Cooking varies wildly in the Aegean (some areas, such as Mytilini, are marked by a distinctly Eastern palate), but Greek island food is generally simple, its flavours clean and pure. Sun-baked capers, fresh fish, sea sprayed herbs, a surprisingly large array of goat’s-milk cheeses and original cured meats are basic, and typical, ingredients.
Mytilini is famous for ouzo and good mezedes to accompany it, and king among them is the sardine known as papalina. About 100 tons of these fish are harvested annually from the Gulf of Kalloni – their wide, flat tins are stacked next to a pyramid of ouzo bottles in nearly every shop on the island.
Papalina is the consummate Mediterranean fish. Extremely sweet, and oilier than most, it is salted for only a day to keep it juicy and virtually raw. Served as it is, barely salted, it is an oddity in a place where fish is generally preferred well-cooked.
Most of the Aegean’s many cheeses are made with goat’s milk like they were in Homer’s time. But European Union legislation has not been kind to raw-milk farmhouse cheese, and many traditional recipes will soon go the way of the dinosaur. Hopefully, touloumi – skin – aged goat’s cheese -and ladhotyri, Mytilini’s legendary ‘oil cheese’, will survive.
To the uninitiated, the sight of a 50-kilo goat skin spread inside out, belly up and bulging with chunks of soft, white cheese is surprising at best. But touloumi, for all its eye-popping presentation, is one of the oldest cheeses in Greece. According to some sources, it is the forerunner of feta. Named after the goat skin in which it is aged, the cheese is rich and pleasantly sour. Ikaria, Samos and Mytilini all produce touloumi – on each island its flavour is distinct.
Ladhotyri, the name of Mytilini’s sweet, yellow, delicious ‘oil cheese’, has become a misnomer-today, the little cylinders are seldom preserved in olive oil. When the cylinders age to the point where their moisture content falls below 40 per cent, they are now most often sealed in paraffin.
Cheese shops and butchers in Mytilini Town do still sell ladhotyri that has not been sealed, but neither has it been dipped in oil. The cheese is aged until ready for dipping, then sold to those ever-fewer cooks who take it home and place it themselves in a jar of olive oil.
Most ladhotyri comes from the mountain village of Mantamados, on the north side of the island.
The Aegean islands-in particular the Cyclades-produce some unusual cured meats. Chief among them is louza. Originally from Syros, Tinos, Andros and Mykonos, it now dangles outside butchers’ shops only on Syros and Tinos. Louza is pork loin or tenderloin that has been salted, rolled in peppercorns, allspice, cloves and cinnamon, marinated in wine, enveloped in intestine, sprinkled with pepper and hung to dry for about two months. It is cut into thin slices and sometimes cooked in omelettes.
Among the more interesting of the many sausages found in the Cyclades are the pork sausages spiced with fennel on Syros and Tinos and skordholoukaniko, a pork sausage seasoned with garlic and sweet wine.
One of the Aegean’s oldest recipes is for sissira, a delicacy made from pork remnants. Leftover meat and bits of rendered fat are stuffed into a pig’s stomach (often with sauteed onion), boiled, weighed down and kept for several months. The resulting mass is cut into thin slices and eaten in spring, usually around Easter. Like skordholoukaniko, sissira is found exclusively in private homes.
To taste all these delicacies offered only in Greece don’t hesitate to visit the Greek Islands or choose one of the Greek Island Cruises and enjoy yourselves in one of the most beautiful countries in the world.
Tags: Aegean Islands, Aegean Islands flavours, Aegean Islands travel, destination greece, greece travel, greece travelling, greek inslands travel
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