The Hindu Business Line : Food fit for Greek gods

He looks like a younger version of Aamir Khan in a ponytail, says the Greek don’t know much about the Indian market vis-À-vis opportunities for Greek products such as olive oil and wine, but adds with a flourish, typically Greek: “But we know India as a country because of our historic relations over 1,000 years… but unfortunately enough, not as a distributor of our products.”

Kalsakis Nikos is the Quality Manager of Ch. Giannoulis S.A., an olive oil producer that produced 700 tonnes of extra virgin olive oil last year. He was participating in the exhibition that was part of the Second International Kerasma Conference on Greek Gastronomy and Food, Wine and Spirits, organised by HEPO (Hellenic Foreign Trade Board) at Heraklion in Crete Island, Greece, last fortnight.

Greece has the highest per capita consumption of olive oil in the world at 23 kg a year, and he extols the health benefits of a Mediterranean diet that is rich in olive oil. “We almost drink olive oil; the Greeks cannot imagine eating food without olive oil.”

Needless to say Nikos’ family uses only olive oil as a cooking medium; he is also the proud owner of a “small olive grove from which I produce about 1,000 kg of olive oil every year. My family (of four) uses about 120 kg of olive oil per year, but that’s because my kids are very young — 4 years and 3 months. When they grow older, our consumption will go up.”

He has never tasted any other oil and “it’s a law in my house never to use any other cooking medium”.

This kind of passion for olive oil is widely prevalent in Greece and any visitor to the country soon realises that it is neither hyperbole nor a mere spin. But what pains olive oil producers, as discussed by many participants at the Kerasma conference, is that the Spanish and Italian manufacturers have captured the world market much more effectively than the Greek have managed to do not only for their olive oil but also in cuisine when it comes to the Italians.

Greek way of life

Kalsakis Nikos and his colleague Maria both own small olive groves - Rasheeda Bhagat

But there is ample evidence that the Greek are waking up, more so because over 90 per cent of the olive oil they produce is extra virgin. The Kerasma campaign is a concerted and aggressive effort “to display to the rest of the world the Greek way of living, which is indelibly linked with Greek food and wine, with the friendly atmosphere of a typical Greek table, with good company and the sharing of exquisite food,” says HEPO President Panagiotis I. Papastavrou. He captures the essence of a unique Greek tradition when he says, “Food is our pretext for socialising, the vehicle we Greeks turn to in order to forget life’s hardships.”

It was evident that the effort to promote Greek food and beverages to the rest of the world was being made with the constant emphasis on the healthy aspects of the ingredients that go into Greek food — olives and olive oil, fruits and herbs, and the huge quantities of salads that have traditionally formed the backbone of Greek cuisine.

Papastavrou underlined the importance of such a diet “in times like these, when health issues are on the forefront and the epidemic of obesity is spreading all over the western world.”

His colleague and CEO of HEPO, Panagiotis Drossos, adds that the Kerasma campaign’s success could be gauged from the fact that the export of Greek food and beverages in the international markets had risen by 42 per cent to 2.93 billion euros in 2006, 18 months after the campaign was initiated. Pointing out how HEPO’s publications such as Greek Gourmet Traveler and Simply Plated had won several international awards, he said, “All this has raised our spirits and given us the drive to continue our journey to acquaint more foreign markets with Greek products, but the constant challenge is how to attract and hold the interest of businesses and food and wine professionals abroad, and how to broaden and systematise our interaction with reliable distribution networks in target markets.”

Strong economy

Kerasma’s efforts have also received a boost with the Greek economy registering one of the highest growth rates in the Europeon Union and the Euro Zone, clocking 3.7 per cent in 2005 and 4.3 per cent in 2006, according to statistics from the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Also, in 2006, Greece attracted an FDI of 4.2 billion euros, which is 2 per cent of the Greek GDP.

HEPO is a non-profit organisation that functions under the Ministry of Economy and Finance and is officially responsible for implementing the export policy of Greece. Its main focus is to design and coordinate activities to help Greek entrepreneurs expand their exports and to help forge partnerships in foreign markets.

In this background it was an upbeat core team from Kerasma (this is a Greek word for treat or offering, and refers specially to an offering of food and wine) that took the participants through a three-day tour of Greek cuisine — food, wine, and live demonstrations of delicacies ranging from the making of hand-rolled Cretan pasta to some exotic stuff dished out by celebrities like Gordon Ramsay, the British chef and restaurateur.

But much more than watching celebrity chefs like him or Japan’s Tsukiko Hattori, Chairperson of the Olive Oil Board of Japan, and other big names in the trade rustle up some exotic dishes, this correspondent will remember for a longer time the demos from some local women at the Lychnostatis Museum in Heraklion, the capital of Crete Island.

Expertly rolling the dough, cutting it into strips, frying each strip with painstaking care even while rolling it in the boiling olive oil pan to make a fritter, and lovingly offering the finished products to their foreign admirers were a group of half-a-dozen local women. Under their rolling pin and deft fingers delicious varieties of hot, fresh and soft country breads, traditional coffee biscuits, Cretan honey dough fritters, pasta, rose petal jam and savoury cheese pies took shape.

The warmth and loving care with which they piled these delicacies on the plates of their guests was reminiscent of the manner in which some restaurants in Ahmedabad serve you the thali, insisting that you take a few more rotis, puris or another helping of the aam ras. But then the Greek are a lot like Indians when it comes to hospitality and rolling out the red carpet.

Meticulous, loving care

Similarly, the previous evening, an elaborate dinner was prepared for the Kerasma delegates from 15 countries by the women in a village about 25 km from Heraklion. What it must have taken for them to dish out a range of delicacies for a gathering of over 230 people can well be imagined. When one politely turned down the main dish made with pork, in no time, and as though by magic, a chicken dish appeared on the table.

Later one learnt about the kind of care, attention and hard work the women had put into this ‘feast’. To the extent that one woman had agonised about the exact timing of the plucking of zucchini blooms to bring out the best flavour/taste to the end product! Listening to their stories drove home the point of how much of an art the Greek have made of their cuisine. One was told that in almost every home the woman took pride in the kind of fare she put out on the table.

Whether it is yoghurt, honey, the cheeses, olives, the vegetables that would go into a salad, the fruits that would go on the table, or the herbs that would be used in the dressing or the actual cooking, in many homes a lot of thought and care goes into stuff that might be considered mundane elsewhere. For instance, perhaps Greece is the only country in the world where government servants get a few days of official leave to harvest olives. It’s a matter of pride for the Greek to have at least a couple of olive trees in their backyard, and among the upper middle classes it is common to own small olive groves which meet the family’s requirements for olive oil for the entire year.

The Greek have an intimate relationship with the earth from where the fruits, vegetables, herbs or spices come. Take for instance this quote from an article in the Summer 2007 issue of the Greek Gourmet Traveler on herbs in Greek co oking: “If you don’t have mint, you have nothing,” says Litsa Anagnostaki, a taverna owner in Chania, Crete, as she adds a finely chopped bunch of fresh leaves to her filling for the island’s signature cheese pies. “Tea made from rigani (oregano) is good for coughs,” advises a bright-eyed great-grandmother in Rethymno, but, she cautions, “don’t sprinkle too much on your food because it can make you swell up.”

In Santorini Island, where about 100 Kerasma delegates visited a couple of wineries and vineyards, it was explained how the grape growers’ proximity to the island’s volcano had given them a unique advantage in wine making. As a wine expert explained, “Not only do grapes grow very well in a rocky region, the volcanic dust is very good for the fruit, as the grapes are stressed and stressed grapes yield good quality wine.”

But while many of the wineries boasted of over 100 years’ history in wine making, in Santorini one learned that the hard labour that goes into growing grapes and making wine is dissuading youngsters in some families from continuing in the family business, and hence the acreage under grape cultivation is shrinking.

And yet the Greek do consume a lot of wine — the per capita consumption is 30 litres, and even though this is lower than what it used to be — 55 — the Greek do take a lot of pride in consuming, and exporting, their wine. As Yorgas Papapanayotou, Head of the Promotions and Events Division of HEPO, put it, “Wine forms an important component of the Greek Mediterranean diet, and HEPO is engaged in efforts to export high quality wines to India.” He thinks that while the cheaper varieties of the Australian, South African and New Zealand wines do well in India, when it comes to “high quality wines, we will have the advantage of quality in your market.”

Whole wheat salad

Ingredients

Whole wheat kernels - 1 cup

Coarse bulgur - 50 grams

Beet leaves - 150 grams

Pomegranates – 2, or Greek raisins – {+1}/{-2} cup

Parsley – one small bunch, chopped

Medium red onions – 2, finely chopped

Pine nuts - 2 tablespoon

Fresh mint (to taste) - finely chopped

Lemon zest - 1 teaspoon

Greek feta - 150 grams, cut into small cubes.

Method

Soak the bulgur and whole wheat overnight. Blanch the beet leaves and set aside. Break one pomegranate into kernels and juice the other.

To prepare the salad: Mix the whole wheat, bulgur, parsley, onions, mint, pomegranate seeds or raisins, pine nuts, mint and lemon zest in a large bowl.

Drizzle the salad with some olive oil, garnish with the beet leaves, feta cubes and pomegranate juice (if available) on top.

Tomato fritters

Proud of the rich flavours and inherent goodness of their cuisine, the Greeks now want to find a global market for it.

Ingredients

Firm, ripe Santorini tomatoes, grated - 1{+1}/{-2} pounds

Scallions, white and tender green parts, finely chopped - 2

Finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley - 2 tablespoon

Chopped fresh mint - 2 tablespoon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper - to taste

All-purpose flour - 1{+1}/{-4} to 1{+1}/{-2} cups (as needed)

Baking powder – 1{+1}/{-2} teaspoon

Olive or vegetable oil - for frying.

Method

In a large bowl mix together the grated tomatoes, scallions, herbs, salt, and pepper; combine 1{+1}/{-4} cups of the flour and baking powder in a small bowl and add it to the tomatoes, mixing well. Add flour if necessary to give the mixture the consistency of a thick batter. Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper.

Heat about 1{+1}/{-2} inches of oil in a large, heavy skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil is very hot, drop a tablespoon of the batter at a time into the skillet and fry the tomato fritters on both sides until golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and let drain on paper towels. Serve hot.

Courtesy: Simply Plated

More Stories on : Events | Food & Cuisine

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
Food fit for Greek gods