Athens

O Foititis: Seafood in the Athenian Suburbs

Neo Psychiko, a suburb north of central Athens, is just a 15-minute drive from the city’s busy Syntagma central square yet feels like a world away. Residential and family-oriented, the area is greener and quieter than downtown. At its heart is Plateia Eleftherias (“Freedom Square”), a lively spot with a playground, a kiosk, cafes and restaurants – the usual you’ll find in any decent Athenian plaza. People gather here from early in the morning to late at night. One of those reliably busy all-day gathering spots is O Foititis, an assuming family-run fish restaurant that has been loyally serving locals since 2005, when resident Andreas Sfikas decided to turn his experience running a neighborhood snack bar into something more ambitious.

Athens

Building Blocks: Capers, the Briny Go-To of Greek Cuisine

They grow off of walls and rocks, on rocky hills, near the sea – and even out of chinks in the sidewalk in the center of Athens. Tangy, floral and tart, capers are a wild crop like no other. The Acropolis Hill and most other ancient monuments in central Athens are covered with crawling caper plants throughout summer. On the islands, when driving those curvy, snake-like roads, look out for capers growing under the cliffs and hanging off the side of the road. (These plants often grow huge in size!) Growing untamed all over most of Greece, capers have been making their way onto local tables for centuries. The oldest recorded evidence of capers being used in food is in the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, written c. 2150-1400 BCE.

Athens

The Perfect Spring Day: Strolling Under the Acropolis in Athens

“Ο Μάρτης πότε γελά και πότε κλαίει” – Μarch sometimes laughs and sometimes cries. So the idiom goes here, as has this year. There are many phrases like this about March in the Greek language. Most of them (like in other cultures) focus on the weather’s instability during the month, and folk tradition believes that the weather gives us a glimpse of what will come in summer. This March was unstable, to say the least: one week it was snowing, then the next the spring sun was shining, and then again back to snowy winter! One of my favorite March traditions is donning a bracelet made with red and white thread. We call it “martis” or “martia” after the month’s name, and we make it on the last day of February and wear it on March 1.

Athens

Recipe: Clay-Baked Chickpeas, a Pot of Culinary Gold

Legumes have been at the core of the Greek diet since antiquity, with chickpeas being especially popular. We find references to them, and the ways they were cooked, in the works of several ancient writers and poets, including Homer, whose epic poems provide insight into the eating and cooking habits of the time (roughly the 8th century B.C.). Revythi (ρεβύθι) is the Greek word for chickpeas, and it derives from the ancient Greek word erevynthos (ερέβυνθος), which referred to both the plant and the seed. Sappho (c. 630-570 B.C.), the greatest female Greek lyric poet, spoke of “Χρύσειοι ἐρέβινθοι ἐπ ̓ ἀιόνων ἐφύοντο,” which translates roughly as “Golden chickpeas that have for centuries been growing.”

Athens

In Love Again: Punch Drunk Desserts

It was a late night in 2009 when Thanos Prunarus finished his shift at Pop, a now-shuttered bar in Athens’ historical center on the tiny Klitiou pedestrian street. He was just a few steps out the door when he spotted a “For Rent” sign taped to the front of an old, empty store. This area of Athens used to be a part of the central market, with pockets of streets specializing in selling specific categories of products like buttons, doorknobs, textiles or wool. Some of the small, ancient-seeming shops selling these goods have managed to stay open despite the big historical center development boom that’s taken place in the last decade.

Athens

Best Bites 2021: Athens

The last two years have been different in many ways. The pandemic kept restaurants, bars and cafes closed for a long period of time, depriving people of every kind of social activity. Many of us went back to cooking elaborate meals at home, and those of us who didn’t ordered food from the growing list of restaurants that were forced to adapt to a new norm. In fact, for a long period of time, the only vehicles one would see on the streets of Athens – especially at night – were food delivery bikes. Then came May. Places started reopening and the city became full of life again, with lots of new places thrown in the mix (though others were sadly permanently shut).

Athens

From Snout to Tail: Greek Regional Christmas Traditions

Important holidays have long been associated with large feasts and for centuries have functioned as an excuse to treat family and guests to something special. Christmas in Greece is no exception: there are many culinary traditions associated with the Christmas season, known as Dodekaimero (twelve days), which officially begins on December 24 and ends on January 6. Nowadays many Greeks associate the Christmas table with a roast stuffed turkey, a tradition that arrived in Europe from North America, particularly Mexico, around the 1820s. It gradually became fashionable in Greek cities and over time turned into a Christmas staple, with a traditional stuffing prepared mainly with chestnuts, chopped turkey liver, minced meat, pine nuts and raisins.