Food of Greece

Who remembers travel? Raise your hands. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? For those of taking the pandemic and it’s associated crappiness, travel is but a fond memory of other places and small hopes of eventually returning to foreign lands. Though slow vaccine rollout notwithstanding, probably gonna be some time before I myself feel comfortable with it. I mean, I don’t even like hitting up the grocery store and try to get in and out as quickly as I can. Sure, there is delivery, but alas, I am a cheap bastard at times and those fees can add up to other stuff. Complain, complain, complain, isn’t that what blogs are for?

Oh, I could go on all day! But I’m focusing on some past times when I could use the pennies I saved from not getting delivery and put it all toward an actual trip. Like the time I was able to go to Greece. A mere three months before the world shutdown. If nothing else, I was glad I went and able to get the trip in before…..all this. You know I love a country with ruins and Greece is full of ‘em. And if you are so inclined, feel free to click here and view all my photos of the Parthenon, Olympia, Rhodes and a host of other ancient sites in varying stages of disarray.

Like most trips, beyond the sites, food is always a big part of visiting a country for me. It really does help settle you and get to know a place better. Plus, you know, I like to eat. To say I ate my way across it would pretty much be true. So much so I decided to divide it all up into savory and sweet posts. This one is all about the savory. If you want to read up on Greek cuisine then go here and knock yourself out. People take about it being a healthy way of eating and living and blah, blah. It is meat, cheese, vegetables and baked breads that when done right, had me going back to find the same things in each of the many cities I toured. I’m kicking it off with one my absolute faves.

Moussaka! It’s meat, potatoes, sometimes eggplant covered in a béchamel sauce then cooked up like a casserole. Think of it as Greek lasagna or Greek shepards pie. For me, if done right, it was heaven on a plate served up warm in a giant slice. It is super rich and heavy and I kind of needed a nap after eating it. The one above was okay, though I think they over bechameled it.

This one won’t too bad, less sauce, some added cheese. Though didn’t really need side of fries since it does already have a potato layer. Add in a glass of wine and I was done for the afternoon.

Flaky, buttery layers fo phyllo dough filled with feta cheese then baked to a crisp. Yum, yum, yum! I ate size and shape variations of this everywhere. Some places even had a version lightly drizzled with honey giving it that great salty sweet flavor I sometimes glom onto. I could eat this all day but didn’t because it would make me fat and clog my arteries. They say that is bad for you so fine.

And because there was a bakery on every corner, there were these little two bite version of cheese pie that also came in a spinach version so I could eat healthy! Good on you Greek bakeries, I was officially hooked. And yes I realize I am justifying eating bread and cheese but I was on vacation, a time when me and the SO made a pact that anything goes food wise. We were not going to worry about what we were eating whether healthy or not and I still stick to that ideal. You are on vacation! Don’t stress about it, just eat and enjoy.

Not one to leave cheese and bread beyond, I stumbled on this place called Smak serving up peynirli—which is pretty much boat shaped pizza you can carry and eat. Street food pizza by way of Italy through Turkey to Greece. Pizza really is an international multi-cultural food item. This was like a fermented dough thing kind of like sourdough meets pita meets pizza but without the sauce. I was down for it and yes, ate both of these in one sitting. See vacation mantra above. Of course, turns out if I wanted to skip the bread I could get just the cheese.

One restaurant in Athens offered up this fried cheese appetizer and like I’m really gonna pass on that? I think not. Honestly, I’m not sure why more places in the US don’t do this, and I’m not talking mozzarella sticks, I mean this! White cheese straight up fried. Though here they’d probably fry it in butter, there they use olive oil, but that doesn’t really make it any more healthy. Fried is fried and cheese is cheese. It was served with those lemons and when I asked he said just squeeze them over it. I’m like okay. I’m guessing it helps take the edge off the fried oil-ness of and richness of the heavy cheese along with the super saltiness because this was a salt bomb, but in a good way. Is there a good way? I’ve had this in other countries too. I went all in and with all three lemons for some acidic cheeseness. It was fried cheese, from my standpoint you can’t go wrong with its lovely golden brownness.

Of course, if you just want bread a number of places just served it up as you sat down, no charge, kind of like what Southern restaurants do. Here is was strips of bread grilled with olive oil and sprinkled with herbs, think Italian-ish, and served with a kind of tomato based chutney that was somewhere between ketchup and pizza sauce. I kept thinking of Olive Garden with endless breadsticks as this place would have kept bringing them if I’d asked. Talk about filling up on fresh made bread.

This spot had pre-meal freebies of more housemade bread with olive oil and and side of pickled veggies with one of those yogurt dipping sauces. I guess this is what one thinks when they picture the Mediterranean diet or snack food. Pair it with a nice glass of wine and you really relishing the local atmosphere while eating not the sidewalk at night without worrying about a cold wind rolling through even in November. No heat lamps needed here. I also wasn’t done with the fried stuff.

Eggplant is a ubiquitous Mediterranean vegetable so why not get some deep fried version of it. Not overly breaded, though not exactly super crispy either. Still good but as you got closer to the bottom of the pile the more greasy and soft they got. But why let that stop me.

How about some fried calamari to go with that fried eggplant. The serving for this was a lot bigger than it actually looks in the picture. Again, lightly breaded and the closer you got to bottom the oilier it was. Not sure I liked this as there was a bit of the fishy smell on it and maybe not as fresh as it could have been considering I was right on an island surrounded by a sea offering up innumerable fresh catches of the day. Just saying. I did have some better luck with fish.

Had some lovely fried fish with a side of fresh vegetables in a seaside village. Been so long I can’t remember what kind of fish it was but it was good even though all I had was the lemon the squeeze over it. Seems tartar sauce wasn’t something they did at this spot. It wasn’t all deep fried apalooza.

See, I can do the whole healthy thing! Grilled fish with steamed broccoli. It was all seasoned with lemon juice, olive oil, oregano, basil and black pepper. Flaky and light for sure plus it had that fresh out of the water taste as the server did assure me it was the catch of the day, I just can’t remember what. I should probably write those things down.

Then there was this thing. Pretty sure they called it gumbo and there was seafood in it and that whole crawfish thingy on top but the sweet tomato sauce was weirdly off putting and there was a piece of the fake crabmeat which has the red edge on it there too. It was all a weird mishmash, but it was all seafood, except for some random bits of cheese. I guess that made it Greek? Just odd all around. So I moved on to land meat.

Like this roast lamb with a couple random pieces of potato and one broccoli crown. The gravy was a little much and while the meat was tender the flavor was lacking. Not the best lamb I had in Greece.

This was! Grilled lamb chops and chips I had at some random roadside cafe outside of Olympia. The meat was cooked to order so it took awhile to get but totally worth it for some tender juicy meat with some flavorful charred edges. So tasty and no gravy needed. Then there was the classic all Americans know.

A gyro, but deconstructed and served with a beet yogurt sauce and some super fresh vegetables. This was pretty good, or possibly I was extremely hungry. Hard to remember, I did so much walking and traveling around Greece I felt like I was constantly eating. Then again, it is what I do. Fun fact about this spot—

they had some random torches from past Olympics lying around next to the shave your own gyro meat. And really, who wouldn’t want to light a torch and carve their own meat? That is the great thing about other countries, they let you do things you can’t normally do at home since they believe in “personal responsibility.” If you are gonna light a torch or carve hot meat you should know to be careful—it’s on you.

On my last night I switched it up a bit and got spicy lamb sausage in another deconstructed format, seems it was a thing? It was also a LARGE portion and we all know I am on board for that! Except for the onions everything was grilled or fried. Not sure why they couldn’t do the onions too, would have better than raw, but the rest tasty and filling. I scarfed it down while sitting in the view of this:

Yep, the Parthenon, it is kind of the reason one goes to Athens. Sure they have other ruins and what not but the house on the hill is the thing to see for sure. Highly recommend. It actually lived up to all they hype.

The food didn’t really disappoint either. Sure, highs and lows, but you can expect such things anywhere you go. One thing I could count on was the cheese or spinach pie, with so many bakeries, it was everywhere and and never had a bad one. I’ll say it again, buttery, flaky phyllo dough and cheese, you really can’t go wrong. Plus grilled lamb, creamy moussaka, I definitely wasn’t going to be able to walk off everything I ate, though I gave it a shot. Of course it really just served to increase my appetite so I could eat more. That’s always my plan.

Though it wasn’t just the savory I was scarfing down, I came across some surprisingly good wine which peaked even my picky palate. And remember all those bakeries? Well it wasn’t just cheese pie they were serving up, they all had sweets galore. Which is why it is gonna take me two more post to go through them all. Till then, enjoy the bread, meat and cheese and hang on for the booze and sweets.