Greek Recipes

With the summer in full swing here in the northern hemisphere, many of us are seeking relief from stifling temperatures. In some regions new record seasonal highs have been recorded; here in Toronto the past week was a true scorcher. Fortunately, Greek food culture includes recipes that are perfectly suited to beating the heat. A bird's eye view of my Greek cucumber salad, click to enlarge When Greeks sit down to a summertime meal, they will invariably include a raw salad of one kind or another. One of the more popular summertime Greek salads in our family is the world famous Aggourosalata (ah-goo-roh-sah-LAH-ta), or, Cucumber Salad. There are a few variations on the theme, but it is a very basic dish and serves as a refreshing course alongside other summertime favourites. The cucumber has been α part of Greek cookery for millennia. It is used in the famous Tzatziki sauce , and can simply be sliced into wedges, salted or not, and consumed without any fuss, much ...

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 fig...

This posting is a re-post which I inadvertently unpublished. Here it is again for those of you who are looking for a refreshing and tasty salad idea. Lahanosalata… Greek Coleslaw Salad all dressed up! One of the things that always amuses me whenever I see it on a menu or in an advertisement is the phrase “Greek salad”. Now, Greek salad is commonly understood as either one of two things: a combination of tomatoes, cucumbers, onion and feta cheese (and sometimes peppers), or the same aforementioned ingredients with the addition of lettuce. The truth is, Greeks consume more vegetables (both raw and cooked) than all other Europeans, and the numerous “salads” one can find throughout the various regions of Greece are as varied as the terrain. The one thing, though, that never makes it into a “Greek salad” in Greece is lettuce! Whenever I visit my aunt in Athens, I always look forward to her Lahanosalata. Although North Americans are familiar with coleslaw as a side for fish and ch...