The olive tree had been under cultivation in Greece for a thousand years, if not longer, when the Iliad and Odyssey were composed (around the 8th century BC). And one from me: leave the pie to cool slightly, or completely before serving for maximum enjoyment. Sometimes people ask me, wasn’t it difficult talking to people about food in this really challenging circumstance? If you are looking for a detailed and comprehensive look at Greek cooking and recipes, this book is for you. These recipes and more can be found in The Classical Cookbook by Andrew Dalby and Sally Grainger, published by The British Museum Press.

Vefa is considered to be one of the major authorities of Greek food and these 600 recipes are a distillation of her life’s work. This sticky roasted leg of chicken can be marinated ahead of time and just popped into the oven shortly before eating. Combine the marinade ingredients and leave the meat overnight in the marinade, turning it occasionally to ensure full absorption. However, the testers revolt, demanding more crunch and less wholemeal – one even goes as far as to threaten not to help again if I leave out the crisp top. From 2009 until 2019, Greece suffered a severe economic crisis, due to nearly a decade of chronic overspending and structural rigidities.If you want the quickest win of all, try the pita bread, it’s just to die for and takes no time at all to make and enjoy. Were the dried fig and the walnuts ingredients in basyniai, or were they a separate offering to the goddess?

Last, a tip from Petretzikis: drizzle the sheets of pastry with olive oil rather than brushing it on, “so that they don’t stick to one another and air pockets can be created in between them. His other titles include A Mediterranean Feast: The Story of the Birth of the Celebrated Cuisines of the Mediterranean from the Merchants of Venice to the the Barbary Corsairs, with More than 500 Recipes, winner of the James Beard Award for Best Writing on Food in 2000 as well as the James Beard/KitchenAid Cookbook of the year award. For the sauce: 2 fl oz oil, 2 fl oz fish sauce, 2 fl oz honey, 8 crushed dates, half pint good wine, a little starch.

Using your hands, massage this into the chicken until it is evenly coated, then cover and place in the refrigerator to marinate for at least 3 hours. Sieve the flour, and add two tablespoons to the cheese mixture one at a time, stirring gently and slowly between each addition until they are incorporated. That means much of the food here has been tailored to ingredients that are easy to source in America and it serves as a very easy introduction to cooking Greek food. The very notion of nation states is a very recent one in human history – we’re looking at a few hundred years, mostly.