History of Greek Food

Compare those three different Name Day- celebration menus of Cretan upper- middle class:

1) A dinner of 1970 served in the dining room, with coffee, brandy, liqueurs and smoke in the living room. 

Fried myzithrokalitsouna ( Cretan small pies stuffed with myzithra, a local ricotta -style cheese, and mint)

boiled chicken with  pilaf rice

rabbit stifado

beef pot roast with fried potatoes 

baked lamb

tzatziki

tomato, cucumber salad

lettuce salad with roquefort/ olive oil dressing

seasonal fruits

mixed fresh fruits in banana jelly

home made praline ice cream

2) A buffet -style party of 1988. The food was served in the dining room with the guests switching room to room, eating, drinking and dancing.

Bâton sale

baked myzithrokalitsouna

avocado, yogurt, garlic, tabasco dip served with fresh carrot strips

eggs ala Russe

potato salad

Russian salad

canned tuna, potato, chopped lettuce, mayonnaise salad  

salmon quiche

pasta, bacon, cheese, double cream soufflé

Indian chicken curry

baked lamb with garlic and rosemary

choux à la crème

pavé au chocolat

3) A summer buffet of 2010. The food was served in the kitchen/dining area but the 60 guests enjoyed their dinner on  the veranda of the house.

choriatiki salad

lettuce, walnut salad

red & white cabbage salad

russian salad

tuna, potato, mayonnaise salad 

okra with tomato sauce

kalitsounia stuffed with amaranth and cheese

mushroom pie

ham and cheese pie

zucchini pie

minced meat crepes

moussaka

pasta, cheese, double cream souffle

pilaf rice cooked in chicken broth

boiled lamb

barbecued pork chops, beef kebabs, meat balls, sausages

vegetable- stuffed minced meat roll

spiced meat roll

rabbit stifado

lamb cooked with artichokes and dill

tsigariasto kid

baked lamb with potatoes　

fruit salad

galaktoboureko

chocolate cream cake 

Buffet of 2010

 All menus recognize the  importance and personal meaning of the occasion: they  honor the name day of host or hostess and show  concern for the welfare of the guests. Plenty and tasty food  is  the top concern. Despite  the great variety of frozen and canned foods, dishes served on name-day’s feast demonstrate  care on the part of the hosts.  Some dishes on 1988 and 2010 menus can  be made in advance, but all of them are hand prepared and require effort.

The three menus also imply consumption of energy, time and money.  The Cretan feast-menus could be viewed as a reflection of the house owners’ social status, if in Cretan homes the preparation of festive food was not of utmost importance as expression of hospitality and friendship.  Though time and energy consuming, the preparation of cooked and baked dishes usually falls on  female members of family while barbecuing and grilling are  considered a man’s job.  

The dinner of 1970 is a combination of international trends and Cretan specialties. The  food of the buffet- style party (1988) is a mixture of  French, Indian, Russian and Italian cuisines. Avocado dip was a new trend, even if the tree was cultivated in Crete since 1960. Here, the growing interest in ethnic foods  was associated with a major requirement: surprise your guests! 

The number of the meat dishes on the menu of 1970 (4) is not comparable to the number of meat dishes on the menu of 2010 (13),  both menus are meat based though. The large number of meat dishes on the menu of 2010 reflects, too, the eating habits of modern Cretans.

Times are changing and the content of the menus  may change but the message remains the same:  You honor me with your presence, you are my guest, you are  important, I will take care of you, I will surprise you and make my best for you.

The quality of soil is of prime importance in growing a successful organic vegetable garden. Unfortunately, our Cretan garden has poor, heavy, tightly compacted clay soil.  To improve it, we  double dig it, amend it with lime,  add animal manure, organic minerals and grow plants -like legumes- that add nutrients into  it.  Vegetables are rotated each year. This  helps them resist  pests and diseases.   

Everyone knows how hard it is to grow organic -and  clay soil makes it harder- totally worth it though. Moreover,  the short duration of vegetable crop  makes us creative cooks while it lasts.

This  morning our garden provided those beauties you see below …

The peppers were beautiful  to eat.  I stuffed them with  chopped tomato and  onion, mint,  barley bulgur and raisins. The filling was sprinkled with salt,  ground black pepper and olive oil. 

I placed them on a bed of tomato/olive oil/ chopped garlic sauce and baked them at 180 C for about 20 minutes.

I also made a salad of tiny tomato and purslane sprinkled with sea salt and coarsely ground pepper, then sprinkled with virgin olive oil and vinegar. 

Although melon is full of strong aroma,  the mouth watering and thirst quenching watermelon is perfect for this hot, hot summer day.

But you already know it… 

And, of course,  if you grow some lavender, the second better thing is lavender  ice cream!

An early morning swim  in the clear, calm sea is  the best way to start your day …

Next,  a walk through a symphony of wild seaside plants:

The spectaculare yellow horned poppy (Glaucium flavum, gr. kitrini paparouna, κίτρινη παπαρούνα ) grows here. Like other members of its family, it contains poisonous alkaloids. 

The Latin  name Eryngium maritimum for sea holly ( Gr. αngathia, αγκαθιά, μοσχάγκαθο)comes from the Greek word ‘erynggion’  ηρύγγιον.  ‘Maritimum’ refers to the plant’s seashore habitat.  Pliny mentioned that Greeks used both stem and root as food, served raw or boiled.  The young flowering shoots  are still eaten today. They are blanched, boiled and served with olive oil, vinegar and chopped garlic or they are cooked with eggs or lamb.    The roasted roots taste like chestnut.

The sea shore is also home to thyme (thymari, θυμάρι)….

…..and rock samphire (Crithmum maritimum, kritamo, κρίταμο).
The name crithmum comes from Greek krithe = barley, from resemblance of its fruit to barelycorn. The leaves are mainly collected from young, tender plants  before flowering and  eaten fresh or pickled in brine or vinegar. Pickled leaves  are used in salads. Served with olive oil, they  make a balanced accompaniment to Cretan raki and ouzo.  

 And here is the perfect place for a glass of flavored iced coffee before going to work.

Yes, the early morning swim  is exceptionally rewarding.

ΓΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ.

Salad.

A summer without it would be very dull.

Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers straight from the garden, olives -that came from our olive trees- preserved in bitter orange juice. Onion juice and bitter orange juice marinated fresh tuna. Boiled potatoes. Sea salt and ground pepper. Olive oil. Small barley rusks wet  with fresh tomato juice and olive oil. Basil leaves.

Heaven…

ΓΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ

In Plato’s (c. 400 B.C.) ideal state men would lived on a healthy diet eating wholemeal barley or wheat bread and galettes. Socrates, however, suggested that this meant the whole population would be living on pig-food. The truth is that  in those days, Athenians  featured barley cakes (maza) and barley bread in their diet but they liked their bread white- the favourite bread of the rich too.

To many modern people it may seem surprising that Athenians  enjoyed about 66 kinds of bread and cakes, with more or less interesting names as regards ways of baking, shape of bread, ingredients and origin. A variety of breads were made for some religious festivity and to be offered to some particural divinity as well.

The average Athenian ate about 800 gr bread daily but bread was also figured in the diet of the very wealthy.

Athenians could grow wheat and barley but Athens had not the ability to produce all wheat it needed on its own soil without resorting to trade. The city-state imported wheat from other countries:  Black Sea Region, Sicily and Egypt.

The diet of Athenians was very simple, why, then, 66 kinds of bread and cakes? Fine athenian bakery developed because there were advances in technology,  economic conditions, political conditions, cultural influences, trade, abundance of ingredients at least among the upper classes, public bakeries’ establishment, evolving taste and fashion…

There were bakeries, yes, but of all household tasks the most serious was  breadmaking.

Pestles for pounding the grains, saddle querns and rotary hand querns for grinding the flour need muscle power. In classical Athens home grinding was done by woman’s muscle power… On a daily basis, farmers, poor women and women slaves spent about 5 ½ hours to make flour for a family of 3 adults and 3 children.

Heavy, heavy task .

Gorgeous sixth-century B.C. black-figure lekythos from Boeotia. It depicts the entire process, from crushing the grains with a mortar to kneading dough and shaping loaves

After all grains had been grinded, the women  pushed the flour through a sieve to remove brans,  kneaded and  baked.

 There were ash baked breads  and lovely crusty loaves mixed with cheese and honey.
What did they taste like?

All these were the subject of ” Egkrides,* plakountes,** 8 white and 8 black breads. Manufacture and use of dough in Classical Athens”,  the talk  I gave  at the invitation of Historical Folklore and Archaeological Society of Crete (ILAEK). I spoke in front of an audience that was curious about ancient breads and cakes, in the beautiful environment of Kipos, the open air cinema in the municipal Garden of Hania.  

To get a taste of ancient Athenian breads and cakes, I made 4 kinds of bread and 2 kinds  of cake that reflected both ancient Greek ingredients and baking techniques.

Vlomiaios: rectangular bread. Streptikios artos:  made with pepper, a little milk and a small amount of olive oil. Voletinos: a bread flavored with poppy seeds. I used emmer  flour (triticum dicoccum)  for cheese bread and vlomiaios and triticum compactum for voletinos and streptikios. The honey- cheese plakous and the sesame-honey-milk plakous (no photos included) were made with semidalis (durum wheat flour), the finest wheat flour. I substituted grape must for sourdough in voletinos… it gave excellent baking results.

Yes, after the talk there was bread-tasting and we had fun doing it!

*Egkrides: pieces of dough fried in olive oil.

**Plakountes (pl., plakous~ sing.): a large variety of cakes. There was no really difference between plakous and bread…  although, fine flour, cheeese, honey,spices, seeds and herbs were more appreciated in plakountes.   (The latin placenta comes from an. Gr.plakounta)

ΓΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ

“Geoponica” lists various methods for curing olives…  My second olive -experiment was olives preserved in honey… in two types of honey, actually. 1 kilo of almost ripe olives was cured in thyme honey and 400 grams were stored  in  ”bitter” monofloral honey of strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo).

No aromatic seeds and leaves were added… but yes, I cut the olives around with a razor blade, sprinkled the same fine salt over them and  4 days later I poured them into the honey…  Yes, storage temperature was the same for all  olive fruits,  however, these ones were totally different from the olives cured in petimezi , which were a complete disaster.  Three months later, the honey treated olives  had a firm crunchy flesh and their nutty, salty taste was a nice complement to the strong taste of  honey.

In my opinion, the honey of strawberry tree works best on olives, though  both ancient Greeks and Byzantines preferred thyme honey …  I was amazed by the  outstanding flavor and the nice hit of bitterness.  Stunning result!

Olives cured in honey go perfect with cheese…. I could not resist the temptation to cook with them, though. Things that we think of as sweet go so well with cephalopods , so I used the olives to make  a filling and sauce for stuffed calamari (squid).

STUFFED SQUID WITH SPINACH, FENNEL AND OLIVES CURED IN HONEY (CALAMARI GEMISTO ME SPANAKI, MARATHO KAI ELIES STO MELI)

For the filling and sauce I used 30 medium sized  olives cured in honey, pitted and roughly chopped (or 1/2 cup raisins), mixed with 1 large onion (finely chopped), 2 cups of spinach (roughly chopped), 2/3 cup of wild fennel (chopped), salt and pepper.

I  stuffed 1 kg  small fresh, cleaned calamari  with the  filling, leaving a little room for it to expand.   I combined the remaining mixture with 300 gr chopped tomatoes and  1 tbs tomato paste and sautéed it with 4 tbs olive oil. I placed the squids in a casserole  and I  added the sauce, 1/2 - 3/4 cup of virgin olive oil, 4 tbs mavrodapne and water to cover. I covered the casserole and let simmer over low heat for about 45- 60 minutes,  until squid was tender.

How to clean the squid, here

ΓΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ.

Geoponica* make it clear that this should be the best compound of olives.
So, I followed the instructions and I used 2 kilos of large ripe olives gathered with the hand.
I cut them around with a razor blade (no, i didn’t use a sharp reed), threw them into a clay pot and sprinkled very fine salt over them.
When salt was dissolved ( it took 4 days) I had some sapa** in readiness in another clay jar.
I added citron leaves, seeds of wild fennel, carnabadium (ethiopic cumin), parsley seeds and seeds of dill and I poured the olives into the flavored, “syruped” grape must. The sapa covered them.
I put a plate on top of the olives to be sure they stay submerged and I sealed the jar. I stored it in the depths of a cool pantry, among several jars with olives preserved with ancient and old fashioned methods.
But things stored at the back can get forgotten….
Yes, I forgot that jar.
5 months later, I found it in the darkness of the almost empty pantry.
The aroma of cumin and fennel hit my nose as soon as I opened it, dill and parsley were barely noticable.
But the taste of the olives was unpleasantly salty- sweet and the texture was mushy and very, very soft … bliah.
Where did recipe go wrong?
Any suggestions are more than welcome.

*Cassianus Bassus is a late 6th - early 7th century author, whose “Eclogae de re rustica” is a compilation of agricultural literature drawing heavily on the work of another Greek compiler, Vindonius Anatolius (4th century). Bassus’ collection was revised by a 10th century unknown Byzantine author under the title Geoponica, in honor of the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus. (XXVIII, Geoponika: Agricultural Pursuits by Thomas Owen 1805-06).

**Sapa: grape must, boiled over a slow fire until it had been reduced to 1/3; petimezi.

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Fire  has a major role in the process of human evolution, development of language, socialization, technologies. Civilization would not be possible without fire.  And matches  made much easier its  lighting.

Salt shaped civilization from the very beginning.  It is so essential to the humans that did conciderably influence the history of mankind. 

The history of sugar is linked with  ruthless profiteering, colonial ambitions, human labor and  tragedy. It was once a medicine, a panacea kept in locked box by those who could afford it, and an exotic, rare, costly luxury. 

  Olive oil is not only a staple in the diet of the olive producing regions, but is also a key component of Greek identity. It is tied to many folk and religious rituals and holds a special symbolic significance in the crucial events in the cycle of life.   

In 1897, matches, salt, sugar and olive oil  were some of the Greek state monopolies. But Greece in order to service the public debt assigned to the Internationl Financial Control- which was imposed after 1893 bankarptcy-  left the profits of the monopolies and the custom duties of the port of Piaraeus   to the creditors.   Greeks  experienced the consequences of that bunkruptcy and the cruelty of debt  until 1978.

It may sound bizarre, but if fire, olive oil and salt are symbols of civilization and sugar is a symbol of pure pleasure,  the imposition of the IFC on these commodities  seemed  like the symbol of a leap away from the civilized life.

ΓΙΑ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ

In the recent years there is an annual festival for almost every food, be it chestnuts, strawberries, cherries, pies, anchovies, snails etc.
Villages and towns promote the food festivals as a celebration of their local products and culinary tradition, both worth sharing with a wider audience. Τhe truth is that those celebrations have more to do with the desire for regional economic development via events featuring dishes made from local cuisine, than with culinary heritage per se.

Artichoke festival in Iria (Peloponnesos)

In May  a plethora of artichoke festivals takes place throughout Greece, and particularly in Crete, Peloponnesos and Tinos, the areas where the finests examples are found.
Dozens of people prepare and cook artichokes for the hundreds of visitors who could sit at the dining tables.

Here are some of the most popular dishes: marinated artichokes, fried artichokes, puffy omelettes with artichokes, sausages and potatoes, artichoke pilavs, artichokes ala polita, moussaka, pastichio, stuffed artichokes, artichokes cooked with peas, broad beans,  shrimps, garlic sauce,  yogourt,  fish,  octopus,  lamb etc. etc.

It’s clear that, although the dishes selected are considered by cooks and eaters to have their roots in a very old food tradition, many of them have evolved over the past couple of decades.  
Two of the most favorite methods of preparation  of artichokes  are the stuffed artichokes and the artichoke pie.  
Sauteed artichoke hearts are stuffed with a rich filling of minced meat and cheese and are topped with a thick nutmeg scented bechamel enriched with cheese, before being baked. 
As for the pie, it can be surrounded by a  pastry leaf or  be a crustless pie. In the second version, it  is also called souffle.  
Which is interesting because it is  not really a soufflé- it has neither a roux as its starting point  nor  an egg-white foam-  but, yes,  it is a delectable and delicate ”pie”, inflated above the dish by oven heat. 
French and Italian influences can be found in these recipes, which have been developed by urban cuisine between 1935 and 1970.  They are considered part of the traditional culinary heritage, though.   

But “roots”, are both physical and  imaginary, I  say .

Artichoke pie (Artichoke soufle, agkinaropita)

a buttered 32×22x7 cm baking dish
1 tb olive oil
1  loaf of white bread, crust removed cut into medium slices
3 garlic teeth, chopped
tsp. of fresh thyme
salt
ground black pepper
12-14  poached fresh artichoke hearts
1 1/2 cup grated Graviera cheese (or Gruyere) mixed with 1/2  cup grated kefalotyri cheese (or Parmesan) 
1 1/2 cup creme fraiche
3 cups of bechamel sauce

Saute garlic in olive oil until until light brown and fragrant.  Make bechamel sauce and set aside.  Lay a single layer of bread slices, sprinkle the garlic and season with thyme, salt and pepper.  Sprinkle 4 tbs of cheese. Spoon a layer of artichoke pieces, followed by some grated cheese and artichoke pieces. Pour  creme fraiche  over artichokes and sprinkle with cheese . Cover with bechamel sauce and bake until the surface turns light brown (preheated oven, 200°C, 30-35 minutes).
There is a variation on the recipe with no bechamel sauce. In this case we use 2 cups creme fraiche.  

Artichoke festival
 

 Here is another variation of artichoke pie.

ΓΙΑ  ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ ΕΔΩ.

When the international demand for black raisins- the major export product of Greece- failed (1893), Greek government bought surplus raisins to produce cheap alcohol, alcoholic beverages and syrup (stafidine). Thus, raisins started to play a major role in alcoholic industry and industrial manufacturing of confectionery products.  Moreover, in 1936   the use of sugar was prohibited in confectionery industry by law. Though carob syrup and other fruit syrups were also used,  raisin syrup remained  the predominant sweetener until 1965.

Today, stafidine is used in bakery products and wine making  (it increases wine’s alcohol potential). 

STAFIDINE

To make raisin syrup at home is actually  fairly simple.

  A 1:2 ratio of black raisins and water is needed (I used 2 cups of raisins)

Allow raisins to soak for 48 hours in the water

Run raisins mixed with water  through a food processor.

Squeeze them through a muslin or a cheesecloth a couple of times.  

Collect the liquid in a pot.

 Add 1 tablespoon of wood ash to the liquid, stir, and let sit for 2 hours.

It will make a froth. Filter the liquid through the cheesecloth.

Bring the liquid to a boil, lower the heat  and cook uncovered until forms a dense syrup.

Store in a clean jar.

The home made stafidine can be used as a replacement for  sugar, though some caution is required because it is sweeter than sugar. 

It is a fabulous topping for soft, fresh goat cheese,  yoghurt, ice  cream and many sweet dishes.  Mix it with cold water  to make a deliciously refreshing beverage (1/5 ratio of syrup and water)

A piece of  bread spread with thick raisin syrup (threpsine), was the easiest snack for the kids until  the 1960s.

 A related version of raisin syrup  can be made with dried figs. 

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