Trailing Off....: June 2015

near Loutro

When trying to decide where to go on the walking holiday, we narrowed it down to The Isle of Skye in Scotland and Crete Island, Greece. After realising that it would be expensive bed & breakfast + rain + fish & chips OR seaside apartment + sunshine + Mediterranean food, the choice was clear.

Greece is one of the healthiest countries in the world and one main factor is the food they eat. The simple albeit uninspiring name of "The Mediterranean Diet", is basically: olive oil, legumes, grains, some meat, a lot of fish, some dairy, fruits, and vegetables. More simply: natural ingredients, nothing processed and from a box.

most of that green stuff is edible herbs!

Crete's main industry is tourism, so many restaurant owners tend to cater to Western visitors by predominantly selling grilled meats and chips and downplaying the simple dishes that they themselves would eat at home. I think because we were in a less touristy place, we were able to sample a variety of dishes, but we still had many a grilled meat and many a fried chip.

Appetizers

Cheese and yoghurt were common staples on most of the menus we saw. Dakos (below) is unique to Crete. It's made of dried barley rusk that can be kept for ages. It's then soaked in water and/or olive oil and topped with tomatoes, feta, herbs, and olives. I saw a lot of older Greek men eating this whilst they sipped raki (local moonshine that tastes like kerosene). The bread breaks apart easily and I found it surprisingly good. Like eating big croutons topped with yum.

dolmades: vine leaves stuffed with rice and herbs like dill, yoghurt for dipping

zucchini and feta fritters served with tzatziki (yoghurt, cucumber, garlic, herbs)

Melizanosalata: smoky eggplant dip

zucchini blossom stuffed with cheese

saganaki: fried cheese!

pickled wild onions

Sides
Sides don't really get the respect they deserve. The grilled and stewed meats are always in the limelight and sides are just an "oh yeah, we'll serve this to fill out the meal". Maybe this is because there was a time when eating meat was a special occasion rather than an every few hour gluttony. My absolute favourite dish of the trip was this one below. Gigantes (giant beans) is a simple dish of lima beans slow cooked for hours with tomatoes, olive oil, and herbs. The beans are creamy and buttery and the sauce is rich with such depth of flavour. I could eat this meal everyday and I suspect that in the past, some people did. The other sides were also simply cooked or roasted with olive oil, some herbs, garlic, and maybe a bit of lemon juice and/or cheese. Beautiful.

Briam:baked mixed vegetables with olive oil and smidge of cheese

some kind of casserole with eggplant on the bottom, tomatoes, potatoes

fassolakia: green beans stewed with tomatoes, herbs, potatoes

"Sfakian salad" with dates, nuts, shaved cheese

vlita: boiled wild mountain greens with garlic and lemon. A bit bitter but yummy.

boureki: zucchini casserole in a pastry

Main Dishes
The most popular meats in Crete seemed to be lamb, goat, rabbit, chicken, and pork. Seafood was also a big draw, though expensive. Because S and I share everything 50/50 and he doesn't really like seafood, I didn't have that much of it. But that was fine as there were plenty of other dishes to try. I don't have a standout favourite, but the best meals were those that were slow cooked and served with rice rather than grilled and served with chips.

grilled swordfish and chips

kleftiko: mutton and three cheese pie, S's favourite

"mixed grill": chicken, sausages, lamb chops, lamb patties, smoked pork. Chips.

moussaka: a casserole of layered eggplant, potato, meat, béchamel, cheese

pork souvalaki: grilled meat on a stick. Chips.

papoutsakia: eggplant stuffed with tomato, herb, mince and covered with cheese

roasted pork gyro. There's a pita under there somewhere

slow cooked lamb in a cheese sauce. Unnecessary chips.

Sfakiano Yachni: goat braised in tomatoes and red wine. YUM

spicy Cretan sausages. Chips.

Suzukakia: veal meatballs in tomato sauce

tomato and pepper stuffed with rice and baked. Chips!

Snacks

I suppose there is some overlap between "snacks" and "appetizers" but for this post, "snacks" are things we had instead of and not part of a big meal. The most common snack is a bowl of olives. Sadly, I'm not a huge olive fan, but there were some small black olives that really did the trick. And anything tastes better with a beer and a seaview.

apaki: smoked pork with herbs--seemed very German

cheese pie on the beach

fried whitefish bait. I gave most of them to 3 cats who joined us

my favourite is the soft mizithra on the lettuce--creamy, salty, a bit sour

afternoon beer and olives

snack plate in the apartment

cat claims "dibs" on a fried fish

black olives and garlic herb butter for bread

pastry with chicken for gorge snack

Dessert

I mostly gave up sugar in 2015, but I made a few exceptions on the holiday. The best desserts were those covered in honey. The local honey is amazingly good.

breakfast: nutella and vanilla cake, Greek coffee, fresh o.j.

complimentary orange syrup soaked cake

complimentary honey and nut pastry

assortment of honey sweetened pastries

complimentary fruit and raki

Best dessert: pancake filled with mizithra cheese and topped with honey!

Beer

Hipsters beware: There are only 3 beers on offer in Chora Sfakion. Mythos, Fix, and Amstel. To me they all tasted the same. Very refreshing after a long walk, but by the end of the week, I switched to local wine.

first night in Crete: check out the frosted glass. Classy!

Amstel in Anopoli

Thankfully due to walking about 5 hours a day, I didn't gain any weight on this trip. I'm not sure how healthy the food we ate really was (fried cheese just doesn't seem like it would be diet food), but it was full of wonderful deep herby flavours. Everything just had an elevated, natural taste. I could have eaten 50 of the local tomatoes. I'd forgotten what a tomato can taste like.

So this summer I can't wait to try my hand at some of these dishes, though I'll probably skip the chips.

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