Village Greek Salad (Χωριάτικη Ντοματοσαλάτα)

Village Greek salad in all its glory - Click to Enlarge Image

Exactly when the tomato arrived in Greece is a matter of conjecture; there are various apocryphal anecdotes and references but nothing definitive. One thing is certain; it arrived sometime after Columbus returned from the New World in 1493. The tomato is native to the Americas and was introduced to Europe after the Discovery made by the great 15^th Century navigator on his celebrated voyage across the Atlantic. If Christopher Columbus was of Greek origin as some claim, it may have arrived in Greece earlier than commonly supposed. In any case, the tomato qua tomato has been a part of European and Greek recipes for no more than a few centuries all told. It is downright astonishing how this species of nightshade spread and insinuated itself into the national cuisines of the European continent in such a relatively short time. After all, where would Italian cooking be without the tomato? How about the Spanish food fight festival known as the Tomatina? What of Greek salad?

Like the Italians and the Spanish, Greeks use the tomato in everything from casseroles to soups; they stuff them, roast them, bake them, fry them, dry them, grate them, pulp them, and turn ‘em into sauce. Opa! But the single most popular way for tomatoes to be consumed in Greece is in a salad; and not just any salad of course, but a Greek salad. Just what makes a Greek salad anyway? If you ask a Greek this question, he/she may require clarification. “What kind of salad do you mean?” they might ask. After all, Greeks have all manner of salads or salates as they call them (in Gk. pronounced “sah-LAH-tehs”, which is plural for “sah-LAH-tah”); from Taramosalata, to Lahanosalata, to every kind of salata you can imagine… and even some you cannot. In short, Greeks are the biggest salad eaters on the planet; for them everything is potentially a salad.

So, if what you mean by Greek salad is a tomato salad that includes feta cheese, olive oil and oregano as its most basic constituents, you will need to be specific. More often than not, if you are in a Greek restaurant, both in Greece and abroad, the classic tomato salad with feta cheese is usually referred to as a ‘horiatiki salata’. The word horiatiki is Greek for “village” and is pronounced as “hor-YIA-tiki”. Typically, a horiatiki salad will include onions and cucumbers as well, and in most cases black olives too. As my family is from Arcadia in the Peloponnese we also include Greek pepperoncini in our version of the famous salad, as the small “Golden Greek Peppers” are a specialty of our region.


My father's pride and joy, a 1 kg. tomato! - Click to Enlarge Image

I used tomatoes from our kitchen garden for this dish, as we still have quite a few left. My father-in-law brought us some seed from Greece in the spring, so our tomatoes are actual Greek tomatoes. Yesterday, I pulled the remaining tomatoes off the vines as we had a frost warning for the overnight period. This year, the family prize for the largest tomato went to my father who managed to grow a truly behemoth bunch of tomatoes; the largest of which was a 1 kg (2.2 lb) monster, as pictured above. The award was a bottle of ouzo. The monster tomato ended up in a salad exactly like the one pictured in this recipe, and it was tasty!

Ingredients:

3 medium sized ripe tomatoes cut into quarters or sixths
½ a cooking onion, sliced
½ a cucumber, peeled, halved and sliced
Several Greek pepperoncini (be sure to squeeze them to drain the brine before using)
Some Kalamata or wrinkled black olives (the choice is yours)
½ cup (125 ml.) crumbled Greek Feta cheese
¼ cup (60 ml.) Greek extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons (30 ml.) Greek wine vinegar* (optional, I normally do not add it)
1 teaspoon (5 ml.) dried Greek oregano
Fresh ground pepper
Salt to taste* (optional, I normally do not add it as the Feta is already salty enough)

1. Wash and cut the tomatoes, cucumbers and onions and put them together into a salad bowl.
2. Add several olives and pepperoncini to the bowl.
3. Sprinkle the crumbled feta overtop of the vegetables, then follow with fresh ground pepper, oregano, and the olive oil (salt and vinegar are also options at this point, but are not required ingredients. I do not add salt because as I stated above the Feta cheese is already quite salty, and any additional salt will only serve to make the tomatoes drain their water, thereby limiting the standing time of the salad).
4. Mix everything together a couple turns, but don’t overdo it, and serve.