I’ve been fascinated with Ancient Greek Cooking ever since I read The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Three Ancient Cuisines: China, Greece, and Rome. In that book the author argued that these three cuisines were the most influential in terms of importance on Western food. It was very fascinating.

So I’ve been intrigued by the cooking in Ancient Greece ever since. Did you know that there were “celebrity chefs” in that culture? The elite would hire expert and coveted chefs to prepare meals for them. The leftover foods were sold on the streets. Ancient Greek chefs could also “patent” their signature dishes.

A good place to start if you want to learn the art of Ancient Greek Cooking is that book. There are also some great places online to go. Bear in mind that it is almost impossible to replicate a dish exactly. Kitchen tools were different back then as were some of the ingedients. However, you can get a fairly close approximation in your modern kitchen.

So what lures me to this ancient cuisine? I simply would love to know where some of my favorite foods originated. I believe that in order to understand the modern elements of a particular cuisine, it helps to understand where the traditions, ingredients, and the recipes first started.

Image via Wikipedia

If you want to learn how to cook Greek food the right way, you may want to take a Greek cooking class. I had the benefit of learning how to cook Greek food from my yia yia and mother. I believe it really is best to learn how to cook Greek food from someone who really knows the cuisine and the food. To me, the food isn’t necessarily about the ingredients and what to do with them, it’s about the stories and the tradition.

Read more »

Image via Wikipedia

Feta cheese is the iconic standard that goes into Greek salad. It seems wrong to chomp on fresh tomatoes and cucumbers seasoned with oil and vinegar without at least  a little feta to add some salt and flavor to the mix. I love ordering Greek salads in restaurants. I also love making them at home.

The beauty to making a Greek salad is that the ingredients don’t need to be rigid. Sure, you can follow the recipe I am going to give you. But if I were you, I’d follow that recipe only once and each time you make it, do something different. A salad, afterall, is pretty much impossible to mess up.

Read more »

I went out to eat at a Greek restaurant last night. I recognized some of the dishes on the menu. Their spanakopita that we had as an appetizer, for example, was tasty - just like I remember it. But I’ve visited Greece within the past few years and I know that my standard favorites do not necessarily represent the cuisine as a whole. Greek food is just as dynamic as any cuisine and as such is susceptible to food trends. So what’s hot in Greece right now?

Read more »