Summer in Samos

Greek cuisine is not known by most people as having a reputation for being as well-known or as refined as french or italian cuisine. However, once you have tasted a fresh greek salad (horiatiki) with a giant slab of feta cheese, olives, fresh tomatoes and cucumber, and a dash of olive oil from the countryside, you will wake up to its under rated pleasures. Perhaps it has something to do with the time and place in which you eat that greek salad – usually in a little family-run taverna, with soft breezes blowing off the ocean, in the coolness of a Greek summer night, with the waves lapping up on the shore.

Even in little taverna beside our favourite swimming spots, you can find wonderful home-cooked meals of briam, moussaka, souvlaki, or kalamari, always served with a refreshing bottle of cold water, a small glass of local wine or a shot of souma. And the fries! Who said the Belgians make the best ones! Tzatziki, taramasalata or tirokeftiri (spiced feta) dipped in bread are also memorable items on the menu.

Given the climate, the atmosphere and the sunshine, Greece produces fruits and vegetables that taste better then anywhere else in the world! Somehow local farmers are able to tease out wonderfully tasting fuits and vegetables from their rocky, clayy soil! You haven’t tasted a good peach or watermelon until you have tasted Greek ones!

Because of the heat during the day, most women cook their food for the day in the early morning, to be eaten just after noon, before the big siesta, when everything shuts down and locals rest – or swim – or watch their favourite programs on TV. Delicious smells come wafting out of the houses of townspeople during the morning hours. After the big siesta, a small snack is eaten, after which friends and neighbours gather at their homes or at the kafeneion. If they are going out for a meal, it is usually after 9 pm, when traffic get snarled on the roads and you can hear little children playing outside until their bedtime after midnight.