International cuisine (Διεθνής κoυζίνα)

A while back, I had posted a photo on my facebook page, which looked slightly incongruous, given the setting where I had taken it. I posted it as a teaser and I asked people to say how this photo made them feel. 

Sighted outside an eaterie in Souyia, located on the south coast of Crete

Fennel salads, couscous, soups in the summer, (the cursed) kids' menus (as if kids don't eat the same things grown-ups eat), curry flavours and a preponderance of French cuisine terms do not immediately make us think of traditional eateries in Crete, so we probably can't label this place a taverna. Only the last two choices (octopus and shrimp) which are singled out in a different colour remind us of something a Greek summertime taverna would serve: both octopus and shrimp are common choices in a seaside eaterie in coastal Greece.

Not only the choices on the menu, but also the writing style, suggest that there is something non-Greek going on here: the curly script is reminiscent of Northern European writing styles. It takes a little getting used to if you are not familiar with hand-written English in this calligraphic style; even if those swinging S's make you dizzy, they are certainly eye-catching enough to tempt you to come closer to have a better look. Without closer inspection, the average Greek might take it for Arabic!

We have probably ascertained that the cook isn't Greek, but what about the customers? The menu conveys a sense of any time and any place. International cuisine is usually the domain of restaurants in the Western world, and most of us do in fact go out to dine on international food. But there are also a good number of us who like to cook according to the cuisine style of a culture that is not our own. We don't wait to go to Italy, for example, to have pizza. That's why I like to cook Asian dishes; if I waited to visit Asia to try Asian cuisine, I probably won't eat anything Asian for the next decade at least! There are many of us who are really tired of the classic Greek taverna menu and would like to try something different.

Despite resembling a bit of a melange, this menu conveys an originality that the average Greek taverna menus do not. This kind of menu fits the bill for those of us who would like to try something different when we go out. Personally, I'd have no hesitation in ordering the taboulleh and chicken curry, and I know which members of my family would be interested in the pepper steak, the schnitzel and the pizzas. (But forget the soups - not really very Greek to have those when going out for a meal, and certainly not in the summer!)

The truth remains however that, on first sight, such a menu card on the south coast of Crete, in a quiet less popular summer resort town with not many tourists or even locals, would probably cause some confusion. For a start, we don't expect to see such an array of dishes being served in this locality. Secondly, there is already the price stigma attached to international menus in places like Greece - such menus are usually more expensive than the average Greek taverna. This is what would actually stop me from coming too close to the restaurant's entry: I am not given an idea about how much I will be paying to enjoy such a menu, so I don't really know if I am in a position to afford it...

Curry spices, curry paste and coconut milk are now available in most large supermarket chains in Hania, so it isn't too difficult to cook an Indian-style meal with any fresh, local and/or seasonal meat and vegetables. My recent take is loosely based on a simple internet recipe.

If I put aside price though, I know I would be happy to try this menu. Since I often cook international dishes myself, I know how easy it is to serve up these meals in my own home. You don't need special ingredients to do this, in the sense that you can go to the supermarket and find practically everything you need to create these dishes using local and imported ingredients. All you need is an enthusiastic chef.

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Aubergine with spicy yoghurt, onion, herbs and pomegranate seeds (Πολλά και διάφορα)

Tavernas (ταβέρνες) and restaurants (εστιατόρια) are two quite different things. A taverna is an informal eaterie which serves traditional Greek meals, while a restaurant often has a more formal atmosphere and the food served there may not be recognisable in the Greek culinary spectre. Tavernas are usually cheap, although I haven't been to one since the price hikes (we haven't been to one since last September). A full meal would cost my family no more than €12 euro a head, alcohol included. The food served for this price is mainly fresh, local and seasonal. Last year, I went to a pricey restaurant in my town; the meals there used ingredients not normally associated with Cretan/Greek cuisine.

Why must restaurant food be expensive? Fancy decor, high rents and plush furnishings don't warrant a high price for a meal. Not even the service counts: waiters should always be courteous, chefs should always cook decent food, and service should always be reasonably quick wherever you go.  People go out for a meal for different reasons. I never include eating local food at the top of my list when choosing to eat out, because that's what I eat most of the time. I'm not a locavore in the modern sense: I eat what there is to be found out of necessity, not necessarily by choice. My primary reason would be to enjoy myself, so if I have to pay a high price for the meal, I want to be sure that I am paying for the quality of the food, not the surroundings.

 In summer, I prepared some eggplant rolls filled with mint-flavoured mizithra cheese. To make the eggplant recipe I found ιn the Ottolenghi menu, I defrosted six pieces, scraped off the mizithra into a bowl, and pan-fried the eggplant. The minty mizithra was used to make the yoghurt sauce. 

Having recently used an Ottolenghi recipe, I checked out other items on the menu of his restaurants. The average cost of each dish was about £10. The dishes do not have names as such: they are described by their ingredients. The restaurant has a Mediterranean focus, and the ingredients are all fresh, but they aren't all British: according to the website, 'local' food is both British and European.  Judging from the reviews posted by different diners, you would order about three dishes per person (they are mainly vegetable-based, which means that they don't fill up your stomach too easily), with an average cost per head of approximately £30, which translate to about 40 euro per head. That is not at all cheap.

The description of the dishes goes something like this:

 Roasted aubergine with turmeric yoghurt,

crispy onion, basil, rocket and

pomegranate

£9.00

Some tweaks to the original description: I shallow-fried (instead of roasting) the eggplant slices to save time and energy; I didn't have fresh basil available, so I used fresh oregano instead; I preferred to use fresh ginger to flavour the yoghurt rather than turmeric because I had that only in powdered form; the rocket I used is a Greek variety with large leaves (small-leafed rocket is available, but it's imported and bagged - probably subjected to bleach for the purposes of cleansing). The pomegranate was the last local one I had managed to secure for the season (and I mean from Hania) - there won't be any more locally grown pomegranates until next year. That's what it means to eat fresh, local seasonal food - everything is eaten or preserved in its time.

It's not difficult to imagine what I'll be getting from such a description. But it's hard to work out if the ingredients are truly seasonal when they are found from a range of different sources. In Greece, aubergine is usually associated with summer, and pomegranate with late autumn or early winter; this was supposedly a February menu. At least one of those ingredients would have to come from a greenhouse or outside Europe (ie not local, according to the restaurant's definition). The cooking techniques sound quite simple - the final taste and quality seem to depend on the appropriateness of the combinations of the ingredients.

 

My initial idea was to photograph the finished dish with an olive grove in the background. Then I remembered the plants that actually gave me the aubergines: now in winter, they are dry stalks. They continued to produce eggplant up until early January, but the fruit was not the best quality.

The roasted aubergine with turmeric yoghurt, crispy onion, basil, rocket and pomegranate seeds was the first item I saw written on the sample menu card. My first thought was "I can easily recreate a dish like this in my kitchen", because all the ingredients are available to me: in fact, we grow most of the fresh ones ourselves - but not all at the same time! My second thought was: "Oh my God, so many different ingredients." It's freaky to rush around trying to find obscure items that can't always be located at one stop-and-shop place, especially when you really don't need to use them in great quantity; a lot of your purchases will probably not end up being used again for a while, kind of like bottled Asian sauces sitting in your fridge for a long time. And finally: "There's a lot of preparation involved in this dish." You need a lot of hands to create this kind of meal, as well as quite a wide variety of pots and pans and kitchen utensils.

Pomegranate and eggplant are two of my favorite natural foods (in their season). They are also messy to deal with. Skin contact with the white flesh of an eggplant (and the yellow inner flesh of a pomegranate) makes your fingers black. I should know: I have cut a lot of aubergine in my lifetime.  How to peel a pomegranate is the subject of many web discussions. At this particular restaurant, pomegranate is overused. Someone at Ottolenghi's must be peeling pomegranate for a good part of their day. I guess that's what you pay for when you go to an expensive restaurant: imported unusual ingredients, exotic looking food, a lot of manual labour and imaginative decor, whether it's in the premises or the food styling. The plating of the dishes is quite unlike serving a 'piece' of something from a pot or pan, like I do at home: a dish like roasted aubergine with turmeric yoghurt, crispy onion, basil, rocket and pomegranate seeds is all about food styling, artistic effect and detail.

 Plating the same dish at at a restaurant must feel like an assembly line at times. PS: This dish doesn't really need the pomegranate seeds - it would probably work better with a sprinkling of dried crushed nuts to complement the sweetness of the sun-kissed Cretan summer-grown aubergine.

The cost of making this dish in my kitchen was less than €1 (for both portions). This does not include a payment for the cook, leaving me unpaid. To recreate the roasted aubergine dish (together with the purple-sprouting broccoli dish), I needed to spend well over an hour in the kitchen. But I had all the fresh ingredients available to me. When I decided to make this dish, it was a Saturday morning, and I didn't feel like leaving the house. I had everything I needed to make it without having to spend time or money sourcing it. That's the advantage of living in a food-centric society in the Mediterranean. Although I wasn't paid for my own work in producing the dish, I can safely say that my kitchen fun turned into a very rewarding experience, judging by the comments I received from my 'diners': the plates were licked clean. 

A visitor from Iran recently landed on my blog with the search string: "why people prefer to eat out". Good question: cultural norms for eating out differ markedly between east and west, especially between underdeveloped and technologically dependent nations. When I want to eat out, I definitely want to eat something different to what I cook at home, which isn't as easy as it sounds in my own town; most local tavernas offer home-style food, using similar recipes to those of my own. The food doesn't have to be exotic or imported; the atmosphere needs to be fun and the food tasty. It should definitely be an accessible meal to all ages and pockets. The meal out needs to be an enjoyable way to spend time in good company. I'm looking forward to some Asian food in London soon...

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MAICh and CIHEAM (ΜΑΙΧ και CIHEAM)

Crete is a small island, and Hania is not the biggest town on it, but it is lucky to have one of the four Mediterranean Agronomic Institutes (MAIs) based in Europe: apart from MAI Chania (MAICh), there is also MAI Bari (Italy), MAI Montpellier (France) and MAI Zaragosa (Spain). The MAIs are semi-private agronomic research institutes directed by a French organisation, CIHEAM (International Centre for Advanced Agronomic Studies in the Mediterranean).

On the occasion of yesterday's visit to MAICh by the Secretary General of CIHEAM, a special lunch was put on for the scientific staff at the institute, who are organised in five departments: Business Economics and Management, Food Quality Management, Environmental Management, Horticultural Genetics and Biotechnology, and Sustainable Agriculture.

The institute accomodates B. Sc. graduates from all over the Mediterranean and Europe, who come here on student visas and complete their M. Sc. degrees. This year my students come from Algeria, Armenia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Poland, Tunisia, Romania and Greece (the latter only constitute 10% of the students as a whole).

As students live on campus in dormitories, they are provided food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. There's also a snack and coffee bar working most hours of the day, and there are supermarkets and canteens close by to cater for students' food needs when the restaurant isn't working.

We are lucky to have a very creative chef working at the centre. John Apostolakis always cook purely Mediterranean food, which basically means that the taste spectrum is within the Mediterranean taste regime because he uses fresh Mediterranean ingredients, even though the meals may not always resemble typical Greek or Cretan cuisine (which in any case they do most of the time). He has written a book about his cooking style including 99 recipes, which will soon be translated into English (by yours truly, of course).

John Apostolakis' Mediterranean culinary creations: his sous-chef is pictured here. For an idea of what we were served, enlarge the photograph below and read the notes.

This excellent dry red (Kotsifali variety) comes from Iraklio, the largest prefecture in Crete.

On this formal occasion (there was even a photographer), we were treated to some of his best and most creative cooking. The lunch was based on a wide selection of hot and cold salads, with two spicy meat dishes, all served with a deep crimson Cretan wine, and followed by a light dessert.

Grape spoon sweet served over strained Greek yoghurt, and apples.

The lunch was held in the 'chimney room' adjacent to the student restaurant.

It was a little difficult to get back to office work after this kind of feast as you can imagine...

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From Hania to the Hania (Από τα Χανιά στα Χάνια)

It may look as though I haven't left Hania, but depending on where the stress mark is placed, Hania becomes a different place. HA-nia (not my own town of ha-NIA) is a small mountain village located in the Pelion mountain range in central Greece. It is a popular winter resort with a ski-field; in the summer, it is less popular with the (mainly Greek) tourists, who prefer (naturally) the coastal areas. How fortunate for us, as this was the perfect place to get away from the high temperatures (we were travelling during a heatwave) and the crowds.

Hania in mainland Greece is a village in the popular winter resort of Pelion

Hania (in Pelion) gets its name from 'hani' (χάνι), meaning 'stopover inn, a place to rest', which was the original purpose of this place: a place to rest, sleep, feed and water your donkey and yourself, before continuing the long tiring journey over windy narrow roads to the other side of the Pelion mountain range. The 'hani' used to play a similar role as that of the English coaching inn. Such places existed in central locations all over Greece during the years when the donkey was an important means of transport. In Hania (Crete), for example, there were 'hania' for donkey tie-ups up until some time after the second world war.

It feels strange seeing my hometown's name in another part of Greece, especially when it isn't pronounced in the same way...

The Pelion Hania's significance may have lost its original value over time with the new transportation methods, but the ski field located close by has allowed this popular stopover to become an all-year-round resort. Hania - also (mis)spelt Chania, just like the Cretan town - is now a bustling resort village with a few hotels and restaurants built along the main road which passes through the village. It is located in the intoxicatingly beautiful pine-forested mountain range of Pelion, said to be the home of the centaurs, mythical half-men, half-horse creatures, on a large peninsular to the west of Volos, a seaside town in Central Greece.

The different views we had from our hotel windows. Traditional style housing includes stone tiled roofs. All houses in the area conformed to the same architectural style - no aluminium window frame eyesores anywhere near the place.

Even though it was at the end of summer time in Greece when we were visiting Pelion, the fireplace had been lit. Wintery meals are eaten throughout the year in Pelion. This should come as no surprise given the low temperatures that nearly always prevail in the area; the waiter told us that right throughout the summer, night time temperatures did not surpass 16 degrees Celsius. This is my kind of summer holiday - a respite from the searing high temperatures in my own Hania. The heatwave during the day could not be felt at these altitudes (1200m above sea level), where bears, foxes and wolves keep their home. Tourism was slow - summer visitors to Pelion prefer the coastal regions of the area instead of the heights - but there were a number of restaurants operating in the area. We were drawn to the one with a sign of Crete on the door featuring ZORBAS beer: the owner was originally from Eastern Crete, and decided to stay in the area once he finished his military service in the 1920s. He married a local woman and ran an inn, a restaurant and a local products shop, all of which are still operating today via his children, who have all visited Crete at some point in their lives.

Fruits preserved in syrup are very popular all over Greece; Pelion is one of the places known for their tradition in spoon sweets production, dried aromatic herbs and locally made pasta.

When in Rome, eat as the Romans do; this menu looked tempting: fasolada, spetsofai, boiled goat soup (these form part of the local cuisine of the region), rooster in wine sauce, yiouvetsi cooked in a clay pot - wild boar, deer, beef in red sauce, lamb in lemon sauce, rabbit stew.

All regions of Greece have their local produce and specialty cuisine, and it is in the Pelion Hania where we first heard of and tried 'galotiri', a creamy white spicy feta cheese spread made with yoghurt. It is served in a similar fashion to tzatziki dip; perfect with those thick slices of still-warm toasted sourdough bread that appeared at the table after we ordered. In Central Greece, it is sold ready made (it isn't available in Crete due to lack of demand), but galotiri can also be prepared at home.

Galotiri, greens pie with home-made pastry and lemonade (EPSA brand from Volos); boar stew, fasolada bean stew, spetsofai (sausage and pepper stew). The fireplace is used all year round in Pelion.

Although fasolada and greens pie (hortopita) were also referred to as local specialties of Pelion in the menu, it should be noted that these are eaten all over the country, made in the same way as my own versions, which gives them a unifying character among all Greek people. To go with the hortopita, fasolada and galotiri, we also ordered spetsofai (spicy sausage cooked with peppers, a specialty of Central Greece, easily copied in your own home) and wild pig (caught in the region, now available in most supermarkets).

*** *** ***

If the food in Greece shares many similarities, then one would expect that so do the people. We were dining next to a table where a Greek woman was seated, loudly airing her views about the Greek people:

"... Of all the Greek people, it's the Cretans I can't stand, and I couldn't stand them ever since I was at primary school. My parents didn't like them either, so I suppose that's why I can't stand them too; we lived in a neighbourhood [in Athens] where there were many of them, and we just avoided them like the plague..."

Did she realise that the owner of the restaurant was Cretan? Probably not; the name 'Kokkinis' does not immediately denote Cretan origins in the same way that mine does (a common Cretan name suffixis -aki/-akis). And she didn't stop there:

"... because we're not all the same, are we? I mean, look at the people from Thrace - they don't even look like Greeks, do they?"

We didn't look like her either (she looked Irish to me), and yet we were all Greek; in her opinion, there is an Aryan race living among us. In any case, she sounded as though she was brought up on the assumption that discrimination is normal.

Before leaving the area to continue our trip (and hopefully hear less racist views about our own origins), we filled up our water bottles with clear spring water which was running freely at many points along the windy road.

Total cost of meal, with wine and sodas: 38 EURO, with loukoumades (Greek donuts) served as dessert on the house. We stayed at ADAM rooms (with traditional decor) near the village of Portaria (a few kilometres away from the Hania), 60 EURO a night (pre-booking not necessary in summer) in a 2-room 4-bed unit: 24280-99435.

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Taverna 'O Kipouros' - The Gardener (Ταβέρνα 'Ο Κηπουρός)

Children can't make healthy choices when offered less healthy but much tastier choices. That's final. Here's a little experiment I conducted on some children I was entertaining at my house during the summer.

I had set up a play date for my children. Their friend was invited to our house where all the children had free reign over the garden, the living room, the balconies and the children's bedroom (yes, Dad was away), and they could do as they pleased as long as they had the stamina for it. It went on for much longer than I expected, but at least they had their fun, and they even tidied up afterwards, so I really can't complain.

During the afternoon, which stretched out into the evening, they would also have a home-cooked meal. I was in the middle of a cooking marathon, as I had just picked a whole lot of garden-fresh vegetables and had to find ways to use them for the next meal or preserve them.

Cooked vlita will keep in the fridge for a week. There were too many tomatoes to store in the fridge, so I had to make them into tomato sauce for the winter. My uncles gave me some fresh black-eyed runner beans, which would constitute the next day's meal.

All this fresh food had to be processed into something edible or useful.

This meant that I was cooking for preservation, cooking for the next day's meal, and cooking for the play-date meal, so there would be a lot of food for the children to choose from.

First up, a healthy glass of orange juice, followed by a couple of home-made biscuits. My daughter began to scoff them up.

"You'll get rotten teeth if you eat too many," our guest warned her. Sometimes children need to be told the bad news by their peers, and indeed this worked on her.

When it came to the actual sit-down meal, I wrote out the menu for them and left some space next to each item so that they could write their initials to indicate their choice.

The menu was listed in the following way:
MENU - INITIALS
1. Horta
2. Fasolakia yiahni
3. Greek salad - CD
4. Souvlakia - CD AD OR
5. Biftekia - CD AD
6. Oven-fried potatoes - CD AD OR
7. Bread - AD OR
8. Water
9. Lemonade - CD AD OR
10. Watermelon - CD AD OR

No one chose horta or beans, and only one chose salad. When the actually sat down to eat what they ordered, they discovered that the taste of the biftekia 'burgers' was not meaty (they were actually courgette burgers), so they left them on the side of their plate. The souvlaki disappeared and so did the chips. Lemonade was preferred over water.

The most interesting part of this 'restaurant game' was the comments the children made:

- You forgot the paper towels.
- Could we have some ice, please?
- What about desert?
- Can you please bring us the bill, Ma'am?
- Mmm, delicious, we'll come again.

I'm looking forward to doing this again, but this time with fewer choices on a mainly vegetarian menu, and a signed agreement that if they choose the meal, they'll have to eat it all...

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Agricultural August (ΑΓΡΟΤΙΚΟΣ ΑΥΓΟΥΣΤΟΣ)

Agricultural August is a well-organised annual event taking place for the last 11 years in Hania. It is organised to promote and support the agricultural activities and lifestyle of the region.

The stalls were set up alongside the marina area of the Venetian port, below the old Venetian shipyards, locally known as the 'Neoria'.

Agricultural August is staged by the beautiful old Venetian harbour which attracts many visitors at this time of year, enabling both locals and tourists alike to partake in the activities presented through the event, mainly in the form of food stalls, along with a few samples of local art such as woodwork and weaving and some commercial businesses like bookshops and natural products suppliers.

Cretan cookbooks, ovens and clay pots, and dolls in traditional costumes

The face of a traditional Cretan male carved in a watermelon.

Cretan music is heard throughout the night via a central sound system, and there are also dancing displays on most nights while the event is running.

Traditional Cretan produce comprises home-made food made from the natural resources available on the island.

Its earthy atmosphere and ambient environment gives everyone, especially foreigners, an opportunity to experience genuine Cretan hospitality, which in any case, is never hard to find in Crete: people are down-to-earth and like to make foreigners feel at home, by providing them with food and a friendly smile.

Traditional Cretan pies and pasties - kalitsounia - containing locally made cheese are also a popular snack food. These ones have been made by local women's cooperatives.

Equipment used in the art of local cheesemaking.

We attended the event on its second night (it ran from 31 July to 9 August), and found it very impressive. The harbour was packed with people (being a Saturday night), and there was plenty of eating and drinking going on.

A traditional village kafeneion was running in one of the old Venetian buildings, often used as an exhibition centre.

Local faces - the men seem to fit into the 'una fatsa, una ratsa' group.

People came as family groups, instilling the custom of eating and drinking in company. A lot of promotional material was also given away on that night, most of it having to do with food. My only complaint about the event was that the authorities responsible did not promote this year's event through the official website (leaving last year's material on it), which shows a certain level of undesirable apathy in a high-profile event of cultural and political significance.

Sometimes, the setting, the environment and view are worth so much more than the food.

After having our fill of kalitsounia, honey, wine and tsikoudia samples, we made our way to Koum Kapi where we enjoyed a bit of junk food al fresco on a warm summer's evening. A pleasant time was guaranteed for all.

Cost of 3 souvlakia (skewered meat), a small mixed grill, 2 tap beers and 2 lemonades: 29 euro.

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