2018 Eastern Mediterranean Trip - Athens Food Tour

Yes Foodie Fans

Your time has come. Let us regale in all that is food with the wonderful folks of Culinary Backstreets - our absolutely favorite food tour company. This was the third one we did and it did not disappoint. It is not just he food which is always copious, delicious, and truly local. It is the depth of history, culture, society that is a part of each of these presentations. This walk while scheduled for 5 hours actually went 7! You definitely got your money's worth.

So let's get started!

First stop

They make true milk products and handmade pastries

Everything here is 'real' Greek yogurt

Everything else in the world is 'Greek style' yogurt

And they make pastries with hand rolled phyllo which is thicker than machine rolled so they use fewer layers when the produce their products

Ready for the tasting

Spanokopita and a pastry with a custard made from milk and semolina

The Spanokopita was very good. Although the pastry was thicker it was very crisp and the filling was dominated by the spinach not cheese

On the right is Greek yogurt with honey and walnuts

On the left is a milk product that is like super cream with honey on it

Next stop a place that makes only one thing

A deep fried treat from Crete

They are fried to order and then slipped into a sugar syrup

Somehow the sugar syrup is absorbed but the outside stays crisp

You see these all over town

Yellow kiosks selling a bagel type bread with sesame seeds on them

An architectural interlude

This tour was about hidden gems in the main downtown area

This is part of the state bank building complex

But underneath it because there is ALWAYS history underneath everything in Athens

Back to the food

Into the major market in town

First stop

Meat Land

There are nothing but butchers here

At least a hundred of them

They all specialize in one kind of animal

Pork butchers, lamb butchers, beef butchers, poultry butchers, etc.

Tour de Heads

Pork

Lamb

Chicken

Bunny

(Our guide, Constantine, told us the fur is on because in the unscrupulous days, people would substitute cat.

On to the Seafood area

Fish heads, fish heads, roly poly fish heads, fish heads fish heads eat them up YUM!

Given how much Wife and I love fish

How difficult it is to get good fish in Albuquerque (near impossible)

It is torture to go through this area and see the wonderful product

Next stop a hole in the wall snack place for workers in the market

You can get a shot of booze or a beer and snack plate for about 6 dollars

Prepping an order - Father and daughter perhaps?

The plate consisted of some batons of bread, some pickled peppers, some olives, a small sausage, some fried cheese, a tomato slice and a patty made of lamb meat

Coffee break?

A traditional Greek style coffee roaster

Which also makes a variety of poached fruit including baby eggplant!

 They have a cafe next door which produces the coffee by cooking it in tiny copper pots over wood fired hot sand! We saw this method promoted in Jordan as well

Coffee and the poached baby eggplant

Mister Hand calls forth fruit and vegetables

A variety of wild local greens amidst the lettuces

Olive Heaven

(sigh)

Dried things

Beans and pulses

Everything fruit like including rose hips

A cornucopia of dried vegetables 

You soak them, stuff them with rice and meat filling and cook them

Team Food Tour Culinary Backstreets Athens

Constantine, Julie from California (though she lived in Corralles NM once!) and Wife

Surely your appetite is just stimulated now and you are ready to really eat right?

We go to cured meat and cheese

This area is dominated by Armenians 

A selection of Greek cheeses

They are all sheep or goat's milk or combination but almost never cow

Real Feta can only come from certain parts of Greece and has to be made with the sheep/goat milk combination

Possibly the best stuffed grapes ever

The leaves are fresh, not cured in vinegar

The rice had a distinct and dominant flavor

A plate with three kinds of cured meat and three kinds of cheese along with twice cooked bread (kind of like non-sweet bisccotti) 

Let's take an Orthodox art break!

"I disapprove of this focus on the profane act of food consumption"

And yet the angel comes down and gives the Virgin her itinerary for her food tour

The Patron Saint of Food Coma

Hey! Look up there!

The Parthenon 

We still ARE in Athens

Okay the snacking part of our tour is over

Now for real eating

First a seafood place

Fresh anchovies marinated in lemon

Yellow peas cooked flavored with onion, olive oil and herbs

Fresh seasonal greens

Boiled 10 minutes 

Flavored with olive oil and lemon

Grilled Squid or cuttlefish

I've noticed over many, many years that most people other than Anglo-Saxon cultures like food with flavor over soft texture. This is and example. Not as rubbery as some squid I've had but not tender but great flavor

Feta cheese baked with tomatoes

Ah, our guide sees we are still a little wan from lack of food

On to souvlaki

Thought I couldn't eat any more

I finished it it was so good

The balance of meat flavor, the sauce that did not over power, just the right amount of onion and tomato and grilled pita that was a major component not just there to hold it together

I'd like to say we didn't eat for a day but as you will see in the next post that is not the truth!