The Greek Food

Category: Blog

  • The best Greek Food Festivals

    The best Greek Food Festivals

    There is a long list of reasons to visit Greece; unparalleled history, incredibly scenery, nightlife that ranges from dance clubs to theatre, and some of the best beaches in the world.  If that isn’t enough, you have to consider the food. Greek and Mediterranean food has always enjoyed a fairly high degree of popularity. However the amount of recently published research which points to the health benefits of Greek food, along with the recent “foodie” revolution has elevated Greek foods to its highest level of popularity ever.

    The main point is that Greek food simply tastes good and a great way to experience the authentic flavours is by incorporating one of the major Greek food festivals during your Greek holiday.

    The Mushroom Festival

    Grevena, located in the northern part of Greece, is the country’s mushroom capital. Over two hundred species of mushrooms grow among the green hills of the area.  The mushroom “season” officially ends at the end of summer and each year mushroom fans, chefs, and merchants from all over Greece arrive for the annual festival.  Visitors can participate in seminars to learn more about the delicate and delectable fungi and take part in mushroom exploration tours.

    One of the best parts of the festival is, obviously, the opportunity to sample various delicacies such as mushroom jam, truffles, mushroom liqueur, mushroom pickles, along with numerous pastas and other dishes which incorporate mushrooms.

    The festival also features live music, camping, and hiking through the scenic landscape.

    Athens Street Food Festival            

    One of the hottest trends in the food world is the “street food” craze. Street food is a rather broad term that incorporates everything from traditional fare to unique fusion recipes served up from kiosks, food trucks, and pop-up restaurants.

    The Athens Street Food Festival is one of the newest food festivals in Greece and one which enthusiastically celebrates the street food movement.  Foods from around the world are served up in the centre of the city.  Special beer and beverage areas feature everything from milkshakes to elaborate alcohol concoctions.

    In keeping with the whole street food vibe, local DJs and live bands provide live music.

    The Feta Cheese Festival

    Feta is possibly one of the best-known Greek food contributions. Every other September, the town of Elassona celebrates feta’s contribution to the city.

    Elassona accounts for almost of third of Greece’s total feta production. The festival which features live music, arts and a street fair is primarily aimed at strengthening the areas businesses and financial autonomy.  In all honesty most visitors simply come to enjoy the cheese and the innovative ways it is served.

    According to Greek mythology cheese making was presented to humans by the gods. It is only fitting that Elassona is only 30 minutes from Mount Olympus.

    The Corfu Beer Festival

    If for some reason you need further incentive to visit the stunning beaches and landscapes of Corfu, you can use the Corfu Beer Festival as another reason.

    The five-day festival summer festival is another of the more recent annual festivals and offers free admission.  Each year the festival’s organisers select one country to be featured during the festival, highlighting their local and national beverages, alongside those of the Corfu brewers and distillers.

    The festival not only highlights beer, but also includes local cuisine and that of the featured country, along with arts, music, and daily performances.

    The Sardine Festival

    The town of Skala Kaloni on the Aegean Sea is home of the best sardines in Europe. During the first week of August, the town’s main square is transformed into one large open-air restaurant, which is devoted to showcasing the tasty fish.

    Guests can sample pastes (fresh sardines that were caught that morning and salted on the boat), grilled, and fried sardines.  Local music and performances, and ouzo naturally, are offered alongside the various sardine themed dishes.

    The Chestnut Festival

    The hillsides surrounding the small village of Elos in Crete are covered with chestnut trees. Every October the residents of Elos and the surrounding villages gather to celebrate their favourite nut. The festival is fairly small and attracts mostly locals along with a small number of tourists. Those that do attend are treated to local performances along with roasted chestnuts and chestnut sweets accompanied by lots of honey tsikoudia (a fragrant grape beverage which has an alcohol content of about 60%).

    The Snail Festival

    A slightly bigger Crete festival is the Snail Festival in Vlaheronitisa. This festival totally debunks the theory that snails are a French delicacy.  Snails are a regular part of the local diet with most families enjoying them at least once a week.  Visitors from across Greece, and Europe, arrive in the city every August to enjoy the wide range of preparations including sautéed, fried, and oven baked with artichokes, zucchini and potatoes, alongside some more exotic preparations.

    As is typical of Cretan festivals the snails are accompanied by tsikoudia or you can have the following snails recipe.

    The Artichoke Festival

    Every May Tinos Island celebrates one of the staples of the Mediterranean diet, the artichoke. Local producers begin the work of cleaning more than 10,000 artichokes ten days in advance of the festival. They are then prepared in dozens of ways including with vinegar, fried, stuffed, in omelettes and soufflé, au gratin, and artichoke moussaka and served to guests in the central village square.

    The Eggplant Festival

    The fishing village of Leonidio is home to a special type of sweet eggplant known as tsakonikes. The eggplant is grown without pesticides and is one of the relatively few products to receive Protected Designations of Origin (PDO) status.

    The festival is held each August and features a traditional cooking competition (the only rule is “use eggplant), music, and the opportunity to sample dozens of eggplant dishes.

    The Lentil Festival

    The Lentil Festival on the island of Lefkada in the Ionian Sea is part of an annual mystical ritual. The area is known for producing the best lentils in Greece due to its unique soil and climate. The festival includes a celebration of the lentil with the typical recipes and tastings. The following day festival goers worship at the small church of Agios Donatos, which was named after the bishop of the island in 283 AD.

  • What is the “Clean Monday” day?

    What is the “Clean Monday” day?

    The Clean Monday is the first day of Lent, the fasting Easter for all orthodox. By folklorists it is considered the epilogue of Bacchic festivities of Carnival, which effectively start on what we call “Tsiknopempth” (the Pancake Day) and end on Clean Monday.

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  • My Top 10 Greek Foods to try

    My Top 10 Greek Foods to try

    Oh Greece, lovely Greece! The sun! The historic monuments!  The beautiful sandy beaches! …and obviously the famously tasty food!  I guess there are so many things you can see and do in Greece if you ever go over there.  As in any trip you do in any country the biggest problem you will encounter is that you don’t have enough time to see or do all the thing that you want!

    Don’t worry! That’s why we are here!

    The following are some of my personal favorite dishes that I will urge you to try if you ever go to Greece. Obviously there are many more available and special favorites depending the place you are but for this case we will only focus on some of them.

     

    greek moussaka

    • Moussaka

    You cannot start a discussion about Greek Food and the Greek kitchen without mentioning  Moussaka, arguable the most famous of all the Greek dishes. Variations of the same dish can be found all around the Balkans, Turkey and furthermore to the east. However, the Greek version is one of the most famous ones and is based on layering: sautéed aubergine, minced meat fried pureed tomato, onion, garlic and spices like cinnamon and allspice, a bit of potato, and then a final fluffy topping of cheese and béchamel sauce.

    Greens-horta
    Greens Boiled

    • Vrasta Horta –  Boiled Greens

    Well, that is something you certainly cant find in many places. I always remember my grandparents going out during summer out in the fields and trying to find the best leafy greens to boil. There are so many different types that I don’t even know. Packed with nutrients and flavor, these greens will compliment any meal. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice and enjoy. Many times I remember my father asking for boiled greens as a salad to eat together with his fresh fish.

    galaktompoureko
    galaktompoureko

    • Galaktompoureko – Custard Phyllo Pie

    If anyone manages to pronounce it properly I promise I will make one for him! Either way, its not important to learn how to pronounce but to find it and try it while you are in Greece. One of the best deserts you can have and obviously my personal favorite. If you manage and find a proper patisserie in Greece (and there are plenty) go and ask for one.  It’s a divine combination of creamy custard and flaky phyllo dough that is baked to golden perfection then drenched with a lemon and orange infused syrup.

    The Lazy Spinach Pie
    The Lazy Spinach Pie. This one is with out a phyllo sheet

    • Spanakopita – Spinach Pie

    Greek and English have one thing in common. They both like pies!  If you spend some time in Greece and especially wonder around in some of the villages in the North you will definitely find a lot of variations.  Spinach pie is one of those classic popular pies that you can find anywhere, flaky phyllo sheets layered with a savory spinach and feta cheese filling.  You can never go wrong with that!

    Greek Souvlakia
    The all too traditional Greek Souvlakia

    • Souvlaki – Pita Sandwich

    The most famous fast food of the country.  You can never go wrong with this one. Mentioned it thousand times on my blog and I am sure any other food blogger in the world has done it also. Small pieces of meat grilled on a skewer served on a pita bread with a variation of garnishes and sauces. Best thing you can have after a night out with value for money.  Ideally its served with pork but nowadays in Greece you can find with so many different variations you cannot imagine.

    sea-bass

    • Fish – Just any kind of them

    Honestly, in a country with so many islands and one of the biggest coastlines you can find around the world, you can never go wrong. Make sure that you find a nice recommended fish tavern and ask about the catch of the day. Usually when I go in Greece during summer I am dying to eat octopus either grilled or boiled. Then again eating grilled shrimps is not too bad either….or Sea Breams….or lobster pasta…or fresh Swordfish…  or… or..or….

    Stuffed tomatoes and peppers gemista

    • Gemista – Stuffed Vegetables

    Again, I could not have such a list without having one of my favorites dishes listed. Basically as it is made during the summer as it is the best season for most of the vegetables.  You a create a heathen stuffing from rice and minced meat together with some seasoning and you stuff the vegetable with them. Let them cook in the oven and you have a dish for kings! Now we Greeks like to fight for anything so you will see many of them cooking them without minced meat as they believe that is the original recipe, which is equally good. Nevertheless, for me the ideal one would be with the minced meat added to them!

    patsas greek soup
    Our Patsa soup is ready with the addition of a bit of lemon

     

    • Patsas – Pork Soup

    Ok, in order to appreciate the following dish properly you will need to do the following things.

    • Go and enjoy the nightlife in Greece. Party until 6 o clock in the morning
    • Find one of the restaurants called “patsatsidika” serving that soup and try it around 6 o clock in the morning after a hard night out

    Pork soup seasoned with red wine vinegar and garlic, or thickened with avgolemono. Patsas has the reputation of remedying hang-over and aiding digestion, patsatzidika are often working overnight, serving people returning home after dinner or clubbing.

    tzatziki
    Traditional Greek dip tzatziki

     

    • Tzatziki – Garlic sauce

    There is not a chance if you spend some days in Greece to not try Tzatziki. That famous garlic and yogurt sauce is used as a started or as a basic ingredient in Souvlaki and is one of the most famous dishes you can have in Greece. To be honest if you go to Greece you can have a variations of sauces as a starter dip that are quite underrated and deserve a bit more of your attention.   Cool and creamy, this tangy cucumber dip flavored with garlic is perfect to compliment grilled meats and vegetables.

    giouvetsi
    Photo credit by mygreekdish.com

    • Giouvetsi – Beef with Orzo stew

    The following is one of the classic Sunday dishes that most of the Greek families have usually.  Traditional recipe that you can find in many taverns around Greece with beef and orzo mixing up with melted cheese. One of my best memories when i was young about this dish was that my mother used to cook us Giouvetsi in clay pots which added a lot more on the taste. Good old times!

     

    Obviously  could continue the list with more and more dishes that i love but we would never stop. 10 are kind of hard to find but i think i made an honest attempt.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Eating Souvlaki on Kalyvas

    Eating Souvlaki on Kalyvas

    I am not sure which exactly is the most well known dish of the Greek cuisine.  Most people know the greek salad, fasolada, gemista and many more but i am sure if you ask couple of…non greeks, a huge percentage will mention you also Souvlaki. The traditional fast food pita bread delicacy of greece.

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  • Organizing your food shopping

    Organizing your food shopping

    Lets talk about shopping. I get a lot of emails always from people asking me how do i manage and arrange the shopping list all the time so i have the right ingredients all the time in my fridge. So its time to answer all of those questions!!!

    Well, ok i need to be honest, no one has ever asked me that question, and i don’t think anyone has ever send me an email about anything other than some advertising spam mails… Nevertheless, i thought it was a nice way to start this blog, so that’s what we will pretend it happened!!!

    So, first of all lets make something clear. I work , Monday to Friday usually 9 to 6. So most of the times when i finish work, i want either to go to the local pub or if the weather is bad ( which in London is common) go straight home. What i mean by that is that there isn’t much time or will for shopping , every time…. Which is quite normal i guess everyone has the same feeling…

    What do we do?

    First! Find the local store that is close to you! Yes that it is important, there must be some local grocery that is close to you that has the vital things. Onions, vegetables, coffee, or whatever else.

    There will be some time that you will try to cook something and realize that there is only 1 ingredient that is missing. I hate that moment….but it is good to know that most of the times you can get it really fast.

    You don’t wait until the last chance to decide what you want to eat. Programming is everything here. I still have on my mind to cook cod with skordalia sauce at some point in the next week…

    The main thing is always to have into your fridge the main ingredients so you can always have the opportunity to create based on them. And what are they? That’s an easy question, fish and meat and some basic vegetables. Nothing ground breaking huh? So lets make it a bit more clear..  Every week, or every second week if i am bored, i always find a chance to go to the local butcher or fishmonger to buy some the main ingredients of what i want to cook in the following days.

    Pasta is the easy thing, always have enough for those times that you want something easy. Fish that can be put to the freezer. If not you will have to cook it the same day, as it is always ideal for fish to eat it fresh in order to enjoy them better. But sometimes, fillets can be easily stored.

    For example if you have cod already in your freezer then it is really easy to add some small ingredients and cook it rather than going and buying them the same day.

    So, take away:

    Always make sure to have some basic ingredients in the freezer. 500gr of lamb, 500 gr of beef or pork, chicken breast, is always a good start

    But what next? Do we eat it as it is? Of course not. Well, if you have noticed most of the recipes over here, there are some basic ingredients that are always repeated.

    • Onions!
    • Garlic!
    • Tomatoes!
    • Olive oil of course
    • Feta cheese maybe also?

    After that there are some vegetables that are always good to have as they can be used in different recipes or as standalone.

    • Aubergines
    • Courgettes

    So you have those, and you have the basic ingredients for example to cook that or maybe that or a very traditional of that

    And then again there are always the famous lentils and the beans. The whole idea behind is that with a minimum of 6-7 ingredients you can have quite a few different recipes and make quality dishes. Obviously if something is missing, you can always improvise and that again is the essence of cooking.

    Obviously, there are other things like salt, pepper, oregano and other famous spices used in the Greek kitchen but the point is always to have into your kitchen the basic ones in order to be able to do the rest.  That will always make things much easier, when you are at home with a big headache and the weather outside is cold and miserable… then again you could always order a pizza! 🙂 Which i have to admit, i have done a lot of times but… eventually its much more fun to create it by yourself.