Greek food ,salads and more from Greek Hotels Association
Food and Drink
The first objective of this chapter is to refute the criticism so often heard of Greek island food - that it is monotonous, dull and of poor quality. Obviously no cramped little kitchen in an island village can produce the range of food offered in a French provincial town; equally the refinements we may be used to in the presentation of food at table would seem pretentious and even ridiculous in the happy-go-lucky atmosphere of a quayside restaurant. Quality can certainly vary, but what the Greek kitchen has to offer is food derived mostly from the resources of the island; it is only when the owners try to meet the tastes of less discriminating visitors by using a variety of imported products - which may have been frozen on the way - that their standards fall. From their mountain slopes, from the green val¬leys between, and above all from the rocks and the seas which surround them, the islanders can produce one of the healthiest and most appetising diets one could wish for.
The almost universal custom of inviting the customer to see ‘what’s cooking’ before they choose is an excellent start. In all but the smallest places an a la carte menu is provided, but the best use for this is to check the price of a dish; the important thing is to know what you are getting. Once behind the scenes you need never be afraid to ask whether something not on display can in fact be pro¬vided. Local customers in the know will probably have already de¬tected it, and there is no need for you to be left out.
Of course there are bad restaurants as well as good ones. The most important test is whether the Greeks themselves go there with their families, and are not hopelessly outnumbered by tourists whose tastes are often responsible for lower standards of food and service. Look too for signs that the management - and the best are always a family team - is taking its customers seriously: look for proper straight-backed wooden chairs with rush seats; ignore places where deafening ‘music’ interferes with the quieter pleasures of the table, or the television set seems to be a bigger draw than the cooking. (Ex¬ceptions to this rule may have to be made when World Cup football is on.)
The Greek Islands
FISH AND CRUSTACEANS
This is and always has been the mainstay of Greek island food. King of the rocks is the Mediterranean lobster - the French langouste or the Greek astakos. He is sold by the kilo, as are all fish except the smaller varieties, and it is still possible to find (if previously ordered) a creature big enough for two for around £10. Next in esteem are the large prawns (garides), which as a separate dish tend to be expensive for their bulk but make delicious kebabs grilled on spits with pieces of onion, bacon and green pepper. Salingaria, or edible snails, are also delicious if you can find them, and the juices of the sea-urchin echinos are a marvellous aperitif when combined with ouzo - though neither of these delicacies is normally to be found in restaurants.
As for fish proper, there is an enormous variety, always good eating when fresh; it is not sensible to ask for fish after a day or two of stormy weather. On the whole the larger the fish the more expen¬sive they are by the kilo, because it takes more fuel to reach the deeper fishing grounds, and it is always wise to have your choice weighed and priced before ordering. The same is true of the red mullet (barbounia) even when small, for they too live in deep waters. Of medium to large size are the bream family (among them sina-grida), excellent eating; but the best value of all are the small inshore fish whose names are legion. These you can order by the plate or helping, and they cost absurdly little. For a first course (or even a main course if economizing) the infant mikra psaria which resemble whitebait, crisply fried with lemon, are uplifting, though they should be eaten the same day as caught.
The many-tentacled family is mainly represented by the conven¬tional kalamares, a medium-sized squid fried with the body cut into strips and the tentacles separate. Properly treated both before and during cooking it can be a very appetizing dish, but for real lightness and flavour the smaller tentacles (kalamarakia) fried in very hot oil are exceptional. The larger creature properly known as oktapous is best eaten cold after marination, and can be a delicious midday dish.
MEAT:The natural meat of the islands is lamb, especially in the spring, and if properly cooked it is far superior to any you find in France. Stewed lamb (ami) is always good, and so are grilled lamb cutlets (paithakia) provided they are cut fairly small. Beef is not natural to the islands; even if disguised as veal (moskari) it is usually tough or stringy - though stewed in red wine sauce, which is a traditional recipe (moskari kokkinisto), by expert hands it can be delicious. Pork is a safer choice, though better served as slices from a spit than as britsoles, or chops. Stews are the standby of the humbler restaurant, and few dishes are better than young kid (katsikaki) or rabbit (kouneli) slowly cooked in this way. Souvlakia (kebabs) whether of lamb or pork tend to be made from the tougher off-cuts and can be disappointing. If you like grilled calves’ liver (sikoti) you will find no better anywhere, but ask for it ligopsito (rare) or it will be hard at the edges. Kokkoretsi are indefinable strips of pork or lamb well sea¬soned and wound round a roasting spit, and quite delicious. Once a popular weekly Greek dish (when the butcher cleans up his scraps), it takes trouble to prepare, and sadly is less and less to be found.
Of the made-up dishes, the universal ‘meat-balls’ (kephtedes) can vary from delicious mouthfuls to stodgy affronts, while tsout-soukakia (sometimes confusingly called bifsteki) are a flatter form with the same ingredients. The best known Greek dish is probably moussaka, which too often turns out to be a soggy cube. To eat one properly made and cooked by a light-handed expert is a revelation rarely vouchsafed. Dolmades properly contain only rice and herbs within the vine leaves (not meat) and are served with a lemon sauce. Most of these dishes are Turkish in origin.
Local chickens seem rarely to be killed for eating, and most of those on offer in restaurants have been imported frozen.
VEGETABLES:This is where most islands score heavily. Runner or French beans (phasolakia), carob beans (banies), broad beans (koupia), spinach (chorta), carrots (karota), aubergines (melitsanes) and courgettes (kolokithi) are nearly always to be had, though not necessarily in the
same place at the same time. Except for the spinach they are usually served with light oil and tomato additives, which is by no means disagreeable. If you want either meat or vegetables kept hot and served in succession, say so.
SALADS:The Greek Salad (choriatika) is a great invention, and can be exactly what you want for lunch on a hot day. But Greek salads do not stop there. In many islands, and in season, a plain lettuce (marouli) or cucumber (angouri) salad with or without onions and green peppers is readily prepared. Then there are the flour-based dishes such as taramasalata, melitsanisalata and the garlicy skordalia, as well as the familiar tsatsiki with its creamy yoghurt, cucumber and garlic.
CHEESE AND FRUIT:The goat cheese is paramount, of course, and though the quality of tiri pheta varies, you can hardly improve on fresh goat’s cheese pressed that morning and eaten in a hill farm. Of matured cheeses the goat is very hard, but tiri kasseri is not unlike the French cantal and makes a change from pheta. Fruit is not often displayed or offered in a restaurant, but some Ionian islands specialize in wild strawberries (phraoules), and the melon (peponi) can be found for most of the year both on fruit stalls and in restaurants; it makes a lovely fresh finish to a Greek meal.
WINE:One of the sadder changes in the islands has been the disappearance of many of the local wines which used to be stored in or drawn from the wood (bareli). However, the quieter and more remote the venue the more likely they are to appear, whether served in carafes or in those gleaming copper cans which remind old sailors of rum issues in the Royal Navy. The truth is that these wines are still widely made,
but in small uncommercial quantities, so that not unreasonably the inhabitants tend to keep them for themselves, rather than casting them before tourists. By no means all local wines are resinated, and you can find excellent natural red wines in islands as far apart as Crete, Andros and Kea. The true red Samian, though, and the deep red mavro of Paros have vanished from the restaurants. There is a wide variety of bottled wines, resinated and unresinated, too wide to cover here, but the best of the whites come from Santorin, where viniculture is a big industry.
They say that retsina is an acquired taste, but there are few better dust-layers in a hot dry climate. The little metal-capped bottles of Kourtaki or Marko are just as good for the purpose as the more pretentious Boutari, and half the price. Ouzo, perhaps the most drink¬able of all the anise-based liquors, is another sovereign dustlayer, and incidentally goes marvellously well with strawberries. If you should come across tsikoudia, treat it with respect: it is a colourless grape distillation with all the qualities of a French marc or eau-de-vie only more so. The Greek brandies are limited to the Metaxa range, of which ‘three-star’ is as rough as they come, ’seven-star’ is distin¬guished only by its price, which leaves ‘five-star’ as an invigorating companion for the last hours of the day.
This leaves Water, the most treasured drink in the islands, whose inhabitants will argue fiercely to assert the supremacy of their own product. The first act of hospitality is still to offer the visitor a glass of water, a sweet and a cup of coffee, to be attended to in that order. The water should be given the same attention as a glass of wine in the Mcdoc, and your approval will be well received. Although many islands have to depend on stored rainwater for practical uses, the organized water supply in hotels, towns and villages is perfectly drinkable (unless there is a notice to say it is not) while a monastery or a farm in the country will nearly always have its own well or spring for you to savour and praise.