OliveTreeRestaurant.com
Title
The Olive Tree :: The Premiere Greek Restaurant in Rochester, NY
Description
A Brief History of Greek Cuisine
In Greece, food is a central topic of conversation. Debates about how to prepare a Moussaka take place over cell phones. In markets, customers and indignant greengrocers can be heard exchanging oaths (and sometimes wielding knives) in arguments over the freshness of vegetables. Taxi drivers will tell you they won’t go to America because of the artificial “plastic” tomatoes there and how the cheese from their village is the best in Greece. In a country that traditionally has been poor agriculturally, making the most of meager produce has evolved from necessity to a national obsession with food. As necessity breeds innovation, Greek cuisine comprises a rich diversity of cooking styles, ingredients, and flavors. It also has a unique and colorful history dating from antiquity and has incorporated outside elements from Italian, Turkish and French cuisines.
From Antiquity to Byzantium
Most of what we currently know about cuisine in ancient Greece comes from Athenaeus’ Dipnosophistae (lit. "The Banquet of the Learned"). His work is a compilation of a series of discussions among the intellectuals at a banquet. In addition to his accounts of the conversations had about morality and religion, there is also information about what was actually served at the banquets. Unfortunately, Greek cuisine in antiquity was not as exciting as it is today; consisting primarily of gruel, legumes, fresh and salted fish, olive oil, vegetables and very little meat. Most meat was eaten during sacrifices and religious holidays. Vegetarianism has a long tradition in Greece and was espoused by Pythagoras who abstained from meat for moral reasons. Even to this day, the ultra-religious abstain from meat and animal products on Wednesdays and Fridays as well as during the forty days of Lent.
It was not until the rise of Byzantium, that cuisine began to emerge as an art form. The royal court had a staff of professional cooks who began to expand the traditional repertoire of foods to include foodstuffs imported from all corners of the empire such as spices and caviar. After the fall of Byzantium, the courts of Ottoman Sultans inherited many of these culinary styles (and cooks) and expanded on them with their own traditions. Under the Ottomans, Greek cuisine was heavily influenced by Turkish cuisine. Remnants of this can still be seen today in dishes such as Tzatziki (a yogurt-cucumber dip), Imam Bayildi (eggplant casserole), Soutzoukakia (spiced, sausage shaped meatballs in tomato sauce), Souvlaki (meat kebabs in pita bread) and Moussaka (eggplant and meat casserole which makes use of French béchamel). In the small areas of Greece that were under Venetian (not Ottoman) dominion such as the Ionian Islands and the Cyclades there is a strong Italian influence. Dishes of Italian origin include Bourdeto (a fish stew from Corfu) and Poutinga (blood pudding expressly forbidden by the Greek Church). Greeks also adore pasta and claim to be the largest per capita consumers in the EU.
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