History of Greek Food

” Their heart is like an artichoke” Greeks say, describing those who are in love with love and keep a leaf for everyone in sight, like an “I love you…. and you…. and you”.   Here,  the phrase retains the meaning of the original French expression  ”avoir un coeur d´artichaut”: to  easily fall in love.

But they also say “Their heart is like an artichoke”  referring to those  who are prickly [...]

 
Angel hair soup: with angel hair pasta, chopped potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, onions,  lentils,  bay leaf,  without olive oil. It is eaten during Good Friday.
Bacaliaros, salt cod: once an inexpensive food but now it is a luxury. It is prepared in many ways and is the emblematic food of the Feast of Annunciation and Palm Sunday.

Cheese soft, fresh: often baked in savory or sweet [...]

A Christmas meal
 

A  dinner after Christmas
 

A New Year’s Eve dinner
 
Holiday season is finally over…
No more tables filled with mountain of delicacies.
Though  they hid us for a few days from world’s despair and Greece’s economic depression.
Holiday season is over…  And we cannot longer pretend that poverty, desperation and hopelessness don’t surround us.

Hard, old bread combined with milk or other liquid (sauce, olive oil, butter, stock, wine etc.) is found for centuries all over Mediterranean as a way of transforming leftovers into a dish in its own right. The ancient Greeks gave the name maza to those bread- based foods; later they were called by various names [...]

One must sacrifice to the gods for three purposes: to give honor, to show gratitude, or because of one’s need of good things. (Theophrastus, On Piety, frag. 12, Potscher, 42-4). And in return, the ancient gods were pleased with the expressions of human gratitude (sacrifices, libations, offerings, dances etc.) to them.
This complex of ideas: man asks, gods give, [...]

In Sfakia, a mountainous area of Southwestern Crete that falls into the sea, and specifically in Loutro village, there is the custom of offering man-shaped breads to St. Antonios on the 17th of January, date of his name’s celebration.
The custom of anthropomorphic breads or foods is found in several cultures. Small anthropomorphic breads, known as [...]