One summer years and years ago I visited a Greek Island. The moment I stepped out of the plane and into the sunshine, I decided that Greece is a seriously beautiful place. Whenever I am back in the country, I see I was right. People often ask what my very favourite
cuisine is. Next to great taste of food I am equally fascinated by its history.
Food connects people from all over the world, no matter their background. Who
would have thought that there are so many details I didn’t know about Greek
food and Greek traditions? Today there are dishes that are still as firmly
anchored in the Greek diet as they were thousands of years ago. Centuries ago
Greeks cooked with grain products, vegetables, fruits and olives. The Persians
later added yogurt, rice, nuts, and honey and sesame seeds. Arabs spiced things
up with for example cumin, cinnamon and cloves. The Greeks then started
enthusiastically using potatoes and tomatoes in their cooking when these food
staples were first brought from the Americas.
We meet on a sunny morning in the centre of
town. When I arrive I become part of a group of ten people from all walks of
life and from all over the world. We will be taken around the streets of Athens
by the beautiful character Despina, who in the beginning tells us about this
tour and how she had the idea for the first ever guided food safari through
Athens. She was sure tourists would want to hear and learn about the history of
Greek food, and she knew that she wanted to guide people through her town. She
created several tours from scratch and with that had all the ingredients in the
proper proportion. Her vision became reality when she founded Athens Walking
tours.
Despina believes that since we are going to
share food we all have to know each other, and before we start everybody
introduces themselves. Joining a tour like this gives you the headspace to
truly enjoy the day. You wouldn't need to check a map, and you can fully
embrace every moment as you will get lost. We learn about history and culture
of Greek food from Despina’s perspective while she guides us with ease through
the streets of Psiri. Discovering this part of Athens is an adventure. It is
not Plaka or Syntagma Square but a neighbourhood that is pretty much off the
beaten track of most day visitors.
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| Notebook designed by Chris Lee |
Athens and its Heavenly Scented Trees
Close your eyes and imagine the smell of
blossoming bitter orange trees. Thinking of Athens, first thing that springs to
mind is a heavy smog cloud hovering over town, but how could I be so wrong? The
spring air is pregnant with this very sweet smell. The orange fruit looks
striking against the blue sky. Greeks use the peel for making marmalade, and
they add lots of sugar to it. If the product tastes half as good as the scent
of the trees, one is certainly in for a treat. As we talk about this fruit a
priest walks by (carrying a ZARA paper shopping bag) and Despina changes topic
and gets us interested in the history of the Greek Orthodox church.
Greece - A Sesame Koulouri A Day
I don't know about your morning habits, as a
start into the day I drink Cappuccino, I sometimes eat croissants, and deeply
engrained in my morning routine is a bowl of porridge plus fruit. For (many) Greek
people a breakfast means a coffee and a cigarette, whereas a big breakfast
means coffee and four cigarettes (I beg you to not try this at home). As
utterly hair-raising as this is for non-smokers, eating food for breakfast,
just think of beans on toast, is a concept that on the other hand will freak
out most Greeks.
On nearly every third street corner in town
you'd find a street vendor with a small stall selling koulouria. And after
Greeks had their early morning coffee, they would later eat one of these. And
that is exactly what we do. And I can assure you they taste heavenly fresh. The
Turks are just as crazy about this delicacy made from wheat flour, yeast,
sugar, salt and water, plus sesame seeds.
Middle Eastern Honey Pie at a Former Drug Store
We all look at the honey dripping from the loukoumades. After combining wheat flour, salt, yeast, warm water
and honey they have just been fried in vegetable oil moments
earlier. They are surely a straight to the hips type of food, but honestly the
moment they are offered to us I decide the cinnamon sprinkled “mouth fulls” are
too good to resist.
Meat and Fish Market – Greeks Love to Eat Vegetarian
There is this massive fish and meat market in
Athens. We browse along the spotlessly clean kept stalls while we try not to fall
on the slippery floor. Despina gives several warnings; everyone in the group is
prepared to walk cautiously. There are butchered animal pieces literally
everywhere. The hall doesn’t smell, that surely must be a good sign. We pass
several hanging upside-down cow halves, their heads thoughtfully placed next to
the corpse. The skinned sheeps heads on the butcher’s blocks stare at me out of
dead and almost black eyes. And then there are boxes and boxes of fish, big and
small. I wonder where they kill these massive amounts of animals, I don't dare
imagining it. Greek people are into meat but overall they prefer to eat seafood,
and they also love to cook vegetarian, and that especially when it involves
beans.
The Boom of Independent Stores – All for One and One for All
People in Athens really stick together to
get through the crisis. It was expected that many small stores would shut their
doors when the crisis hit but the exact opposite happened. With the crisis in
its full force people from the rest of town started to buy goods at all the
small stores in town and store owners are doing accordingly well. Despina shows
us where to best buy dried lavender, mountain tea (dried leaves of ironwort) and
a variety of herbs and spices that are used in Greek cooking.
At the Delicatessen: From Olives to Mastiha
In this country there has to be olive oil in
everything you eat. Greek food is cooked with olive oil. Full stop. If you fry
goods you do this with sunflower oil and after that (immediately) drizzle live
enhancing olive oil on top. The concept of cooking with anything other than
olive oil is sort of unheard of, and Greeks can't imagine what else one would
want to use. Butter. What? Shaking of heads plus rolling of eyes.
Greece is after Spain and Italy the third biggest producer
of olive oil. The olives grow particularly well in this pure mountainous
climate in Greece. That Italy buys olives from Greece and sells
it as their 'best oil' tells everything about the high quality of Greek olives.
Olives are harvested, pressed and bottled without preservatives.
I wonder why Greeks are so humble when it
comes to their products and not marketing them more. Same goes for Greek
cheese. There are 120 different types of cheese produced in Greece, and it
seems that the only one people know is Feta, OK, the one or other person might
know halloumi too. Despina encourages us to ask for regionally produced cheese
every time we travel in Greece to also get to know the other 118 cheeses. There
are roughly 300 cheese varieties in France, and I am sure everybody can name
many of them. Say cheese and people will think France. Did you know that Greeks
eat more cheese than the people of France per capita?
We sample huge chunks of feta cheese with
fresh farmhouse bread, thyme honey and olive oil.
I'm in foodie heaven, totally inspired by all
the smells and flavours, hungry to absorb every detail, and Despina happily
reveals another Greek foodie secret. She mixes the leftover bread, honey,
cheese and olive oil in a bowl. Popara is simple, yet these few ingredients
combined are another winner altogether.
After we sample our way through Black Olive
Paste, a hot Capsicum Dip, Mustard and chewy Spoon Sweets we finish our visit
at the delicatessen with liquor made from the resin of the mastic tree. It
smells like an unusual wild mix of herbs, and it tastes soft and lingers warmly
in my mouth. With mastiha the Greeks always had their very own version of
chewing gum until someone introduced the convenient stuff from the US. The
resin is popular for its health benefits and now it is fast becoming the new
Greek super food. Despina later shows us a café where to best try mastiha
ice-cream.
Mandarins and Halva at the Fruit and Vegetable Market
The tahini based halva is from India
originally, but it has forever been very popular in Greece. There are different
varieties to choose from. And since the mandarins at the neighbouring stall are
smiling at us too, we eat one of them as well.
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| Athens Street Art |
Let Us Eat Pie
Pies are a true Greek food staple. The chef
preparing the dough for the pies does this with very fast hands. He swirls the
dough sheet several times around and high up into the air before he lays it out
on the counter to fill the savoury ones with spinach and cheese and the sweet
ones with semiola. We eat both varieties hot from the oven. They taste
delectable. As we leave I look over my shoulder to wave the chef goodbye and he
manages to wave back while swirling around the next dough sheet.
The End of the Food Safari Through Athens
In the end we all sit down to eat a surprise
dish. It is amazing to be around people who truly enjoy food and are passionate about it. My research adventure was supported by Athens
Walking Tours. The four hours were hours exceptionally well spent, I learned so
very much about the history of Greek food and left the tour hugely inspired to
explore more of Athens.
About Athens Walking Tours
The company launched in 2004 to provide small
walking tours. The Culinary Tours range from 2.5 hours to four hours. Prices
for food tours are between EUR 44 and EUR 74.
The company offers many more specialised
tours, for details on all tours: Athens
City Tour & Acropolis -Just the Acropolis tour -Acropolis, Ancient
Agora & the Attalos Museum -Acropolis, City Tour & Acropolis
Museum Tour -Athens Food Tour - Sweet Bites and Sights (Acropolis & Plaka) -Athens Wine Tasting Tour -Athens Cooking Lesson and Dinner, please visit the website. You can also find Athens Walking Tours on Twitter and Instagram.
Top Tip: Book in advance and go hungry.
What is your favourite Greek food? Can’t wait to hear
from you.
From Berlin with love
