Greek Dishes

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Many Greek dishes need no introduction -tarama, moussaka, gyros, retsina, vine leaves, Greek salads with feta, Greek yoghurt, and baklava have achieved the universality of lasagne and chicken tikka. Although some of the food maybe familiar, if you've not been to Greece before you may find eating on the islands different from what you're used to, with a big emphasis on informality. Meals begin with bread (usually excellent- it's one thing they do better than their Italian cousins) and starters (mezedes) to be communally shared: olives, tzatziki (a delicious dip made of cucumbers, yoghurt, olive oil and garlic), prawns, tirosalata (feta cheese dip), koponista (pungent smoked or salted fish), roasted sweet peppers, cheese or spinach pies, meatballs, or saganaki (fried cheese sprinkled with lemon). These are followed by a shared salad and potatoes, and your own main course. This could be a gorgeously fresh omelette, or an oven dish or stew (called `Ready dishes', as they're already prepared). Typically choices are moussaka, pastitsio (baked macaroni, layered with ground meat, cheese, cream and topped with bechamel), roast lamb or chicken, makaronia (basically spaghetti bolognese), yemista (stuffed tomatoes or peppers), stifado (spiced beef stew with baby onions), lagostifado (rabbit stew, is similar, but flavoured with orange), kokinisto (beef cooked with tomatoes and a hint of cinnamon), lamb or veal youvetsi (baked with tomatoes and with tear-drop pasta), chirino me selino (pork with wild celery, in egg lemon sauce), or kreas stin stamna (lamb or beef baked in a clay dish). Meats grilled to order come under the heading tis oras ('the On Times') - pork chops (brizoles), lamb cutlets (paidakia), souvlaki, minced steak (bifteki), meatballs (keftedes or souzoukakia), sausage (loukaniko), or chicken. Greeks usually don't eat duck.

Seafood is fresh and delicious, but ironically relatively expensive (blame over-fishing, and the fact that much of the catch goes to mainland markets) but you can usually find cheapies like fresh whitebait (marides), fresh sardines (sardeles), cuttlefish stew (soupia), and squid rings (kalamari). Baked or fried bakaliaros (fresh Mediterranean cod) is always a treat. Some places serve soups such as delicious fish soup, psarosoupa (with potatoes and carrots) or spicy tomato-based kakavia (made of various fish), a meal in themselves with hunks of fresh bread and a bottle of wine. Prawns (garides) are lightly fried or baked with garlic tomatoes and feta as garides saganaki, a popular dish invented in the 1960s; spaghetti with lobster (astakomakaronada) is another delicious dish included in the Greek menus. Note that each type of fish has its own price, and portions are priced by weight; often you'll be asked to pick out the one you want cooked and the owner puts it on the scale in front of you.

Desserts are not rare after lunch or dinner although many places offer complementary watermelon or sliced apples sprinkled with cinnamon or nutmeg as well; Greeks make lovely sweets, puddings, cakes, and ice creams.