Athens

Tomas Kebab: As the Kosmos Turns

(Editor's Note: In honor of the immigrants and refugees who have made their new home a better place for us all, this week we are running some of our favorite archived stories about those who have left a culinary mark on their adopted land.) "Despite the fact the Armenian quarter of Athens had been created out of the rubbish heap there was more charm and character to this little village than one usually finds in a modern city… In the midst of the most terrible poverty and suffering there nevertheless emanated a glow which was holy; the surprise of finding a cow or a sheep in the same room with a mother and a child gave way instantly to a feeling of reverence." This is Henry Miller’s description of Neos Kosmos in his 1941 travelogue, The Colossus of Maroussi. Known then as Dourgouti, Neos Kosmos (Greek for “New World”) was one of the shantytowns that had sprung up near the center of Athens housing the thousands of Anatolian Christians who had fled from Asia Minor after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922).

Athens

Phaleron: Athens’ Culinary Museum of Innocence

Once a resort town on the outskirts of the Greek capital, Phaleron – only a few miles from downtown Athens – is now well incorporated into the city’s urban fabric. The area has remained an upscale neighborhood, but, sadly, it has lost its distinctive character: the sea is now polluted, the open-air cinemas have been turned into parking lots, and many of the stately mansions were demolished to make way for apartment blocks during the construction boom of the 1960s.