Greek table has always been spacious to experimentation and tasting, hosting the passion for cooking, imagination and authentic smells from various cuisines. One thing has always been true though, the emphasis on earthy raw ingredients, unadulterated and grown locally – simple dishes, cooked slowly, seasoned with herbs and virgin olive oil. Maybe this was because we recognize that our food along with foreign edible flavors, carry memories of the older grocery stores and traditions, where all the flavors of the world found space in its four corners. Our culture has traditionally added an extraverted social dimension to the table, combining gustative satisfaction with recreation and communication, and thus maintaining even today some overtones from ancient feasts.

*Athenaeus of Naucratis, The Deipnosophistae “… (deipnon, “dinner”, and sophistai, “professors”; original Greek title Δειπνοσοφισταί).The protagonist is Ulpian, the host of a leisurely banquet whose main purpose is literary, historical and antiquarian conversation. It is also an important source of cookery recipes in classical Greek. It quotes the original text of one recipe from the lost cookbook by Mithaecus, the oldest in Greek and the oldest recipe by a named author in any language…”