From the very old and robust grape vines that engulf the fence of our property in Kea we gather and stuff tender grape leaves in May for our trademark dolmades. But the dark grapes our vines produce late in August, although sweet, are filled with seeds and difficult to swallow. Plus we hardly ever manage to harvest them when they ripen, since wasps and all kinds of insects attack them as soon as they start to blush. Come harvest time we just find bunches of rotten half-eaten grapes.

See also my piece on how I made my own Sour Grape Condiment.

_{Aglaia Kremezi}

So we decided to cut our grapes green and use them to make condiments, like the medieval verjuice or the old Persian ab-ghooreh and its Middle Eastern variations. The easiest way for us is to crush the grapes in a blender, pass the pulp through a sieve, and either use it immediately or freeze it. This freshly pressed juice is wonderfully tart, and not too sour. I often use it instead of lemon in vinaigrettes and in skordalia, the traditional garlic sauce, as a cook from the Pelion Mountain, in central Greece, suggested to me years ago. (more…)

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To try my tomato recipes, click here for the TOMATO RELISH, here for the TOMATO SALAD BREAD, andhere for the STUFFED TOMATOES WITH FENNEL.

“Tomato is the best cook,” my grandmother used to say. She meant that by simply adding it to any food, tomato had the power to make a simple dish extraordinary. Her belief was shared by many enthusiastic cooks, who at the end of the 19th century adopted the New World vegetable/fruit and made it an essential ingredient of Greek cuisine.

In my previous post about moussaka, I mentioned the early use of tomato in the beginning of the 1900s, and a reader expressed disbelief in his comment: “what about the fact that tomatoes didn’t exist in Greece until around the 1600’s? How far back is enough for a food culture?” I think he meant what happened between 1600, when Columbus brought tomatoes to Europe, and the end of the 19th century—or more accurately the beginning of the 20th, when the use of tomatoes finally spread all over Greece. (more…)

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“How come we have never heard, let alone tasted, any of these unbelievably delicious cheeses?” exclaimed one of the most informed foodies who took part in our Kea Artisanal classes this season. Our guests were fascinated and genuinely surprised by the samples from our diverse Greek cheese board.

  Slide Show: Summer Highlights

We went to great lengths all through the spring procuring a strong variety and finally managed to get about sixteen different artisanal cheeses, mostly from various islands of the Aegean. As we displayed them on our antique wooden board, even we were amazed at the diversity of textures, tastes and fragrances! Although we have done cheese tastings in the past, this year we managed to order directly from individual producers on neighboring islands, in addition to the small distributors who continue to supply us with their best and rarest cheeses –like the famous gylomeni manoura of Sifnos– a striking goat cheese that ages in wine sediment. (more…)

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I am not the first one to observe that TV food has long ago stopped being about taste, cooking, talent or tradition, becoming one more excuse for a sensational voyeuristic show, not unlike the uncovering of yet one more Egyptian mummy…

In that context I started receiving phone calls and e-mails from various US and AustralianTV producers who wanted to pick my brain about THE most extreme and ‘dangerous’ foods of Greece, and more precisely the poisonous fish that they have heard about. Some mentioned ‘the scorpion fish’ which they have read, or heard or told about. Because there was not one, but at least three similar inquiries last year alone, I understood that after the Asian rats and the south American insects, of which the American public has probably had enough, our turn had come.

I haven’t been able to verify if the producers who contacted me decided to visit our country on their own, or had been invited or lured by the Greek Tourist Organization offices abroad, in a quest to boost the influx of visitors in order to help our gravely ill economy. I seriously doubt that a rat-eating TV host will bring tourists to the part of the world where rats are consumed, but I am not an expert in PR matters, and maybe it is better to watch or hear about a fearful Greek ‘scorpion fish” than about the unbelievable size of the Greek public debt… (more…)

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