History of Greek Food

 
Garden is a place of colors… Garden is a place of battle … Both gardener and plants battle against poor soil, unruly weeds, plant diseases and bad weather conditions. The pleasure of home vegetable garden is painful. But garden is a place of hope.
This week we have amaranths shooting towards sky….
 
Boiling is not the only [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.  [...]

 
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 [...]

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 [...]