The end of the FIFA Soccer World Cup is in sight and South Africans can be well pleased with themselves at this stage. Despite predictions of murder and mayhem by British (and other) tabloids, everything has gone extremely well with crime levels no higher than in any other country. With the Soccer, Cricket and Rugby World Cups under their belts – it is only the Olympic Games that haven’t been hosted in South Africa so one would imagine that the Olympic Games be the logical next step.  For this reason we look at Greece who thought of the Olympic

Games in the first place and, to quote Maria in the Sound of Music, “let’s start at the very beginning”. Recent excavations on the island of Crete confirm that the Greeks were living on the island 130,000 years ago and they must have arrived by sea! This would make them the earliest mariners in human recorded history! The Minoan and the Helladic periods followed but relatively little is known about the Minoans since their script hasn’t been deciphered yet. What is known is that they were mercantile race who traded in timber, selling most of it to Cyprus, Egypt and the Aegean islands and that their civilisation ended with the Mycenean* invasion around 1400 BC that lasted only about 300 years before the Dorians (a sea faring, iron weapon wielding race) trounced them, heralding a really the Greek Dark Ages which lasted until about 800 BC when the first Greek city-states made their appearance. The Ancient Greek Period began around 1000 BC and ended when Alexander the Great died in 323 BC, having taught the world the basics of architecture, philosophy, politics and languages how to educate our youth.

GREEK BEAN SOUP ALMOST LIKE THE ANCIENT MADE IT

Ingredients

• 500 ml white beans, soaked in water overnight and boiled for an hour in water, drain
• 3 onions, finely chopped
• 3 large cloves garlic
• 500 ml beef stock made from roasted bones
• 500 ml water
• 200 gr. lard
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
• 1 handful fresh Italian parsley, chopped
• 2 bay leaves
• Extra virgin olive oil as needed
• Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper (even though there was no pepper in ancient Greece)

Method

• Mash the garlic cloves with about 2 tbsp of olive oil to form a paste.
• Pop the beans into a large pot with the stock, the water, the bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste and simmer on low heat for about 2 hours.
• Melt the lard* and sauté the onions with the coriander seeds, salt and pepper and add to the bean mixture before stirring in the honey and allowing it to simmer for about 5 minutes.
• Stir in the garlic and olive oil paste and combine with the soup before stirring in the fresh chopped parsley.
• Serve hot with bread.
• Tip: a teaspoon of lemon zest and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice does much to improve the flavour of this (more or less) typically ancient Greek recipe.
• Health tip – use olive oil instead of lard for logical reasons

The Romans annexed Greece but it had little effect on the Greek society of the time and when it came to food, it was the Greeks who taught the Roman chefs how to cook in a completely different way. When Caracalla decreed that all free males in the empire become Roman citizens, it became common practice to invite Greek chefs to work in Roman noble homes – thus creating a small culinary ‘revolution’ in Roman upper class circles. After the Rome was divided into East and West, the Greeks began to identify with the Romans for the first time but in the mid Byzantine era, Greece was invaded by the Persians (yet again), followed by a host of other races and so one of the most unsettling periods in the history of the Greeks began.  In 800 AD Greece had had enough and expelled the Slavs (or assimilated them into their own society) so that by 900 AD Greece, once again, belonged to the Greeks and she began to thrive again, the economy picked  up, churches were built all over the place and Athens, in particular, boomed.

The Venetians began to trade with Greeks, shipping their produce throughout the known world and the Golden Age began – giving rise the famous Greek m osaic art we all know so well.  The loss of Constantinople to Latin Crusaders, albeit only for 50 odd years, spelled the beginning of the end for the Greeks and the Turks invaded so that by 1453 the Ottomans finally ended the golden years.  This academics packed up and emigrated to Western Europe (playing a huge role in the Renaissance)and the rest of the Greeks fled into the mountains.  The Turks remained in Greece until the early 1800’s at which point the Greeks just couldn’t take it anymore and rebelled, fighting bitterly for their independence which, with help of the rest of Europe, they gained, becoming a monarchy with Otto of Bavaria as their first king. It stands to reason that Greece opposed Turkey in World War I and they received parts of Asia Minor out of the deal (including the city of Izmir).

PROBABLY BAKLAVA

Ingredients

Dough

• Use Filo pastry or make the dough like this:
• 1 kg flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 60 ml extra virgin olive oil
• 1 lemon, juice and grated zest
• 100 g sesame seeds, toasted and ground finely

Filling

• 450 g almonds, skinned and chopped
• 450 g walnuts, chopped
• 450 g hazelnuts, chopped
• 120 g sesame seeds, lightly toasted plus additional seeds for sprinkling
• 100 g poppy seeds
• 200 ml runny honey
• 1 tsp black pepper, coarsely ground

Syrup

• 450 g sugar (the ancients didn’t use sugar but it’s just more convenient and cheaper here)
• 250 ml water
• 75 ml petimezi
• 200 ml honey

Method

• Pre-heat oven to 180 C
• If you are going to make the dough, combine everything (use a food processor for goodness sake) and roll out into 2 equal sized sheets – as thin as you can get them but big enough to fit into the bottom of your baking dish;
• Alternatively, use Filo pastry;
• Combine all the ingredients listed under ‘filling’ to form a soft paste
• Grease your dish with olive oil and put one sheet at the bottom, cover with half of the filling before placing the second sheet, carefully, over that one;
• Put the rest of the filling on the second sheet, smooth it out and then place the final sheet over that one.
• Cut into squares and then diagonally to form triangles before splattering a little water over the dough and sprinkling with additional sesame seeds (the water allows the seeds to stick to the dough);
• Bake for half an hour until golden on top and remove from the oven, setting it aside to cool down;
• While it bakes, combine all the syrup ingredients in a pot and bring to the boil before reducing the heat and simmering for around 10 – 15 minutes.
• Pour the hot syrup over the cooled pastry and set aside for a couple of hours so that the syrup can be absorbed.

The Turks were livid and the nationalists, led by Atatürk, overthrew their own government to attack the Greeks – this ended in an exchange of over a million Greeks for 100’s of thousands of Muslims who were then living in the Greek state. The warring didn’t end and the Greeks were fighting with the Albanians and the Bulgarians for quite a while.  The Greeks had a tiny army but contributed what they could to the Second World War, siding with the allies until Italy invaded Greece – the Greeks got rid of them achieving the first Allied victory in Word War II. Adolf was spitting mad and sent the full force of Germany and her allies into Greece,  eventually managed to occupy them for obvious reasons – it was a little like two Goliaths slaying the infant David with an AK47. Then the Germans made the mistake of their lives an on the 20th of May 1941 tried to take Crete but they didn’t realise who they were dealing with – an angry Cretan is a terrible thing to behold!  Naturally they didn’t get too far. Few people realise how badly the war affected the Greeks – thousands died of hunger or in combat with thousands more sent to concentration camps – few men returned. Back on Greek soil, the Greek Orthodox Church did their level best to shelter the Greek Jews, but most of them were murdered and in the process the Greek economy was destroyed. Unfortunately the fighting didn’t end there and the Greek Civil War began but it ended with Greece becoming a member of NATO.

KOLOKITHOLOÚLOUDA YEMISTÁ

Stuffed Zucchini Flowers

Ingredients

• 18 Zucchini flowers
• 225 g rice, not quite cooked
• 500 ml home made vegetable stock
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 100 g finely chopped parsley
• 135 g finely chopped dill
• 100 ml extra virgin Greek olive oil
• Sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper to taste  (white pepper is really good if it is freshly ground)

Method

• Dip the flowers into water and dry with absorbent kitchen towels, remove pistils or stamens and set aside with care.
• Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and sauté the onions until translucent, adding the rice, dill and parsley.
• Pour over 500 ml stock of your choice and simmer until almost cooked – the rice must not be soft yet as this process is completed in the flower.
• Season the rice and add the onion stirring through well.
• Stuff the flowers with this mixture and close petals – be very careful here because they can break very easily.
• Pack the stuffed flowers neatly and carefully into a saucepan and fry over low to medium heat until the rice is completely  ready.
• Serve hot or cold.

* The Mycenaeans were depicted in Homer’s mythology and it is their civilization that gave birth to a warrior aristocracy who buried their dead in tholoi (bee-hive shaped tombs  consisted of large round burial chambers). Myceneans were buried in a sitting position and the nobles were buried with the jewellery and their weapons and (mostly) mummified.