Food and our Greek odyssey


Our cover story on the new cooking show for PBS, The Cooking Odyssey, and the eloquent words of both its chef, Yannis Mameletzis, an Oxford scholar, and the show’s producer, George Stamou, who’s done a string of shows both here and abroad, brings to relief the dilemma of both Greece the country and Greek food: most people know the glamour spots of Athens, Mykonos, Santorini, and the like.

And most people think of Greek food as the typical “diner” food: Greek salad, moussaka, pita, and gyro. But, as we all know (and it’s been both our triumph and our downfall) Greece and Greek food is both a unique and many-splendored thing.

“What I tried to relate to my chef colleagues in England,” says Mameletzis, “is that one fresh tomato in season in Greece has so much flavor that it’s a gourmet dish in itself. You don’t have to add all that dressing on it, you don’t have to manipulate it in some weird way to bring the flavor out. The most basic ingredients have such basic character.”

The basic character that, Stamou says, is also ingrained in the place and the people. “Our philosophy is that the Mediterranean diet is not only the food. It’s not only what’s in your stomach, but also the land and the people around you.” The character, in other words, of the land and the people creates the character of the food.

And a fierce character it is. The Cretans (as befitting Cretans) swear that Cretan tomatoes shipped and grown even as close as Athens never taste the same. The Santorians claim the same thing, and perhaps with good reason.

“The tomato which they have in Santorini is indeed unique because of the volcanic soil, which adds a special character,” says Mameletzis. “The tomato from that region doesn’t have a lot of water and it has a very intense flavor.”

The relationship of people to food is very complex, and never more so than in Greece, where the climate is glorious, but the land is sparse, and people through the ages had to ration both their food and their toil. A devastating crop yield one year could devastate the economy of an entire region. The olive tree throughout the history of Greece was both a blessing responsible for everything from cooking oil, to lamp fuel, to balm for tired muscles, to the economic backbone of practically the whole of mainland Greece, and this has continued practically to modern times.

And fish? Greece is dotted with islands, more than a thousand of them, and seafood is a staple for a great part of the population both on the islands, and on the mainland. Ancient Greeks sent into the exile in what they considered the barbarism that was anywhere but Greece could barely endure the ordeal and risked even death to return to the soil and climate of their mother country.

I don’t think any of us is any different, even thousands of miles away from homeland Greece, and is there any Greek anywhere, of any generation, who won’t eat at a fine Greek restaurant anywhere, or even a diner with only its sampling of Greek food, and not feel instantly at home?

Dimitri C. Michalakis

©2009 NEOCORP MEDIA

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