Eating in Greek

espresso freddo

My first meal in Greece was in Thessaloniki, cobbled together from a bakery and a grocery store at seven-thirty at night in the midst of a pro-Palestine demonstration. It was a Greek salad and beans. That may sound boring, but let me elaborate. Greek salad in Greece does not contain lettuce. It’s tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamata olives, and feta, sometimes with oregano or thyme, dressed in oil and vinegar, or in nothing at all. Nude, as it were. Like Germans on the beach. Or hairless cats.

I poured a little cup of balsamic vinaigrette over my salad, which also contained what the Greeks call rusks—basically giant crunchy, croutons. The feta was salty and funky, the dressing was tangy, the tomatoes and cucumbers tasted like sunshine. The olives were juicy and salty. The beans were actually giant white beans, bigger than a quarter, in a tomato-herb-olive oil sauce, eaten from a can. I finished the meal with a chocolate bar that the bank in Tallinn gave me after their ATM ate my debit card.

eggplant, cucumbers, barley rusks, feta, fava beans

The Greeks are very proud of their food. Even though Greeks tend to claim that everything is originally Greek, like the dad in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you can see the Ottoman influence in the boat-shaped pizzas (like the ones found in Georgia), in the “Greek coffee” made with sand-like coffee grounds in copper pots (like Turkish coffee), the fragrant sesame seeds on the thin bagels (like the simit in Istanbul). Everything is fresh and local thanks to the good soil scattered between the mountains, and so the vegetables always tasted like sunshine to me. You also see a focus on bread and beans and vegetables—there’s less meat here than in the other Balkans and in the Baltics—because for years meat was too expensive. The rusks, made usually of barley flour and olive oil, are left over from a time of national poverty, when Greeks needed to make their bread last for as long as possible. They’re full of nutty flavor and they become softer when you combine them with cheese and olive oil and vegetables.

Greek/Turkish/Ottoman coffee

There are a few things that are truly Greek and found nowhere else. There’s archeological evidence that people were making souvlaki—grilled skewered meat—in Greece millennia ago. So, I guess we can give them that. However, I don’t think that Pericles and Socrates were eating the souvlaki that my friends Jake and Nik ate for literally every meal—meat on a pita with tomato, onion, and yogurt for the sweet, sweet price of four euros. I got a great mushroom souvlaki at a place called Mama Tierra for the same price, and it was phenomenal. Note: it’s actually very easy to be vegetarian in Greece, both because the cuisine isn’t heavy on meat and because the Greeks themselves seem open to the idea of not eating animals. They wouldn't laugh at you for being vegetarians the way the French might.

Espresso freddo is another quintessentially Greek invention, a shot of espresso frothed with however much sugar you want (I take no sugar because that's how badass I am) and poured over ice. You can also get a cappuccino freddo and the barista will add a layer of cold milk foam on top of the whole concoction. The espresso freddo was invented in the 1990s, after the Greeks realized that Italian espresso tasted better than instant coffee, and today Greeks drink iced coffee through thin little paper straws from the moment they wake up (which isn’t very early) until about nine at night. Want to look Greek? Lounge at a tiny café table with a friend, a coworker, a sexual partner, a parent, anyone, and talk and sip cold caffeinated beverages. The Greeks don’t seem to drink as much alcohol as the central Europeans just because they take so long to switch from coffee to wine or beer. The Belgians are drinking their first beers at five p.m. The Greeks’ day has only just started, and they’re only on their second espresso.

feta bougatsa in Thessaloniki

The Greeks are also really good at making pies, both of the pita and bougatsa variety. And by pies, I don’t mean the kind you eat in front of the Cowboys game on Thanksgiving day. I mean basically a pastry sandwich, thin layers of artfully folded filo dough with a filling of anything you can dream of, from meat to cheese to vegetables. Pita, as in, spanakopita, has pastry that’s a little thicker and less flaky, and the fillings are usually savory, while bougatsa pastry is thinner, crisper, flakier, and the filling is sometimes savory, feta-like cream, and sometimes a sweet pastry cream. I had feta bougatsa twice for breakfast in Thessaloniki at a shop that had a line of locals waiting outside on Saturday. Always a good sign. The Greeks eat pies morning, noon, and night, but especially for breakfast.

Greek yogurt with plums, tahini, and almonds

The Greek approach to dairy is also a little different than the other Balkan peoples; they look down on milk of the bovine variety. It’s low quality, they say. They prefer milk from literally any other source—maybe they even milk the stray cats and make yogurt with it (they don’t). But they really don’t like cow’s milk. The best feta, yogurt, and ice cream is made with sheep or goat milk. And speaking of yogurt, true Greek yogurt is different from the little cups you buy at Trader Joe's. It’s super creamy and thick because it’s 10% milkfat and it has so much more flavor than you thought yogurt could have: tangy with just a hint of salt.

I’d also remiss if I didn’t talk for a minute about beans and nuts. The beans, usually grown locally in Greece, are so good. The Greeks are especially fond of chickpeas and fava beans, and I highly recommend that you buy the canned mashed “Greek island fava” at the grocery store. It looks like baby food, but it’s delicious. Nuts here—although this is true for nuts across the Balkans and in Turkey—taste like technicolor versions of their U.S. cousins. A raw almond tastes like marzipan, a hazelnut tastes seconds away from becoming Nutella.

In conclusion, if you come to Greece, which you should (I’m not sure I’ve been anywhere yet that you shouldn’t also come!), you can eat very, very well for very, very little. Spend time sipping coffee at a café, eat cheese pies and souvlaki, buy cucumbers, almonds, canned beans and yogurt at the grocery store. You will dine like a king on a cuisine that came to be because of peasants.