Guest Author - Katherine O. Huether
When cooking Greek food it is important to remember that it is about more than the cuisine itself. Each dish manages to capture the essence of the Greek culture, people, and way of life. It is also very much about the landscape and the foods that are available.
With each bite of a seafood dish, you should be able to close your eyes and imagine that the Aegean is right in front of you. Souvlaki and other traditional taverna dishes should bring to mind late night meals with good friends and family.
Since the terrain is varied, so are the people and the foods that they cook. There are mountains, seacoast villages, semi-arid land, and land that are capable of being farmed on. All of these things work together to form a culinary tradition that is handed down through the generations.
To Cook Greek Try Thinking Greek
Ever wonder why your baklava doesn’t taste as good as your friend’s, or why your souvlaki seems to lack that extra “something” that you taste when someone else cooks it? Well, you don’t need to actually have Greek blood in you in order to cook Greek food. But it does help to “think Greek”.
To most traditional Greek cooks, recipes are approximations. Watching a yiayia cook her signature baklava could be a frustrating experience if you don’t understand what is going on. They involve their senses. Instead of adding “1 tsp. cinnamon” to the baklava syrup every time, they taste it, smell the air, and adjust the spices until everything “feels right”.
Applying this concept isn’t as bad and disorganized as it seems. When following a recipe, follow it exactly as it is written. Then taste the food as you go along. Is there something missing? Does it need anything? Add more of whatever you need to add, and log the amount for next time.
Learn How to Cook Greek Food by Watching Someone
Another valuable way to learn how to cook Greek food is to watch someone who knows what they are doing. There is a certain art to working with phylo, for example, and it is often difficult to describe. Greek cooking isn’t hard, it just may require a different set of skills than what you have.
Besides, the best way to learn how to adjust the dishes, as described above, is to watch someone who cooks from memory and who is activating all their senses. These people have most of their signature dishes in their brains, not in a recipe card. It may be difficult to write a recipe down because they may not remember exactly what they did!
