Greek cooking rests on a few top-quality ingredients: extra virgin olive oil, vegetables and pulses, cheese, fish, lamb and pork, herbs and lemon. It is peasant and seafaring cooking tied to the seasons, and with Italian and Spanish cuisine one of the pillars of the Mediterranean diet, inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2010.
Key ingredients
| Ingredient | Use |
|---|---|
| Olive oil | Everywhere, generously: Greeks consume 10 to 15 litres each per year |
| Olives | Kalamata, Amfissa, Throumba from Thassos |
| Cheese | Feta, graviera, kefalotyri, mizithra, kasseri; see Greek cheeses |
| Yoghurt | Thick and creamy, sheep's or cow's, the base of tzatziki |
| Vegetables | Tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, onions; horta, boiled wild greens |
| Pulses | Beans, chickpeas, lentils, Santorini fava (yellow split pea purée) |
| Herbs | Oregano, thyme, mint, dill, fennel, bay |
| Honey | Thyme, pine, chestnut |
| Fish and seafood | Sea bream, sea bass, red mullet, sardines, octopus, squid, prawns |
Dishes to try
| Dish | What it is |
|---|---|
| Horiatiki | "Village salad": tomato, cucumber, onion, olives, pepper, feta, oregano and oil, no lettuce |
| Tzatziki | Yoghurt with cucumber, garlic, olive oil and dill |
| Moussaka | Bake of aubergine, minced meat and béchamel |
| Pastitsio | Baked macaroni with meat sauce and béchamel |
| Soutzoukakia | Spiced meatballs in tomato sauce, from the Smyrna tradition |
| Souvlaki and gyros | Meat skewers and meat roasted on a vertical spit, in pitta with tzatziki |
| Gemista | Tomatoes and peppers stuffed with rice and herbs |
| Dolmadakia | Vine leaves stuffed with rice |
| Spanakopita and tiropita | Filo pies with spinach or cheese |
| Fasolada | Bean soup, considered the national dish |
| Stifado | Beef or rabbit stew with baby onions |
| Kleftiko | Lamb slow-cooked in parchment |
| Avgolemono | Egg-lemon sauce and soup |
Mezedes
In Greece people eat together: in a taverna you order many small dishes, mezedes, for the middle of the table to share, with ouzo, tsipouro or wine. There is no strict division into courses. See eating in Greece.
Regional cooking
- Crete: the most celebrated for health: dakos (barley rusks with tomato and mizithra), snails, wild greens, kalitsounia (cheese pastries), raki.
- Ionian Islands: Venetian influences, such as Corfu's pastitsada (rooster in sauce with pasta) and sofrito, veal in wine and garlic.
- Cyclades: capers, cherry tomatoes and Santorini fava, cheeses from Naxos and Syros, cured meats from Mykonos.
- Macedonia and Thessaloniki: rich, spiced cooking shaped by Jewish, Armenian and Asia Minor traditions; bougatsa for breakfast.
- Epirus: savoury pies (pites) of every kind, mountain meat, cheeses.
- Peloponnese: Kalamata oil and olives, smoked pork syglino from the Mani.
Orthodox fasting
During Lent and other periods many Greeks follow the Orthodox fast, without meat, dairy or eggs. So Greek cooking is rich in vegetable dishes of pulses and vegetables cooked in olive oil, called ladera, ideal for vegetarians and vegans too.
An ancient cuisine
The ancient Greeks already ate barley bread, olives, cheese, figs, pulses and fish and drank wine mixed with water. Over the centuries the cuisine absorbed Byzantine, Venetian, Ottoman and Asia Minor refugee influences: many dish names are Turkish, while the béchamel in moussaka was introduced only in the 1920s by the chef Nikolaos Tselementes, who reshaped Greek cooking to French taste.
See also Greek recipes, sweets and Greek wine.