Greek Food

Greek food is the theme of cooking classes, tastings and food walks across Greece. Local hosts run them in Athens, Thessaloniki, Kalamata, Kefalonia, Mykonos and Rhodes. The sections below cover meze, pastitsio, Smyrna meatballs, avgolemono, skordalia, kreatopita, taramasalata and saganaki. Later sections turn to olive oil, herbs, sweets and breads. Related trips sit under Greece small group tours and Pelion tours. The full range appears under Greece tours.

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What is Greek food?

Greek food is the cooking of Greece, a table built on vegetables, olive oil, grains and fish. Its meats include pork, poultry, veal and beef, along with lamb, rabbit and goat. Grains are the seeds of cereal plants. Poultry means farm birds such as chickens.

The cooking of Greece appears in images and texts that survive from ancient times. In that early age, Greek food was frugal for the majority of people. Frugal means plain, simple and sparing, with little spent on luxury. This thrift reflected agricultural hardship. Agricultural hardship means the struggle of farmers to grow enough food.

Wealthy Greeks of the ancient world marked special days with elaborate meals and feasts. Elaborate means rich in detail, with dish after dish. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the two epic poems linked to Homer, mention three meals. An epic tells of heroes and their deeds in verse, at great length.

In ancient Greek food, breakfast went by the name akratisma. It was barley bread dipped into wine. Figs, dates or olives sometimes joined the bread. The name comes from akratos, meaning unmixed wine. Barley is a cereal grain with a firm, chewy texture. Dates are the sweet brown fruit of the date palm.

• Coasts and islands: Fish dishes are common in Greek food on the islands and in the coastal regions.
• First cookbook: Printers on the island of Syros produced the first Greek cookbook in 1828.
• Wider reach: The influence of Greek cooking spread to ancient Rome and later throughout Europe.

Every food and drink in Greece is regulated by the Greek Food and Beverages Code. This code is part of the national legislation of Greece. Legislation means the laws that a parliament passes. A code, in law, is a full written set of rules on one subject.

How does meze shape a meal of Greek food?

Greek food includes meze, a selection of small dishes. These dishes are served as appetisers in the cuisines of the Eastern Mediterranean. An appetiser is a small plate that opens a meal. The word cuisine names the cooking tradition of one people or region.

Spanish tapas and Italian stuzzichini are close relatives of meze. Both are names for small bites shared at the table. A meze spread can be one part of a multi-course meal. It can also stand as a full meal on its own. The Greek plural of meze is mezedes.

Meze is a loan from Turkish, in which meze means appetiser. The Turkish form came in turn from Persian maze, a word for taste or relish. Ayla Algar places the possible origins of the word in ancient Persia. In her account, early meze held fruits such as pomegranates, quinces and citrons. These fruits offset the bitterness of unripe wine.

The meze tradition in Greek food began in the Byzantine Empire. That empire was the eastern Roman state, ruled from the city of Constantinople. The custom then developed further in Ottoman Greek homes and taverns. A tavern is a simple house that serves food and drink. The Ottoman Empire was the state that took over the Byzantine lands.

• Hot or cold: In Greek food, as in Cyprus and Bulgaria, mezedes come hot or cold as small plates.
• Common features: Cubes of cheese, olives and grilled meats are common features of a meze spread.
• Balkan style: In Southeast Europe, meze resembles antipasto, the Italian starter, led by cured cold cuts, salads and cheese.

In Greek food, meze arrives as a plate of snacks served with drinks such as ouzo and tsipouro. Ouzo is a clear Greek spirit flavoured with anise. Tsipouro is a strong spirit distilled from pomace, what remains of grapes after pressing.

Why does pastitsio carry a Venetian name in Greek food?

Greek food takes the name pastitsio from pasticcio, a broad Venetian family of baked savoury pies. Venetian means from Venice, the old trading city of northern Italy. These pies can be built on meat, on fish or on pasta.

The word pasticcio comes from the vulgar Latin pasticium, a form built on the word pasta. Vulgar Latin was the everyday speech of ordinary Romans. Pasticcio itself means pie. Over time it gained figurative meanings, such as a mess or a tough situation. A figurative meaning goes beyond the plain, literal sense.

Pastitsio is a baked Greek food of layered pasta and ground meat. Nikolaos Tselementes, a Greek chef trained in France, worked in the early 20th century. He created the au gratin version of the dish, crowned with béchamel. Au gratin means baked with a browned crust on top. Béchamel is a smooth white sauce of milk, butter and flour.

Written recipes for pasticcio date from the early 16th century and continue to modern times. Greek and Italian immigrants later carried pastitsio to Egypt, in the 19th century. An immigrant is a person who settles in a new country. A recipe is a set of written steps for cooking a dish.

• Top layer: The top layer is béchamel or Mornay sauce, a cheese béchamel, spiced with nutmeg or allspice.
• Cheese crust: Grated cheese is a frequent topping, sprinkled across the surface of the pastitsio.
• At the table: In Greek food, pastitsio is a common main course, served with a salad.

Other versions held pasta, liver, meat, eggs and cheese, all wrapped in pastry. These resemble the Italian pasticcio recipes. Such pastry-wrapped versions are not found in modern Greek food. Pastry here means a baked crust made from fat worked into flour.

Which journey brought Smyrna meatballs into Greek food?

Greek food shares Smyrna meatballs with Turkish cooking. The dish is made of spicy, oblong meatballs flavoured with cumin and garlic. They are served in a tomato sauce. Oblong means longer than wide, like a short, thick finger. Cumin is a warm, earthy spice.

Greek refugees from Asia Minor brought this dish to Greece. Asia Minor is the large peninsula, also called Anatolia, on the Asian side of modern Turkey. Refugees are people who flee their homeland to find safety elsewhere. The Turkish name, İzmir köfte, means meatballs from İzmir. That city was formerly called Smyrna.

In Greek food, the dish goes by soutzoukakia Smyrneika. The name means spicy little sausages from Smyrna. It joins the Turkish word sucuk, a spicy sausage, with a Greek ending for small things. The Greek version uses minced meat, chiefly beef, sometimes blended with lamb or pork. Bread crumbs, egg, garlic and parsley complete the mix.

The sauce of this Greek food holds tomato, wine, onion and garlic. A bay leaf, salt, pepper and olive oil complete it. A bay leaf is the dried leaf of the bay laurel tree. Bay laurel is an evergreen shrub of Mediterranean lands. Olive oil is squeezed out of the ripe fruit of the olive tree.

• Side dishes: Soutzoukakia are served with pilaf, rice cooked in stock, or with mashed potatoes.
• Turkish cousin: In Turkey, cooks make İzmir köfte in a very similar way, without pork or wine.
• Grilled form: The name soutzoukakia can also mean the same meatballs grilled rather than served in sauce.

Another variation in Greek food is soutzoukakia politika. The name means meatballs from Constantinople. Constantinople is the former name of Istanbul, the city on the Bosporus strait. A strait is a slim sea passage that links two larger bodies of water.

What role does avgolemono play in Greek food?

Greek food uses avgolemono to thicken soups and stews. The name means egg-lemon, and the mixture joins eggs and lemon juice with hot broth. Broth is the liquid left after simmering meat, fish or vegetables in water. To thicken means to make a liquid denser.

Chicken broth is the common base for avgolemono soup. Broths of lamb, fish or vegetables also serve. First, the cook simmers rice, orzo, pastina or tapioca in the broth. Only then does the egg and lemon mixture go in. Orzo and pastina are tiny pasta shapes. Tapioca is a starch taken from the root of the cassava plant.

The texture of this Greek food sits anywhere between near-stew and near-broth. A stew is thick, with solid pieces in a little sauce. A broth is thin and clear enough to sip. The soup can be served with pieces of meat and vegetables kept back from the broth. Kept back means set aside during cooking.

In Greek food, starch from the cooked pasta or rice helps to stabilise the egg and lemon emulsion. An emulsion is a smooth blend of liquids that do not join on their own. To stabilise means to hold steady and keep from separating. Starch is the soft, energy-rich substance stored in grains.

• Sephardic roots: Avgolemono is originally Sephardic Jewish, from the Jews of Spain and Portugal.
• Turkish name: In Turkish cooking the same egg and lemon mixture goes by the name terbiye.
• Over the plate: As a sauce, avgolemono goes over warm dolma, or stuffed dishes, artichokes and roast meats.

Lahanodolmades in Greek food also carry avgolemono sauce. These are baked rolls of light green cabbage. Their stuffing holds rice, ground beef or both. Onions, mint and parsley add flavour. Its name pairs lahano, Greek for cabbage, with dolmades, the plural of dolma.

How does skordalia bring garlic to Greek food?

Greek food knows skordalia as a thick purée built on garlic. Its base is potatoes, walnuts, almonds or stale bread soaked in liquid. A purée is food crushed or blended until smooth and soft. Stale bread is bread that has dried and hardened.

Olive oil goes into the base to make a smooth emulsion, and a little vinegar follows. Vinegar is a sour liquid made by fermenting wine or other drinks. In Greek food, skordalia appears as a garnish or a side dish. A garnish is a small addition that decorates a plate.

The main partner of skordalia is batter-fried cod. This pairing is strongest during Lent and on 25 March, a Greek national holiday. Lent is the Christian season of fasting before Easter. Batter is a thin mix of flour and liquid that coats food before frying. Cod is a large white fish of cold northern seas.

Skordalia is the modern equivalent of an ancient Greek food called skorothalmi. One reading of the name joins the Greek skordo, meaning garlic, with the Italian agliata, meaning garlicky. Such a name repeats one idea twice, since both parts point to garlic. An equivalent is a thing that fills the same role.

• Other partners: Skordalia also goes with fried aubergine and courgette, poached fish and boiled beetroot.
• Egg versions: Certain variants use eggs to bind the mixture, close to aïoli, the garlic sauce of Provence.
• Ionian style: Ionian Islands cooks add cod stock and lemon instead of vinegar, serving skordalia as a main dish.

In the Anglosphere, this Greek food is promoted as a dip. The Anglosphere means the group of countries where English is the main language. A dip is a thick sauce scooped up with bread or raw vegetables. Promoted means presented and marketed to buyers.

What makes kreatopita a classic pie of Greek food?

Greek food calls its meat pie kreatopita, a pie filled with ground beef, onions and feta cheese. Kreas is the Greek word for meat, and pita means pie. Feta is a white, salty cheese of sheep’s or goat’s milk. Ground beef means minced beef.

The kreatopita filling is wrapped in phyllo dough. Phyllo, also spelled filo, is a paper-thin pastry rolled from flour and water. The word phyllo means leaf in Greek. Kimadopita, a pie of ground meat, is another name for kreatopita in Greek food. Kima means minced meat, the meat ground into small pieces.

Greek cooks wrap a wide range of foods in filo. The results come as bite-size triangles or as large sheets. Greek food holds countless variations of pitas, the savoury pies of the country. Savoury means salty or spicy rather than sweet. Bite-size means small enough to eat in one mouthful.

In Greece, boureki and bourekaki are little pastries of filo dough. Bourekaki is the smaller form of the word, since the ending -aki marks something little. Both names come from börek, a family of filled pastries found from West Asia to Southeast Europe. A pastry is a baked item made of dough.

• Ancient roots: The ancient Greeks filled a flour-water paste, much like pie pastry, with meat.
• Early cooking: Those early meat pies were fried or cooked under hot coals.
• Roman copies: The Romans adopted these Greek pies, filling them with meats, oysters, mussels and fish.

Other filo pies in Greek food include kotopita, a chicken pie, and hortopita, a pie of greens. Kolokythopita is a pie of zucchini, a long green squash also called courgette. Greens are leafy plants, wild or grown in gardens, eaten as vegetables.

Where does taramasalata fit on a table of Greek food?

Greek food serves taramasalata as a meze made from salted, cured fish roe. The roe is blended with olive oil and lemon juice over a base of bread or potato. Roe means the eggs of a fish. Cured means preserved with salt.

The traditional method uses a pestle and mortar, which leaves a slightly grainy texture. A mortar is a sturdy bowl, and a pestle is the club that crushes food inside it. Shop-bought taramasalata is very smooth. In Greek food, it is served as a meze, spread on bread, with ouzo as a frequent partner.

The colour of taramasalata ranges from creamy beige to pink. The shade depends on the type of roe and on any added colourings. A colouring is a dye that changes how food looks. The bulk of shop-sold taramasalata is dyed pink. High-quality taramasalata, by contrast, keeps a beige shade. Beige is a pale sandy brown.

The name of this Greek food comes from the Greek taramas, borrowed from the Turkish tarama. Tarama means soft roe. Salata is the Greek word for salad, so the full name reads as roe salad. To borrow a word means to take it into one language from another.

• Istanbul taverns: Tarama appears among the meze of Istanbul taverns in records from the late 19th century.
• Byzantine link: Researcher Murat Doğan sees tarama as a Byzantine gift to the modern cooking of Istanbul.
• Carp roe: Carp roe became the main base once Sephardic merchants spread carp across the Balkans in the 16th century.

Variants of this Greek food can add garlic, spring onions or peppers. Others use vinegar in place of lemon juice. Spring onions are young onions with long green stems. Peppers are the hollow pods of the capsicum plant. A variant is a changed recipe.

What does saganaki add to Greek food?

Greek food names a set of saganaki dishes after the small frying pan used to make them. A frying pan is a shallow, flat metal pan with raised sides. Cooks heat oil or fat in it to fry food. The pan itself shares the name.

Saganaki is a diminutive of sagani, a frying pan with two handles. A diminutive is a word form that marks something small. Sagani comes from the Turkish sahan, a copper dish, which itself came from Arabic. The cheese for saganaki in Greek food is kefalotyri, graviera, kasseri, kefalograviera, halloumi or sheep’s milk feta.

The melted cheese is eaten with bread. Other dishes cooked in the same pan include shrimp saganaki and mussels saganaki. These seafood versions are feta-based and carry a spicy tomato sauce. Mussels are shellfish with dark, hinged shells. Feta-based means built around feta, a white cheese kept in brine. Brine is salty water.

Garides saganaki is a Greek food of sautéed shrimps. Cooks deglaze the pan with ouzo, then douse the shrimps in tomato sauce. Crumbled feta goes on top. Garides is the Greek word for shrimps. To sauté means to fry quickly in a little fat. To deglaze means to loosen the browned bits in a pan with liquid.

• North America: In North America, saganaki is commonly flambéed, which means set alight with alcohol.
• Putting out the flame: At tables in the United States and Canada, a squeeze of lemon juice puts out the flames.
• Chicago story: Flaming saganaki is said to have begun in 1968 in Chicago’s Greektown, on a customer’s suggestion.

In Greek food, the word saganaki also stands for fried kefalograviera cheese. Kefalograviera is a hard Greek cheese. Its name joins two other cheese names, kefalotyri and graviera. Fried cheese is cooked in hot oil until the outside turns crisp.

Why does olive oil sit at the heart of Greek food?

Greek food leans on olive oil, an ingredient already common in the cooking of ancient Greece. Greece has the highest olive oil use per person in the world. Each person there gets through around 24 litres of it a year.

The olive in Greek food has an old past. Neolithic people were already gathering wild olives in the 8th millennium BC. Neolithic means the late Stone Age, when farming began. Those first wild olives came from Asia Minor. The olive tree arrived in Greece during the 28th century BC. The Phoenicians, an ancient trading people, carried it westward.

The oldest surviving olive oil amphorae come from 3500 BC, in Early Minoan times. Amphorae are tall clay storage jars with two handles. Minoan names a Bronze Age civilisation of the Aegean. In myth, Athens took its name from Athena. Her olive tree was judged a finer gift than Poseidon’s salt spring.

Beyond Greek food, olive oil has fuelled oil lamps and served in religious rituals and medicines. People have also used it for soap-making and for skincare. Greek colonies later carried olive farming to other parts of the Mediterranean. Spain was one such place. A colony here means a new town set up by Greek settlers abroad.

• Koroneiki: This olive variety grows in Greece, where it also goes by the name Koroni.
• Label code: Bottles can show the country of origin, and the letters GR stand for Greece.
• Peace: Over history, the olive tree has stood as a symbol of peace between nations.

Other olive oil lands make a useful yardstick for Greek food. Consumption in Spain comes to 15 litres for each person a year. In Italy, the figure is 13 litres. A yardstick is a standard used to compare one thing with another.

What does oregano bring to Greek food?

Greek food uses oregano, a herb native to the Mediterranean region. It has since spread across the temperate Northern Hemisphere. In Greece, the dried and ground leaves add flavour to Greek salad. Temperate means mild, without extreme heat or cold.

The oregano in Greek food is a woody perennial, reaching up to 90 cm in height. A perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. Its young stems are square and hairy, and they turn woody as they age. The white, pink or light purple flowers grow in clustered spikes in summer.

Greek oregano carries the botanical label subspecies hirtum. A subspecies is a distinct group within one species. It counts as the best all-purpose subspecies for cooking. Its natural range covers Greece, the Balkans, Turkey and Cyprus. The plant grows vigorously and is very hardy. Its leaves are darker green and slightly hairy.

Oregano counts as a culinary herb, grown for the flavour of its leaves. A culinary herb is a plant whose leaves or seeds season food. In Greek food, as elsewhere, those leaves can taste stronger dried than fresh. Good-quality oregano can even have enough strength to almost numb the tongue.

• Ceremonies: Ancient Greeks placed oregano in wedding rites and among offerings for the dead.
• Climate: The plant does best in a hot and fairly dry climate.
• Relative: Origanum onites, found in Greece and Turkey, tastes much like oregano.

Where the herb grows shapes the oregano in Greek food. Climate, season and soil can all change the aromatic oils in the leaves. That effect can outweigh the gap between separate species. Aromatic oils are the natural oils that give a plant its smell.

How does Greek sage fit into Greek food?

Greek food draws on Greek sage, a perennial herb or small shrub of the eastern Mediterranean. Its botanical name is Salvia fruticosa. Greece has a long history of using the plant. People there value it for cooking, medicine and its looks.

The sage found in Greek food grows about 0.6 metres high and wide. Its flower stalks rise at least 0.3 m above the leaves. Fine hairs cover the whole plant. The leaves grow in clusters, which gives the plant a silvery, bushy look. The pinkish-lavender flowers are about 1.3 cm long.

Greek sage appears in a Minoan fresco from around 1400 BCE. Fresco painting puts colour onto fresh, wet plaster. The ancient Phoenicians and Greeks are thought to have carried the plant to the Iberian peninsula. Remnants of those introduced plants still grow in coastal spots there. Across Greece, leaf shape varies from one area to another.

In Greek food and beyond, the leaves of this sage carry a high oil content. Part of their chemical make-up matches that of lavender. The plant is very drought resistant, coping well with dry ground. Growers raise it commercially for its essential oil. Essential oil is the scented oil drawn out of a plant’s leaves or flowers.

• Calyx: Each flower sits in a small, hairy, oxblood-red calyx, the cup beneath a flower.
• Apples: Woolly swellings called galls, about 2.5 cm across, form on the plant and are named apples.
• Trade: Greek sage makes up 50 to 95% of the dried sage sold in North America.

Separate from the leaves used in Greek food, the apples are edible as well. People peel them and eat them once they turn soft. One plant book calls them fragrant, juicy and tasty. Its title is The New Book of Salvias.

Where does purslane turn up in Greek food?

Greek food uses purslane, a succulent plant that Greeks call andrakla or glistrida. A succulent is a plant that stores water in thick, fleshy leaves and stems. Every part of common purslane is edible, whether eaten raw or cooked.

In Greek food, cooks pair the leaves and stems with feta, tomato, onion, garlic, oregano and olive oil. Feta is a white Greek cheese. Purslane also goes into salads. Greeks boil it as well, or add it to casseroled chicken. A casserole is a dish cooked slowly in a covered pot.

Purslane seeds have come from the Samian Heraion, the sanctuary of Hera on Samos. That find belongs to the 7th century BC. Writing in the 4th century BC, Theophrastus listed purslane as a summer pot herb. He gave it the name andrakhne and said it must be sown in April. A pot herb is a leafy plant for cooking.

The purslane in Greek food is 93% water when raw. It also holds 3% carbohydrates and 2% protein. The plant supplies alpha-linolenic acid, which is an essential omega-3 fatty acid. Essential means the body cannot make it, so it must come from food. Purslane also tolerates salt to a high degree.

• Kastanas: Seeds also turned up at Kastanas, in a layer from the protogeometric pottery period.
• Seeds: A large purslane plant can produce up to 240,000 seeds in a season.
• Flowers: The flowers open one by one, and only for a short spell on sunny mornings.

The purslane plant behind Greek food dishes can reach 40 cm in height. Its Latin species name, oleracea, means vegetable or herbal. The word comes from holus, Latin for vegetable. A species name is the second part of a plant’s scientific name.

What links the caper bush to Greek food?

Greek food takes capers from Capparis spinosa, a bush that grows in Greece and across the Greek Islands. In ancient Greece, people used the caper as a carminative. A carminative is a remedy that eases wind in the stomach.

In Greek food history, archaeologists have found capers in layers from archaic and classical times. These finds are mostly carbonised seeds, which means seeds turned to charcoal. Flower buds and fruits turn up far less. The ancient writer Athenaeus gave the caper close attention in his work Deipnosophistae. Pliny and Theophrastus wrote about it as well.

The English word caper traces back to Classical Latin capparis. Classical Latin is the Latin of ancient Rome. Latin borrowed that word from the Greek kapparis. Where kapparis came from is unknown, much like the origin of the plant. Another theory links the word to Cyprus, Kypros in Greek. Capers grow there in great abundance.

Whether bound for Greek food or another cuisine, caper buds are dark olive green when ready to pick. After picking, they go into salt or a salt and vinegar mix and are then drained. A compound called glucocapparin then gives each bud an intense flavour, close to black pepper or mustard.

• Size: Ready buds range from under 7 mm to more than 14 mm in size.
• Climate: The bush must have a semiarid or arid climate, meaning fairly dry or very dry.
• Thorns: Curved thorns on the plant can scratch the people who gather the buds.

Beyond Greek food, capers also appear in Roman cooking. The Roman cookbook Apicius lists them as a spice. Apicius is the name given to that ancient Roman collection of recipes. Pickers gather the small caper buds in the morning hours.

Is rock samphire part of Greek food?

Greek food includes rock samphire kept in olive oil or vinegar. Preserved that way, it counts as a traditional Greek food. Italy, Croatia and Montenegro share the custom. Botanists name the plant Crithmum maritimum, and it also goes by the name sea fennel.

Rock samphire grows on cliffs, sea walls and beaches of sand or shingle. It almost always stays close to the sea. Shingle is a beach surface of small, rounded pebbles. The plant is a sprawling perennial herb about 30 cm tall. A long, yellowish main root, or taproot, smells of carrot.

The name Crithmum comes from krithe, an Ancient Greek word that first meant barley. The ancient writer Dioscorides used the related name krithmon for a plant. He described a shrubby little herb with thick leaves growing in rocky places by the sea. Botanists now place rock samphire in the carrot family, Apiaceae.

For Greek food and other kitchens, the stems, leaves and young seed pods can all be pickled. The foliage tastes hot and peppery, while its smell recalls furniture polish. Fresh leaves can also go into salads. Once dried and ground, sea fennel can serve as a substitute for salt.

• Seeds: Its spongy, buoyant fruit halves can float in seawater for months.
• Status: The species is rated least concern, since its numbers are stable or rising.
• Range: Its native range covers Europe, north Africa and western Asia.

Whether pickled for Greek food or not, rock samphire is gathered in the wild or grown in gardens. It is not a commercial crop, unlike marsh samphire. That second plant is an unrelated one from salt marshes. A commercial crop is grown in bulk for sale.

Which giant beans does Greek food rely on?

Greek food relies on fasolia gigantes, the Greek name for runner beans with white blossom and white seeds. The beans hold an important place in Greek cuisine. They appear in dishes such as gigantes plaki, large beans baked in tomato sauce.

Fasolia gigantes are grown in northern Greece under protective law. The listed regions include Kato Nevrokopi and Florina. The cultivar of that name is a white bean that originated in Greece. A cultivar is a plant variety that people have bred and keep growing. In English, an informal name for them is elephant beans.

Beyond Greek food at home, Greece also supplies runner bean pods to Europe. Together with northern Africa, it is a source of the pods sold as green beans in European markets. Those sales take place during the cold period of the year. The pods stand out for their flatness, large size and rougher surface.

The runner bean behind this part of Greek food, Phaseolus coccineus, began in the mountains of Central America. Its vine can grow to 3 metres or more. The pods reach 25 cm, and each bean is about 2.5 cm long. Unlike the common bean, it grows as a perennial vine with tuberous, or swollen, roots.

• Cooking: Runner beans contain a toxic protein, phytohaemagglutinin, so they need thorough cooking.
• Flowers: The blossoms draw hummingbirds, bees and other insects to the plant.
• Colours: Red flowers and multicoloured seeds mark the bulk of runner bean varieties.

In Greek food and beyond, runner bean seeds can go into the pot fresh or as dried beans. The young pods are eaten whole before they turn fibrous. Fibrous means tough and stringy. Their surface tends to be rougher than that of the common bean.

How do broad beans, called koukia, feature in Greek food?

Greek food calls broad beans koukia, while the word fava means something else. In Greek, fava refers to the yellow split pea and to another legume, Lathyrus clymenum. A legume is a plant of the pea and bean family.

In Greek food, fresh koukia are stewed with artichokes while still in their pods. Dried broad beans are boiled and can come with skordalia, a garlic sauce. Favism is quite common in Greece, because malaria was widespread there in past centuries. Favism is a reaction to broad beans in which red blood cells break down.

In ancient Greece and Rome, beans served as ballots in votes. A white bean meant yes, while a black bean meant no. Even today, Greeks use the word koukia unofficially to mean votes. Two ancient authors, Porphyry and Iamblichus, tell a story about the thinker Pythagoras. They report that he once talked a bull out of eating beans.

The koukia of Greek food come from one of the oldest crops in cultivation. Broad beans also rank among the easiest plants to grow. Unlike the bulk of legumes, they grow in salty soil and in clay. As legumes, they fix nitrogen in the soil. Nitrogen is a nutrient that plants need to grow.

• Protein: Raw mature broad beans hold 26% protein, alongside water, carbohydrates and a little fat.
• Balance: Among popular pulses, broad beans have the highest ratio of protein to carbohydrate.
• Scent: The flowers give off a strong sweet scent that draws bees and other pollinators.

Greek food draws on a crop with a long past. Scientists believe broad bean domestication began as early as 8250 BCE. Domestication means taming a wild species for farming. Radiocarbon dating of the remains, a lab test of age, supports that estimate.

What is trahanas, and how does Greek food use it?

Greek food uses trahanas, also called xynohondros, both Greek names for tarhana. The Greek version holds only cracked wheat or a couscous-like paste, mixed with fermented milk. Fermented food has been changed by natural bacteria or yeasts.

In Greek food and elsewhere, dry tarhana looks like rough, uneven crumbs. Cooks turn it into a thick soup with water, stock or milk. Stock is a liquid made by simmering meat, bones or vegetables. Another method fries the crumbs first. They then cook in only as much liquid as they can soak up.

Being acidic and low in moisture, tarhana keeps its milk proteins for long periods. Fermentation produces lactic acid, which gives the mix its sour taste. The pH falls to between 3.4 and 4.2. Drying then cuts the moisture content to 6 to 10%. pH is a scale of how acidic a substance is.

The word behind this Greek food has a debated history. Hill and Bryer link it to the Greek trakton. Apicius wrote about that thickener in the 1st century CE. A thickener makes a liquid denser. Dalby instead ties tarhana to the Greek tragos or traganos. Perry doubts that sound change and looks to a Persian source.

• Cyprus: Tarhana counts as a national specialty there, served with pieces of halloumi cheese.
• Albania: There it is made with wheat, yoghurt and butter, then served with hot olive oil and feta.
• Persian: In Persian terms, the name translates as watered or soaked food.

Greek food shares tarhana with the cooking of Central Asia, Southeast Europe and the Middle East. Across that wide area, the base is a fermented mix of grain with yogurt or fermented milk. Drying then turns that mix into a finished food ingredient.

Why do melomakarona bring honey into Greek food?

Greek food has an egg-shaped dessert called the melomakarono, plural melomakarona. Flour, olive oil and honey form its main base. Its name joins meli, the Greek word for honey, with makaria. Makaria was a bread of ancient and medieval times, once eaten at funerals.

Bakers of this Greek food mix flour or semolina with sugar, orange zest or juice, and olive oil. Cinnamon, crushed or ground clove and cognac, a grape brandy, join the dough. Semolina is a coarse flour milled from hard wheat. Zest is grated orange peel. Rolled dough frequently wraps around a filling of ground walnuts.

Straight from the oven, each melomakarono is dipped briefly into cold syrup. That syrup is honey and sugar dissolved in water. A syrup is a thick, sweet liquid, and dissolved means fully mixed in. On this Greek food, ground walnut and larger walnut pieces then go on top as decoration.

This Greek food also goes by the name finikia. One claim says the sweets began in ancient Phoenicia and reached Greece as early as 300 BC. Phoenicia was an old trading land on the eastern Mediterranean coast. Under the Byzantine Empire, heir to the Roman east, finikia seems to have meant a reddish colour.

• Chocolate: Melomakarona coated in dark chocolate are a more recent take on the old recipe.
• Recipe: Slow changes to the recipe, plus a dip in honey, led to today’s melomakarona.
• Funerals: Byzantine Greeks ate them at funerals to honour those who had died.

Greek food at Christmas leans on two traditional desserts, melomakarona and kourabiedes. Both are prepared mainly in the Christmas holiday season, the festive days at the close of the year. Traditional means handed down from one generation to the next.

What makes kourabiedes a festive Greek food?

Greek food knows kourabiedes as a festive biscuit, and the singular form of the word is kourabies. The Greek version resembles a light shortbread, commonly made with almonds. Shortbread is a crumbly biscuit rich in butter. The word itself comes from the Turkish kurabiye.

Kurabiye belongs to the ghorayeba group of cookies from the Middle East. Ghorayeba are shortbread-type biscuits, made in the main with ground almonds. The word kurabiye appears in Ottoman cuisine during the 15th century. Ottoman describes things tied to the Turkish empire of that name. Cuisine is a style of cooking.

Brandy flavours this Greek food at times, and vanilla, mastika and rose water are popular too. Mastika is a liqueur flavoured with mastic resin. Rose water is water scented with rose petals. In parts of Greece, each Christmas biscuit holds a single whole clove. A clove is the dried flower bud of a spice tree.

Bakers of this Greek food shape the dough into crescents or balls, then bake it until slightly golden. While the biscuits are still hot, they are rolled in icing sugar. This step forms a rich butter-sugar coating. Icing sugar is sugar ground to a fine powder. A crescent is a curved shape like a new moon.

• Occasions: Kourabiedes are popular for special days such as Christmas or baptisms.
• Cyprus: In Cyprus, wedding guests receive them as gifts once the ceremony ends.
• Spain: Ghorayeba are similar to polvorones, a biscuit from Andalusia in southern Spain.

Greek food is one home of this biscuit, which also exists across Arab, Balkan and Ottoman cooking. The earliest known Arab cookbook, from the 10th century, gives a similar shortbread recipe without almonds. A cookbook is a written collection of recipes.

How does tsoureki shape Greek food at Easter and Christmas?

Greek food counts tsoureki as a sweet holiday bread whose dough mixes flour, milk, butter, eggs and sugar. Its flavour comes commonly from lemon or orange zest, mastic resin or mahleb. Mahleb is a spice ground from the stones of a wild cherry.

Lampropsomo is the Easter form of this Greek food, known in English as Greek Easter bread. Greeks bake it for Easter in Greece and across the Greek diaspora. A diaspora is a people living away from its homeland. Before baking, the dough gets a brush of egg wash. Egg wash is beaten egg that gives a glossy crust.

Almond extract, cinnamon, fennel seed or raisins also flavour the loaf at times. Fennel is a herb whose seeds taste faintly of aniseed. The Greek food name tsoureki derives from the Turkish word çörek. In Old Turkic, çörek means round bread. Old Turkic is an early written form of the Turkic languages.

Christopsomo, meaning Christ’s bread, is the round Christmas loaf of this Greek food family. A cross made from dough decorates its top. Bakers set part of the dough aside to form that cross. Whole walnuts, slivered almonds and sesame seeds sometimes decorate the crust as well. Slivered almonds are almonds cut into thin strips.

• Fruit: The Christmas dough can hold raisins, dried apricots, dried figs and orange zest.
• Glaze: A syrup of honey, orange juice and slivered almonds can glaze the Christmas loaf.
• Gift: Children at times give tsoureki to their godparents as an Easter gift.

Neighbouring kitchens bake the same Greek food under other names. Bulgarians call it kozunak, and Romanians call it cozonac. The Easter loaf is also known as Armenian Easter bread and eaten at Easter in Armenia. Its Turkish name, paskalya çöreği, means Easter çörek.

What New Year custom surrounds vasilopita in Greek food?

Greek food greets the New Year with vasilopita, a bread, cake or pie hiding a coin or trinket. Across the larger part of Greece, Saint Basil’s day, 1 January, is its date. Its other name, Chronopita, means New Year’s pie.

Cutting this Greek food aims to bless the home and draw good fortune for the year ahead. The cutting commonly comes at the stroke of midnight, as New Year’s Eve ends. A knife first marks the sign of the cross over the cake. Every family member and visitor present then gets a slice, eldest first and youngest last.

Extra symbolic slices follow local and family custom. They can honour the Lord, Saint Basil, the household, the poor or the Kallikantzaroi. The Kallikantzaroi are goblins of Greek folk belief. Long ago the coin tended to be valuable, a gold sovereign for example. These days the person who finds the coin receives a gift agreed in advance.

The name joins basileus, meaning king, with pita, meaning cake, later reread as Basil’s cake. In popular tradition, this Greek food is tied to a legend of Basil of Caesarea. In the story, he baked unpaid ransom jewellery into loaves and handed them out. Each citizen, by a miracle, got back exactly what they had given.

• Regions: In parts of Greece, the hidden-coin cake belongs to Epiphany or to Christmas instead.
• Thessaly: In Thessaly, cooks make a pork-filled pie of thin phyllo pastry with a coin hidden inside.
• Custard: Families sometimes use galatopita, a custard base whose name means milk-pita, instead of dough.

Clubs, societies and workplaces also cut a vasilopita of their own, a Greek food custom beyond the home. They do so between New Year’s Day and the start of the Great Fast. The Great Fast is the Orthodox Lent before Easter.

Where does koliva sit in Greek food and Orthodox remembrance?

Greek food sets koliva apart as a solemn dish of boiled wheat. The Eastern Orthodox Church uses it in worship to honour and remember the dead. Unlike in certain other countries, Greeks and Cypriots keep it for religious occasions only.

Koliva is blessed at funerals and at the memorial service, called mnemosyno in Greek. A memorial service is a church rite in honour of someone who has died. These services fall on the third, ninth and fortieth days after a death, and at one year. Koliva also appears on the Saturday of Souls, called Psychosavvato.

To make this Greek food, cooks boil wheat kernels until soft and drain them well. The kernels are spread on a cloth until just moist, then sweetened with honey or sugar. Sesame seeds, almonds, ground walnuts and cinnamon join it, with pomegranate seeds, raisins, anise and parsley. Anise seeds carry a sweet, liquorice-like flavour.

When served, this Greek food is shaped into a mound that resembles a grave. Powdered sugar covers the whole, and the initials of the dead person are traced on top. Initials are the first letters of a person’s names. A candle sits in the centre, lit when the memorial service begins and put out when it ends.

• Word: The name comes from Ancient Greek kollybos, a small coin or small gold weight.
• Pies: In the Hellenistic period, the plural kollyba came to name small pies of boiled wheat.
• Monks: In the 5th century AD, boiled wheat and raw vegetables fed monks who refused bread.

This Greek food has roots older than Christianity. The ancient Greek panspermia, a mix of cooked seeds and nuts, was offered at the Anthesteria festival. As a ritual food, koliva moved from paganism into early Christian Byzantium, then across the Orthodox world.

Which almond drink does soumada add to Greek food?

Greek food on Chios and Nisyros, as in Cyprus, includes soumada, a syrup very much like orgeat. Orgeat is a sweet almond and sugar syrup, scented with rose water or orange flower water. Its almond taste comes through strong and clear.

This Greek food drink has an old history, at least in Cyprus, reaching back to the Roman period. In 1364, King Peter the First of Cyprus offered it as an exotic delicacy. It went to King Casimir the Great, ruler of Poland, at a congress held in Kraków. A delicacy is a rare or fine food.

Orgeat, which this Greek food drink resembles, was first made from barley and almonds blended together. Its name traces back to the Latin hordeaceus, meaning made with barley. French carried the word onward, since orge is the French for barley. The Spanish drink horchata shares that root, though neither drink uses barley today.

An old English and Australian cookbook gives an early orgeat recipe. Almonds are pounded with sugar in a mortar, and water is added little by little. A mortar is a heavy bowl for crushing food with a pestle. Mixed with water to suit each taste, the syrup then served as a drink for summer.

• Sweet almonds: Modern orgeat syrups are made only from sweet almonds, not bitter ones.
• Malta: In Malta, a cousin called ruġġata blends almond and vanilla essence, sometimes with cinnamon and cloves.
• North Africa: In Tunisia and Libya, a chilled variant called rozata appears at weddings and engagement parties.

In Greek food on Nisyros, soumada counts as a traditional product. It is an almond-flavoured drink with no alcohol. Nisyros is a volcanic Greek island in the Dodecanese group, between Kos and Tilos. Dodecanese comes from the Greek for twelve islands.

What do travellers ask about Greek food, and what are the answers?

Greek food includes diples, koulourakia, moustalevria and lagana: two pastries, a pudding and a flatbread. A pastry is a sweet made from dough, baked or fried. A pudding is a soft, sweet dish, and a flatbread is a thin, flat loaf.

Within Greek food, how do diples differ from angel wings?

Diples resemble angel wings, a fried dough pastry. Diples, though, take a dip in syrup, while angel wings stay dry. Bow ties and spirals are their two leading shapes. Another form dips an iron mould in batter and fries it in oil. The pastry is ready once it slips free of the mould.

When does Greek food bring out koulourakia?

Koulourakia are a traditional Greek dessert, baked around Easter and eaten after Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday falls just before Easter. The name is a diminutive of the word for a ring-shaped roll or loaf. A diminutive marks a thing as small. Minoan bakers at times shaped them as small snakes, honoured for healing.

What is moustalevria in Greek food?

Moustalevria is a traditional Greek pudding: grape must is stirred with flour and boiled down until thick. Grape must is the juice of pressed grapes before it turns into wine. The dish began in Ancient Greece, where people called it oinouta. It is popular at the grape harvest, when fresh must is at hand.

On Clean Monday, how does lagana fit into Greek food?

Lagana is a Greek flatbread made by tradition for Clean Monday, which opens Great Lent. Great Lent is the long fast before Easter. The loaf is flat and oval, and fingertips pressed into the dough mark its surface. Its name comes from lagana, a Greco-Roman pastry dough that also gave the word lasagna.