Blog #7 Travel edition!

So over fall break I travelled to Greece.  I mentioned it a bit in my last post on Cheese. It was an amazing experience. Although I had a ton of fun learning about the history and seeing ancient artifacts, tI'm going to focus on the culinary experiences, of which there were a lot. I got to try most of if not all of traditional Greek Cuisine. We got to try calamari, lamb, souvlaki, gyros, and sea urchin which were some of the high lights. As we had many meals I couldn't help comparing the cuisine to Italian cuisine. Although they are both part of the Mediterranean and subsequently use the mediterranean triad in their cuisine they also utilize the "barbarian's" triad as well.

 The Mediterranean triad consists of grapes, wheat and olives. So you see lots of bread, wine, and olive oil. Another interesting note is that olive oil was on each table, but like in Florence, they weren't good quality olive oils. This triad is still prominent in Italy. You think of Olive Oil and Wine when you think of Italy. In Ancient Rome and the Medieval times the Mediterranean triad was most prominent. People ate bread or gruel from wheat, wine from grapes, and olive oil for basically anything else. The Barbarians came into Italy in the Medieval times they brought a more animal based triad,  meat, cheese, and milk, also beer. In Italy this triad didn't pick up and the Mediterranean triad prevailed thanks to the Catholic Church.  In Greece, however, there was a lot of meat and cheese in each meal. Every salad had feta cheese and some kind of meat. We had lamb, pork, and chicken. Souvlaki and gyros are made from meat and sometimes we had pan fried cheese as is. It was amazing and much more to my style of eating. Although there was also wine, beer was also offered a lot. One of my friends ordered beer at almost every meal.

Although I did think the group meals were super long, usually taking at least three hours, they were also really good. The first day we had an amazing array of seafood dishes. We also ate right on the sea which was amazing. We got mussels, anchovies,  and calamari. In all honesty, I am not a seafood kind of person. I don't mind crustaceans or squids and octopus, but regular fish is difficult for me to eat. It might be because of when I was younger, my mom used to make me eat fish which now brings memories of me sitting at the table for hours because mom wouldn't let me leave without finishing it. Later I learned tricks such as drowning it in Ketchup or feeding it to the dog. Now that I'm older I'm trying to force myself to eat more fish. But I digress. That calamari might have been the best I've ever had. Usually, it's too much dough or oil, but this calamari had a light dough and crunchy exterior. 

Of the menu above, I had Souvlaki (1€ souvlaki at a rest stop was maybe the best meal ever), Moussaka (which was kinda like a meat lasagna), and the gyros/pitas (maybe too many of these, they were just too good!). I noticed there that potatoes, specifically french fries, were a lot more popular than in Italy. In the pitas/gyros, there are french fries added to the sandwich. French fries are sides to platters, and there are fries on their own with a lot of delicious toppings. The menu alone depicts the differences between Italian and Greek food. Most of the foods traditional to Italy are carb-based. 

I was personally really happy to see a lot of savory foods in Greek food. I love meats and yes Greek food has it. I was also especially happy to see fried eggs and bacon for breakfast again. I missed fried eggs so much. Italy is more of sweet breakfasts like a sweet croissant or a muffin. I do like sweets, but not for breakfast. Also, I'm not a coffee drinker which is almost 80% of an Italians breakfast. Probably an exaggeration, but Italians really love their coffee. 

Something I found funny was that there were bread and olive oil on the table at every place we ate. Previously I'd mentioned that Olive oil, the good stuff, is really expensive so you don't get it to dip your bread in. I did look up one of the brands and it was definitely not the good stuff, but it tasted good with bread, so we perpetuated the olive oil problem and just enjoyed our food. We also kept to the bad habit of eating the bread by itself or before the food. It's what you do in the US, but not in Italy. The bread is there to scoop up sauces or soups and have to be eaten with the meal. Whoopsies!

While in Greece we traveled to Athens, Mykonos, Delos, Sparta, and Nefplia. I saw beautiful sights, ancient relics, the 300 movie, and I got to eat some amazing foods. One of my favorite meals was when we were in a town near Delos. We had to climb 300 some odd steps (again gotta walk it off before you eat) and had a meal at this little restaurant. It was so delicious and the biggest thing I remember was getting a proper chocolate brownie with vanilla ice cream and a raspberry sauce. SOOOO GOOOD!!! I missed decadent desserts! Although I'm torn between Tiramisu and a flourless chocolate cake. 

I'm sure I left out a lot of good food that we tried. That just means you'll just have to go and enjoy it yourself. I highly recommend Greece as a place to vaction at! just be careful for hills and inclines.