Greek cuisine
Olive oil, lemon, herbs and fasting: the other shore of the Aegean, close to the Turkish kitchen but with a logic of its own.
Where it comes from
Surviving texts from ancient Greece show fish, olive oil and bread at the centre; fragments of the fourth-century BC gastronomic poem by Archestratus reach us only because Athenaeus quoted them. Through the Byzantine and Ottoman centuries Greek and Turkish kitchens shared the same dishes, and names such as dolma, moussaka and tzatziki/cacık live on both shores. The béchamel-topped moussaka known today is usually credited to Nikolaos Tselementes, the cook who brought French technique into Greek cooking in the 1920s. The fasting days of the Orthodox calendar — often counted at around half the year for strict observers — produced a large repertoire without meat or dairy: vegetables braised in olive oil (ladera), pulses and herb pies. That count varies by household and region, so it should not be read as an exact figure.
At the table
The Greek table is also mostly shared, with dishes set in the middle. Vegetables braised in olive oil are eaten tepid rather than hot, and taste settled after a day. Fish is cooked simply — grilled, with olive oil, lemon and salt. White cheese and olives sit beside almost every meal, and bread is there to wipe the plate.
Fat, aromatics and acid
Figures are approximate; apart from those that are a definition or a regulation, they vary by product, recipe and source. Where we have no measured value the line reads “—”.
- serbest asitlik / free acidity ≤0.8 % Olive oil — The definition of extra-virgin oil: free acidity, as oleic acid, of 0.8 % at most. It is both the cooking fat and a raw sauce added at the table.
- ≈65–70 °C Avgolemono — Sauce or soup bound with egg and lemon. Yolk starts to thicken in this range and scrambles if it meets boiling liquid directly, so the hot stock is added to the egg slowly, not the other way round.
- pH ≈2.0–2.6 Lemon — The last step of nearly every plate, from grilled fish to roast potatoes.
- — Dried oregano and dill — Greek oregano (rigani) is used dried; dill fresh and in quantity. The site has no separate record for rigani, so its closest relative, marjoram, is linked.
- ≈%8–10 yağ / fat Strained yoghurt — Straining removes whey, so fat and protein concentrate; the figure depends on how long it drained.
How this kitchen cooks
- Olive oil dishes Ladera: vegetables cooked in olive oil.
- Terbiye — tempering a sauce The same logic sits behind avgolemono.
- Emulsifying Latholemono: oil whisked with lemon.
- Grill & BBQ Souvlaki and whole fish.
- Straining Strained yoghurt for tzatziki.
- Meze The meze table and ouzo.
- The oven Moussaka and roast potatoes.
What is in the pantry
Dishes cooked on this site
The historical claims rest on these books. Contested origins are written as contested.
- Andrew Dalby, Siren Feasts: A History of Food and Gastronomy in Greece. Routledge, 1996.
- Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford University Press, 1999.