Several years ago, I spent the night before «Clean Monday», as Greeks call the first day of Lent, baking the traditional Lenten flatbread lagana with a local Athenian baker. Even though he went about his business methodically and professionally, turning out more than a thousand or so loaves, he didn’t fail to observe all...
A Meatless Monday recommendation should probably be a lot more accessible than a traditional dish from the mountains of Western Crete could ever hope to be. But when I cam across this dish from my friend Diana Farr Louis’ wonderful book Feasting and Fasting in Crete, I suddenly craved a warming bowl of this...
Many cultures, from Asia to the south of Europe, make symbolic good luck foods at the start of the New Year. But only in Greece do we find the custom of a token or charm inserted in a luck-bestowing bread. That bread—or pie, or cake—is called Vassilopita, and New Year’s among Greeks all over...
Many a newcomer to Greek cuisine will already know one of its classic dishes—spanakopita, or spinach pie. Spanakopita is just one of an endless array of Greek savory pies. Pita—as the Greeks call the general category of pies—is this cuisine’s soul food. It is the dish that home cooks of yore made on both...
Yogurt, octopus, lamb, olives, oregano. These foods “belong” to the Greek kitchen in the world’s eye. Not so corn. Yet this American staple has been part of the Greek table for several hundred years, most likely introduced and disseminated by the Ottoman Turks, who may have encountered it first in Africa. The Turkish word...
Yemista is the generic term in Greek for stuffed vegetables, and there are myriad recipes in this category of foods. Generally, stuffed vegetables are a summer preparation, and the classics include stuffed peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, and eggplants. Often these are all prepared in the same pan, with the same stuffing, and baked all together....
Visit us on the Blue Zone island Ikaria, where people have the longest life spans in the world, for a week of glorious Greek cooking classes in an ancient Greek-island village.
