There’s no doubt that pies, being an essential part of the Greek cuisine, are one of our most favorite comfort foods. Moreover –and there’s no doubt about that either- pies are the most popular street food in the country. Wherever you go in Greece you will always bump into a pie shop!
“Papoutsakia”, the name of the dish on today’s post, literally means “little shoes”. But it’s also a wonderful Greek dish from the Peloponese, in the south of the country, where eggplants are commonly used in the local cuisine. “Papoutsakia” is actually eggplants stuffed with minced meat sauce and topped with béchamel sauce. One could say that it is a variation of the famous moussaka , but “papoutsakia” are equally delicious and when you taste them you’ll end up relishing more than one!
Moussaká is perhaps the most emblematic Greek summer dish. It can be found at almost every restaurant in Greece and every Greek restaurant in the world. Basically it is made with two summer vegetables, eggplant and zucchini, but potatoes are usually added or used as a substitute to one of the two basic vegetables.
Stuffed tomatoes is the ultimate Greek summer dish. “Yemistá” as we call them is a meal that we enjoy eating this time of the year when tomatoes are rich in flavor, juicier and much tastier. They are usually stuffed with rice and different fresh herbs and baked in the oven, that being the most popular version. There is also a version where the stuffing is a mixture of minced meat sauce and rice -that is more of a Sunday treat. Today we’ve got for you the veggie version, meaning that rice is the basic stuffing ingredient. We hope you enjoy it!
40 days before Easter, Orthodox Greeks begin a fasting period that will lead to the biggest religious feast in Greece, which is none other than Easter itself. The first day of this particular fasting period is Clean Monday or as we call it here in Greece “Kathará Deftéra”. It’s a national holiday, schools and public services are closed, and if it’s possible most people leave the city to celebrate this certain day. Those who stay at the city go to parks, or the sea side if there is one, and do what everyone else in the country is doing: flying a kite!
Melomakárona is the name of our traditional Greek Christmas cookies. They go back in time, in Ancient Greece, when they were usually served after a funeral. But those cookies were made without honey, whereas the ones we eat today are dropped for a few seconds in a syrup made with honey. Thus the first part of the word “melo” deriving from the word “méli” meaning honey in Greek.
One of the most attractive features of Greek cuisine is the fact that it stands somewhere between the eastern cuisine and the western one –eastern meaning mostly that of Asia Minor and the Middle East, western meaning cuisines from different European countries. Geographically speaking Greece stands on a crossroad that connects Europe with Asia. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that our cuisine has been influenced by both sides while on the same time we have kept our culinary idiosyncrasies.
