The pinnacle of vacation is so often experiences of dining, trying new cuisine and savoring those flavors and the way of life supported by them. Sampling unique flavors and surprising dishes, made with supreme talent or full of soul and tradition, is the way into a culture. Here we highlight the best of food and drink from the Mediterranean.
Greece is home to a rich history of food culture. Where East meets West, the food reflects its geographical location and history in its unique flavors and dishes. Some more Eastern dishes have been confused with Hellenic cuisine such as hummus but Greece also hosts foods popular in Turkey due to the many years of Ottoman rule. This might be where the famous Baklava origins are from. “Jordan almonds” and “Turkish Delights” are two such foods whose origins are most likely not Greek but that Greeks have adopted. The “Jordan almond” or “koufeta” in Greek is the popular candy-shelled almond served at weddings and baptisms. Heavier spices such as cumin and ground clove can be found in tomato sauces in more “politiki” Greek dishes (Eastern). “Soutzoukaki” (tender beef patties in red sauce) is one such politiki dish. Drinks like ouzo or mastica or retsina and tsipouro are native Greek alcoholic drinks that give you an intense flavor of the land! Mastica is unique; mastica trees, which produce the resin of mastica, only grow on the Greek island of Chios and nowhere else in the world. Mastica trees grow not even all over the island but on only one half of it! In this category we highlight the wonders of food and drink around the Mediterranean.
