Students Again

For this individual food and culture review I attended the Greek Food. Seven of us decided to go to the Greek Food Festival and after four bottles of wine and one bottle of Ouzo my  memory is a bit hazy. However, the one thing that remains etched in my mind forever is the food.

We arrived at the Greek Food Festival at approximately 6p.m. As we entered the festival the background sound of the Greek Company Orchestra pierced the air. This was one of the many acts that appeared on the stage located in the middle of the festival ground. As we made our way through the festival ground to a table that our friends were reserving for us we were surrounded by tents which were selling Greek crafts and more importantly Greek food.

Once we arrived at our table we were greeted with a bottle of Greek red wine, we tried the white wine later that night too, that was recently purchased by members of our party. The  name of the wine was Kourtakis. The red wine was very mellow and the white wine was refreshing in flavor. After a quick glass of wine, it was off to the food tents for our first taste. After walking around for a while we decided to get something from the combination plate tent. This seemed like a wise choice because it was cheaper than purchasing individual items and we were able to sample a variety of Greek foods. The combination plate had dolmathes, pastitsio, roast lamb, Greek salad, and Greek style rice pilaf. The dolmathes consisted of beef, rice, and spices rolled in grape leaves and had a slight lemon flavor. The pastitsio was similar to lasagna; it had layers of ground beef and macaroni with a cream-based sauce. The pastitsio had a very interesting spice flavor that I could not quite figure out, but it was very tasty. The roast lamb was excellent; it had a lemon, herb, garlic flavor. The Greek salad consisted of greens with cucumber, onion, tomato, feta cheese, and kalamata olives bathed in an olive oil, vinegar, and oregano dressing. The last component of the dish was the Greek style rice pilaf. The pilaf was very similar to any other pilaf I have tasted, however, the one main difference I noticed was a distinct lemon flavor. After we had finished our meal and another glass or two of wine we headed off in search of dessert.

For desert, after much contemplation, we decided on the loukoumathes. Loukoumathes is a Greek dessert that consists of deep fried dough balls that are drenched in honey and topped with cinnamon. They looked so good we decided to get enough to surprise our whole table. When we arrived back at our table with dessert our friends had a surprise of their own for us. Our surprise was the bottle of Ouzo and shot glasses sitting on the table that our friend had purchased while we were getting dessert. We started off dessert with a shot of Ouzo. Ouzo is Greek liqueur that has a strong licorice flavor that stem from the use of anise. After our shots we dug into the loukoumathes. This dessert was fabulous, once you took a bite of the fried dough ball honey exploded in your mouth. It was so tasty that our table finished them off in minutes. After another glass or two of wine and another shot of Ouzo it was time to experience another treat. I headed off to the tents again in search for something exciting and it didn’t take long to find. I arrived at a tent with two chefs cooking at a grill. They were cooking saganaki. The chefs would cook large squares of Kasseri cheese on the grill and just as it was finished cooking they would splash the cheese with brandy and cry out “Opa.” This was served on pita bread with taziki sauce. The taziki sauce was so good that I could have probably eaten it by itself. The sauce was a yoghurt based sauce with garlic,  cucumber, and lemon.

I have never been to Greece and do not have much experience with Greek culture. I have my suspicions that the atmosphere was not very authentic Greek, but I was at a festival so I suppose that is to be expected. Regardless of the atmosphere, I learned a lot about Greek food. The main thing that became evident by the end of the night is that Greek food is heavily reliant on lemon and honey as ingredients. I also learned a little about Greek culture; they are intent on living life to the fullest. Greek culture is surrounded by good music, food, wine, and friends.