Aspects of Greek culture
Food and eating out
For many Greeks, eating out is a great social event. Lunch is generally available from 12 noon and as late as 5pm and many tavernas and restaurants will serve dinner as early as 7pm – it's unusual to find the Greeks enjoying dinner before 9pm and the meal often will go into the early hours.
Simple, traditional cooking predominates the Greek islands, including Samos, using fresh products that follow the cycle of the seasons – no flown in vegetables or salads here! One very distinctive feature of every where in Greece that is unchanged since ancient times is the combination of bread, olive oil and wine. No table is complete without this trinity.
Greek dishes
Some of the more popular and well-known dishes include:
- Keftédes: meatballs made (usually) from ground pork, onions, garlic and paprika with a red wine sauce; many tavernas also serve vegetable alternatives including tomato, chickpea and zucchini (courgette)
- Dolmades/dolmadákia: stuffed grape (also known as vine) leaves served with a variety of fillings but usually rice, dill, parsley and raisins
- Tzatzíki: a mezé made from Greek yoghurt with grated cucumber and garlic
- Souvláki: grilled meat served on a skewer; always very tender and when cooked on a traditional charcoal grill, exceptionally tasty!
- Stifádo: traditional beef casserole with baby onions in a rich sauce
- Briám: a vegetarian stew with courgettes, aubergines and tomatoes and sometimes peppers
- Mousaká: a layered dish with aubergines, mince and bechamel sauce
- Pastítsio: the Greek equivalent of lasagne with macaroni, minced beef, kefalotíri cheese and bechamel sauce
- Yemistá: stuffed peppers that are offered with a wide variety of different fillings
- Kléftiko: lamb or beef cut into portions, seasoned with lemon, oregano and bay, baked in a charcoal oven for at least three hours (tradition suggests that 48 hours baking makes the best kléftiko!)
- Baklavás: layers of finely-rolled filo pastry filled with either finely chopped walnuts, pistachios or almonds and then steeped in syrup
Salads
Very few meals in Greece are served without an appropriate salad. The two most important things about salads is that they are always freshly prepared immediately before the meal and they are always eaten with the main course. Served in large bowls, the salad is a communal dish. In Greece it is considered mean and inhospitable if you only eat what is on your own plate and the food on the table is there for everyone. This is applicable to all mezés and salads.
The most well-known salad (also known as a Greek salad outside of Greece!) is the khoriátiki or country salad. It is made from tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, olives and a large slice of feta with a sprinkling of oregano. Plenty of variations of salads are available in every taverna and they will always be made with fresh, seasonal ingredients. When you order your salad, it will turn up prior to the main course and is there to be enjoyed all the way through the meal.
Dressing the salad: in good tavernas you will be presented with two bottles along with your bread and cutlery. These contain olive oil and vinegar, used for dressing the salad. The best way to dress the salad is to let a spendthrift pour the olive oil and a miser to pour the vinegar (so tradition has it!).