweets; creams; fried and honey-drizzled sweets; cookies and […]