Culinary meltdown

Everyone in Greece seems to have a certain preference for the north or south of the country – the north being represented by Thessaloniki and the south being represented, of course, by Athens (despite the fact that obviously there are places MUCH farther south than Athens). When I lived in Athens, I did not understand how anyone in their right mind could WANT to live in Athens – aside from people who grew up there and had family there, and I even found those people questionable. Athens is a veritable hell-hole, filled with smog, dirt, trash, pushy street vendors and way too much traffic. There are also alleged cultural and sociological differences between north and south, most notably, that people in the north are friendlier and that the food, even the same dishes, can be very different in Athens and Thessaloniki.

I am not what one might call a culinary cognoscente. I am a very picky eater, which means I am a very childish eater, which means if I don’t like the look, smell, or idea of something I won’t even try it once. My parents learned this the hard way, because they always made me try something once, and inevitably I would hate it – hate it so much, in fact, that I would vomit. I figured it would be best to avoid such embarrassments in my adult life, so when it comes to food, I am not adventurous. I enjoy a variety of ethnic cooking, but nothing too over the edge (ie. simple sweet and sour pork, basic pasta, plain enchiladas, etc.). My single claim to fame in the extravagant foods department is a liking and tolerance for extra hot and spicy things, which most people seem to balk at.

Getting used to the local cuisine was the single most dreaded hurdle of my move to Greece. I hadn’t fancied most Mediterranean dishes I had tried before, and Greeks are not really shy about the kind of thing they will kill and cook (I’ll never forget the day I first saw roosters in the butcher’s case). I wasn’t ever fond of upteen kinds of meat, and I didn’t know if they would have the right things in the grocery store to fix the kinds of food I liked, so I arrived prepared to turn up my nose at anything that was set before me.

Much to my surprise, we had a gyros place close to us in Athens that had delicious gyros (not at all like any I had tried in America) and a new condiment type of thing I had never heard of before called tzatziki, which is a mixture of yoghurt, garlic, dill, cucumbers – it all depends on the recipe. It was delicious, and I was hooked. Much to my dismay, however, tzatziki didn’t always taste the same everywhere you got it – in fact, sometimes it was quite horrid.

When we moved to Kos I lamented. How would I ever find any Greek food I could stand to eat? What about my favorite tzatziki? I was in luck, though, as we had two excellent tavernas right around the corner. Their gyros weren’t the best, but one of the places had really good chicken souvlaki, and the other had the most delicious keftedakia and homemade tzatziki you could die for (I managed to coax the recipe out of them before we moved). Obviously, I didn’t have time to miss our favorite fast food joint in Athens.

But of course, when it was time to move to Litochoro, I was lugubrious again. A little mountain village! And in the north! What could they possibly fix that I would like?! Also, by this time I was really starting to miss good old fashioned American pizza. Greeks tend to use gouda or some other type of cheese on their pizzas instead of mozzarella, and their sauce just doesn’t cut it most of the time. To my amazement, there was a pizzeria in Litochoro that was run by a Greek family who had had a pizza joint in Brooklyn. This was good pizza. We also found another excellent gyros/souvlaki place, and the local supermarket chain just happened to have a brand of tzatziki from their deli that was to my liking, so all was right with the world. Not to mention we were far enough north that we could start getting bougatsa (a sweet breakfasty thing)when we wanted – which is something you can’t usually find in the south. We also found a place that made such good spanikopita that all other spanikopita is ruined for us. Ruined!

When it came time to move to Thessaloniki I didn’t worry. We would have my mother-in-law’s home cooking when we wanted and it was my husband’s hometown. Surely there would be plenty of places to get good gyros, souvlaki, and tzatziki. Alas, I was wrong. Thessaloniki can’t seem to get this stuff right. We’ve shopped around for good gyros and souvlaki, and while it hasn’t been bad, it hasn’t been great, either. But I can’t find a good tzatziki to save my life. Not in any taverna, not in the grocery store, nowhere. I suppose I will have to break out the recipe from Kos and make it myself. But that requires effort! And of course nothing matches the pizza place in Litochoro, not even Pizza Hut. The only thing Thessaloniki does right is bougatsa. I suppose that’s something.