Friends from abroad often ask me how we drink ouzo. Many think it’s a long drink to be taken with peanuts like some pubs serve beer. But that’s not the case at all. Both ouzo and tsipouro are meant to be accompanied by food. Usually, that’s not a big portion, but meze (plural: mezedes) , that are shared among everyone at the table. Usually meze is a selection of salty or spicy- small dishes, like stuffed vine leaves, olives, grilled octopus, oven baked giant beans, spicy cheese spread, aubergine tapenade, grilled cheese, etc.
Grilled aubergines with herring in a vinegraitte
Oven baked potatoes and octopus (don’t ask if it’s good, I am vegetarian)
Grilled haloumi cheese
We eat Meze to accompany our drink, but mostly to socialize and have fun without engaging in a full blown three course meal that requires hours in the kitchen. Meze is always informal and the central idea behind is sharing. You share several wonderful dishes, you laugh and have fun. Eating meze is an unhurried social event, not just a snack.
The dishes may be small but they are many and you are supposed to eat them slowly, between sips of your ouzo or tsipouro. Eating mezedes at the taverna, or at home, lasts for hours and hours. A good taverna will serve a different meze with each new bottle of ouzo (the bottles are tiny, around 75 ml while tsipouro sometimes comes into 25 ml because it is so very strong).
Tsipouro is a clear grape skin distillate up to 46% alc./vol.
Black eyed peas salad with dill
Baked aubergines in a salty and sour dressing
One of the best ouzo you can find. I tasted it in Chios last summer.
Getting drunk is not the point at all. While merriment is intended, being drunk while having meze is not. It is a social experience and not being able to talk is not social.
The meze you are going to get when you are eating out, depends very much on where you find yourself eating. If you are on an island you will almost certainly get fish and seafood. Most areas in Greece have their own specialties, so you are probably going to get those if you are having a meze there, like special cheeses or salads, or greens.
Red Florina peppers
Stuffed vine leaves are a classic ouzo meze
"Kagianas" is an omelette with fresh tomato sauce and feta cheese
Warm potato salad
If you want to try and recreate the Greek Meze table at home, keep in mind that the main principles are:
Variety: you have to prepare many small dishes. A plate of olives is considered a dish.
Simplicity : you should be at the table, drinking and conversing with your guests, not slaving in the kitchen. Simple dishes, that are easily prepared with first quality ingredients are the key.
Quality: Choose the best ingredients, as a meze is a small dish and you cannot easily hide behind sauces and intricate dressings. Not that you’d want to.
"Real Men’s ouzo Kakitsi. You wake up and feel well. Chios. Attention! For men only". It is meant as a joke (I hope!)
Tsoureki (sweet bread)
Greek Easter is full of drama and the food follows in the same line. Throughout the Holy Week, we are supposed to abstain from meat and dairy and on Good Friday we don’t even have olive oil (other oils are ok although many older people just eat soups boiled in water).
Mageiritsa soup
After Easter midnight mass on Saturday, we crack our red eggs and eat mageiritsa, a special soup made with lettuce, dill and innards (blech). I actually make a vegetarian version and you can find the recipe here. Then we may have some cheese or tsoureki (a sweet bread) and that’s it. It’s after midnight, remember? And you have to leave room for the next day.
Easter Sunday is the biggest feast of all. That is, if you are not a vegetarian. That’s when people spit roast lamb ALL DAY and also eat other kinds of offal which I’d rather not talk about.
Baklavas
Sour Cherry spoon dessert
On Easter Sunday We also have lettuce salad, greek salad, tsatziki and several homemade pies like spinach pie or cheese pie. After lunch which usually lasts till dinner, we have desserts like baklava or koulourakia (butter cookies) and tsoureki.
Nafpaktos
Giant beans eaten on Good Friday in "Petrino" restaurant, Nafpaktos
Beet salad eaten in "Petrino" restaurant, Nafpaktos
Aubergine patties eaten on Good Friday in "Petrino" restaurant, Nafpaktos
This year, we spent Easter in Nafpaktos, a beautiful seaside town and we were very lucky, foodwise. Most restaurants serve great food, but especially Maria Loi’s. She is a well known Greek chef and has opened her restaurant in Nafpaktos. It’s the sweetest place and she is kind and attentive to all. She called us on the mobile to tell us she had found a table for us (the restaurant was fully reserved) and she even made special vegetarian food for us.
Fresh pasta filled with truffle at Maria Loi’s restaurant, Nafpaktos
Rocket and greens salad with a delicious vinegraitte which had some sweet fig syrup, at Maria Loi’s restaurant, Nafpaktos
Cheese cake, chocolate coated strawberries and panna cotta at Maria Loi’s restaurant, Nafpaktos
Mum’s easter salad
We had Easter Sunday lunch at my mum’s. Think Christmas dinner. Now multiply by 10. That’s my mum’s Easter lunch. This year the vegetarian options were roast potatoes, spring salad, mushroom pie, stuffed vine leaves (dolmadakia), cheese souffle, tsatziki, greek salad, the obligatory red eggs, several cheeses, and baklava and ice cream for dessert.
Mum’s mushroom pie
Mum’s stuffed vine leaves (dolmadakia)
These dolmadakia are so tiny, just a bite and my sister and I treat them like precious gems. My mother gave some to my mother in law and my sister and I sulked. Mum said: "But I gave you too!" Whereupon we replied "Oh, yes? How many? One hundred?"
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