The Greek tourism boon

Finally, the end of August has arrived. It was a long month in Crete for most of the residents, because it was very hot and very busy, with tourists weighing down the island. As the high summer season comes to an end (and the low season starts, which is at least two more months here in Crete), it's time to reflect on that great Greek success story of this past year: tourism.

Tourism in Greece has always been a major economic force, and this is unlikely to change in the future. Its role in the economy cannot be underestimated: Tourism composes 16.3% of the GDP of Greece, and it employs 1 million people, providing 20% of the jobs in Greece. So the tourism sector should not be treated lightly.

Breaking records

In the last two years, tourism to Greece has seen an unprecedented rise: more than 20 million visitors have passed through Greece so far this year, breaking all the Greek records from previous years, bringing in revenue of approximately €12 billion euro. At the same time, Greece has been struggling with economic depression in the last 6 years, and a very negative global image. 2013 was a landmark year for Greek tourism, with 18 million arrivals and 2 million cruise ship passengers making Greece their holiday destination. In 2014, revenue from tourism is expected to rise by 28% from the previous year, while arrivals to Greece had already risen by 26% until the end of March this year, and they continue to rise, with 4 months to go to the end of the year. So we really need to ask ourselves: What is it that has made Greece so popular in just the last two years? Why did tourists literally flock to Greece this year, probably making Greece the most popular summer destination? It's a question that interests me immensely, not least because I live in an area which is very touristic and the livelihood of most people invariably depends on tourism; but the welfare of my children's future also depends on this continuing success.

Stability amidst conflict

I think it's mainly got to do with stability - political stability, economic stability, stability in general. Up until 2012, the BBC and The Guardian, bastions of "impartial" news reporting, bombarded their news sites with a barrage of negative news items about Greece, culminating with the premise of the potential threats posed by Grexit (which is amusing in retrospect, given how Brexit surfaced this year). Since then, global media news reports about Greece have admittedly become quite subdued, with most economic analysts agreeing that there appears to be some kind of Grecovery taking place - quite the opposite from the doomsday predictions that were being smeared all over the web news up until just under two years ago.

We can't deny that stability has played a major role in Greece's rise in tourist arrivals, given the shocking state that her eastern and southern neighbours are in: the Arab world is embroiled in some kind of war. Arab spring broke out only a year after the Greek economic crisis, while the Ukraine Crimea crisis showed us just how far people were prepared to go to protect their sovereign rights. Iraq and Syria do not seem so far away from Greece. We've seen how Greece's neighbours express their anger over political decisions. Despite the fact that Greek politics deeply divided Greek society, Greeks didn't actively seek to exterminate each other. It is no coincidence that Greece is seen as a safe country in an area surrounded by turmoil. The internet has helped to spread the image of Greece as a safe and peace-loving nation.

If we simply stick to the premise that Greece is a safe country to travel in at a time when her part of the world is experiencing conflict, then this amounts to saying that Greece's success has rested on others' demise. Is this what has really happened? Do we really want to believe that people are coming to Greece because they can't go to other places? In other words, when stability returns in North Africa and the Middle East (and it will to a certain degree, as all crises do pass eventually), Greece will be forgotten and the true stars will shine. I find that impossible to believe. Given the rise in urban crime, notably in Athens, it can be concluded that there are safer places to go to than Greece. So there must be something else pulling people to our shores. What is that other thing? 

According to the Secretary-General for Tourism in Greece, Panos Livadas, who recently came to MAICh to give a talk to students, entitled Tourism as a Vehicle for Economic Development and Growth, the crisis provided the impetus for people to change tactics: since the beginning of 2013, there has been a shift to the use of the internet and all the new means of media in marketing Greece. So Greece has now adapted to current marketing trends, and is being marketed online through heavy use of social networks. Since www.visitgreece.com was created, it has been visited by nearly 10 million people, and bureaucracy has now been decreased to a certain extent to allow the private sector to deal with tourism without too much state interference. Tourism has diversified, and there are plans to create an enriched and balanced all-year-round Greek tourism product.

An information-based world
At the same time, there has been a shift in the people who deal with tourism in Greece. Tourist businesses have learnt the value of competition, and have since become more competitive. Sometimes, it all boils down to the basics; for example, it has been noticed that more and more Greeks who deal with tourists... big breath.... smile more than they used to. (I remember the days when they did not, when you were more likely to get a hoity toity scowl ,so this tiny detail does actually mean a great change has taken place.) Not only that, but more and more of the 'right' people are involved in tourism: as the state has become more competitive to beat off our competitors, so have the people become more competitive in offering better services and setting good prices. Greece is now also making firm connections with the new markets, notably China - it's the first year there is a direct flight connecting Athens with a Chinese destination - and Brazil - a huge campaign took place during the Mundial event.

So there lies the answer: Greece has had a massive increase in tourism in the last two years because... tourists have access to more information about Greece than they ever did before and they can do their own research about Greece before deciding which destination to choose. And the information they are getting leads them to the assumption that Greece is not only safe, but it is also a very cool - and cheap! - place to go on holiday. So the answer to the question about why tourism has boomed lately in Greece was a simple one: people are better able to learn about Greece on their own.

Sustainable tourism
Another thing that Mr Livadas mentioned in his speech was the human scale of Greek tourism. This is also identified in the experiences that tourists to Greece have, and how they disseminate these experiences to others. Greece's growth in toursim is based on sustainable growth, something that can be repeated year after year, without destruction to the social fabric that Greek society is made of, and this is something that travellers want to hear, given that the modern world lays emphasis on the sustainability of the environment. In other words, don't expect Greece to create a Las Vegas style resort, or skyscraper hotels along the Greek coastlines. A lot has been said about the Greek coastline in recent times, but some things that are spreading like wildfire on the internet are not even conceivable; this rests on knowing what to believe and what not to believe on the internet, and Greece is getting better at disseminating information, and counter-reacting against negative reports.

There is of course one thing that few people can deny about Greece which attracts people to Greece as a tourism destination: Greece is a beautiful country, and Greece's beauty transcends the nature of recreation while on holiday. Greece's beauty allows Greece to serve many different segments of the tourist market. Greece offers a diverse tourist package to cater for the great variety of people that humankind manifests itself! And the vote of confidence in Greece couldn't have come at a better time for Greece than now.

Hospitality from the heart
According to Mr Livadas, what distinguishes Greece above all in the way that a Greek tourist product is presented is that Greek people offer hospitality to the tourist from the heart, not just as a product. So in Greece:

• You can rely on the lady who said she will be waiting for you to let you into the remote hotel or villa, even when your boat or plane comes in in the wee hours of the morning. 
• You can ask a Greek for information and they will give it to you gladly; they will not treat you like a full wallet, nor will they expect to be paid for the yielding of information. 
• You will be remembered on your second visit by the people who you met on your first visit, and this is what will make you want to re-visit in the future. 
• You will be invited impromptu to join into a stranger's family meal and you will be made to feel welcome - and you will probably admit that this would never take place in your homeland. 
• You will receive food gifts from Greeks, plastics bags full of fresh fruit and vegetables thrust into your hands - and again, you will admit that this would not happen in many places anywhere else in the world.

If you have come to Crete on holiday, you must have experienced one or more of the above. It is little wonder that people who have visited Greece come back again. Greece offers a variety of landscapes to explore, it is a safe destination for families, it never gets boring, it is impressive, and above all, it is the Greek people who make your stay memorable. Greece creates that feeling in you that makes an impressionable mark on you. Greece is that thing. You leave Greece with the feeling that you have made friends here.

Cheap flights, not cheap people
A lot has also been said about cheap tourists, and cheap forms of tourism. For example, people believe that Ryanair and Easyjet, both cheap seasonal flights airlines, bring 'poor' tourists who don't spend much money in the destination. It is also believed that all-inclusive tourism doesn't leave much money either. Both these beliefs are myths; here in Hania, we have evidence to the contrary. For a start, it should be noted that only about 30% of tourists  to Greece come with all-inclusive packages than have been pre-paid in their country of origin, so they are a significantly smaller portion of Greece's tourist numbers.

For the last four years, an annual survey on tourism, organised by MAICh in conjunction with the Hania Hoteliers' Association, takes place in Hania, spanning 4000 respondents per summer season. The findings over the years give solid information about the kind of tourists that come here, and what they expect in terms of services. Scandinavians form half the tourist arrivals in Hania; in fact, they are the ones that are more likely to book an all-inclusive package. Because Crete has mild weather, the tourist season is extended here compared to the rest of Greece. Those who visit Crete earlier (ie April-May) or later (ie September-October) in the season are more likely to be high income earners in their country, with a high educational level, and a greater interest in the history and nature of the area. They are also more likely to return to Crete for another holiday here, even within the same season.

One of the most important findings to come out of the survey was a direct result of Ryanair's appearance in Hania. Ryanair uses Hania airport as a travel hub for their flights, meaning that Ryanair flies in and out of Hania to approximately 25 European destinations. Ryanair passengers were particularly targeted as the group of interest due to the nature of the airline they were using; Ryanair is known to be a 'cheap' airline. It was discovered that people using Ryanair to get to the island come from all income levels, refuting the myth that cheap seasonal charter flights bring cheap tourists. Not only that, but those who use those cheap flights are also more likely to organise their own hotel bookings, so they are more likely to be independent travellers rather than package tourists. More than 75% of those surveyed find the prices of tourist services in Hania to be very satisfactory, breaking down another myth, that tourist prices in Greece are over-priced. Generally speaking, tourists in Hania are very satisfied with the level of services catering for them. Among their complaints is the road network - they are unhappy with the state of some roads, and the lack of signage. On a positive note, they find public transport services, including both buses and taxis, to be at a high level.

The package tourist
The Greek tourist package has undergone massive changes from the early days of mass tourism to Greece. In this article, the writer remembers a time in the 1970s when the owner-operators of village kafeneia (which acted more than just as cafes: they were also the local grocers, the receptacle for post mail, and the local men's meeting point) had no idea what to charge the odd European or two who passed through their village, for what seemed to the tourists like a three-course meal, because they (the kafeneio owners) were used to serving food out of love, and not for money. The writer concludes that tourism in Crete and Greece in general has gone from «value without money» to «value for money».

As for those all-inclusive tourists - the ones that book their holiday in their own country and come to stay in a resort hotel which offers them in-house meals so that they don't need to go out and spend money at restaurants - they are highly visible in Hania because... they wear a coloured paper/plastic bracelet, a bit like those bracelets that you wear when you are hospitalized (NB: we don't wear such a bracelet in Greek hospitals). Many people have the impression that they don't spend much money in the destination because most of their expenses have been pre-paid in their own country.   

The classic sign of the all-inclusive package tourist is the 'βραχιολάκι', meaning 'bracelet' (the package toursits wear one throughout their stay, to distinguish them as paying guests and not freeloaders at resorts); all -inclusive toursits are regarded as cheap tourists whose money spent on their holiday doesn't go into Greek pockets - seriously?

My own observations make me find this difficult to believe. This photo was taken at my local beach which tourists generally don't visit because they don't know about it (it's a local's secret). It may look like they are spending money on cheap supplies, eg water, ice cream, beer, crisps, sandwiches, etc, but as I observed this particular family for about an hour, I noticed just how much they had actually spent at one little cafe at the beach. I wondered if they would do this every day on their holiday for their 5-member family (parents and 3 kids). To be honest, I am not well off enough to do this myself every time I go to the sea. But this family - I think they were Scandinavian (not German or British for sure) - would do this every time they went to the beach or sat by the hotel pool. I estimated that they had easily spent 15-20 euro on the afternoon that I saw them. I have not counted the little girl's dress, which is made of batik coloured cotton, and has a meander running around it - even if it wasn't made in Greece (I suspect India), it was bought here, not before she came to Crete! So this family was definitely pumping money into the Greek economy. Even if they pay for their holiday before arriving in Greece, everything they buy outside of the resort goes into the Greek economy, and staff at the resorts are paid salaries. It may be presumed that the beach cafe owner was not ringing up the takings on the till, so that he can cheat the taxman - but I know for a fact that this particular cafe runs up all the orders, and we are always called back to pick up the receipt when we forget to wait for it to be issued! People who make these assumptions are generally believing their own myths. Tourists are spending money for sure, and my workplace has proven this for Crete.

And here is a close-up of the activity going on in the sea while we were at the beach on the day that the Scandinavian family was there - three mini-cruise boats (I was playing with the settings of the camera, hence the pop-art and dramatic scene look of each photo) were packed with tourists sailing round the harbour. It's not locals going on these trips - it's tourists, and mainly non-Greeks tourists.

Spending power
All tourists are the same in one respect: it all depends on the size of your wallet, what you feel you can afford, and how much money you are willing to spend in order to have the kind of time you want to have. During July and August, the tavernas in the old Venetian harbour of Hania were all doing very good business from what I noticed every time I was in the area. Some were full to the brim, others were mainly full at the front tables (ie near the seafront), but all of them were doing some trade (none remained empty). Tavernas are not necessarily preferred by family tourists (it's not just Greeks minding the pennies), as they will add to the cost of a holiday. Family folk will go to the local supermarket and make up their extra meals in this way by buying bread, ham, cheese, tomatoes, crisps, beer, wine, etc. And if they really do want to try a taverna meal outside the resort, there are deals for that too, all devised by local restaurant owners who are thinking up of ways to get those small spenders into their stores. But they are still spending money in the country! Coincidentally, when we travel to London, we do something similar; we stay with friends, we bring some of our own food, we don't go out to restaurants every day we're on holiday - we know what we can afford. 

Another way I could observe how full the town was with tourists this year was when I was standing at the traffic lights in the town centre, waiting to cross the road. Because our roads are generally rather narrow, there were times I literally could not see the traffic lights. I felt like I was in London waiting at the underground, and not being able to jump into the first train to arrive because it filled up too quickly. There are the stories my cabbie husband tells me: he spent most of July and half of August at the airport - they are the best cab fares in Hania. According to my husband, there were days when the taxi drivers weren't able to keep up with the demand for taxis at the airport! And here's another observation which struck me as a little strange: I was at Bershka with my daughter in the first week of this year's summer sales, and the store, together with its neighbours Pull and Bear, Zara and Stradivarius were full of tourists - they must be finding our high street shop prices lower than theirs! The town was constantly congested with cars and people: we know a rental car when we see one, and we know the behaviour of the drivers (a little reticent, they feel uncomfortable driving on our busy narrow roads) - and foreign tourists drive differently from Greek tourists in Hania (who come from the mainland - they drive like Athenians). 

Confidence boosters
If Germans are choosing to take their holidays in Greece after all the negative press about Greece in Germany, that's a promising sign. When a major German tourism firm is willing to invest in Greek tourism, then I'd say the real reason why people are coming here is because Greece is seen as a relatively nice and cheap and safe place to take a holiday in. (Ask the increasing numbers of Israeli tourists about this one.) If this means that some touristsn want to stay in all-inclusive resorts, then that's what we have to give these people in order to get them here: Northern Europeans like to arrange their travel through an agent like these tourist companies. Generally speaking, they like pre-arranged holidays, they want to know who to blame when things don't go right, and they want to know what they can expect in advance. It may sound like it takes away the romance in travel, but then again, if that's what a segment of the market wants, that's what we have to give them. What's more, there is enough variety in Greece to cater for the demands of a wide variety of tourists. I would never want to stay at an all-inclusive here or abroad, but that's me and my tastes - we aren't all the same. Thankfully, there is a great variety of tourism types to choose from in Greece - we are all catered for in some way. 

Tourism is the number-one driving force of the Greek economy at present. The economic scale of tourism cannot be compared to the novel ideas arising from the highly acclaimed private tech start-ups that are often touted as the key to economic development in Greece; they require a lot of investment and can be lucrative ventures for their creators, but they rarely employ many people, therefore limiting their wider economic impact. A big step forward in Greek tourism is to offer all-year round tourism. The biggest problem in this respect is trying to convince airlines to keep flying in the 'off-season', ie between November and March, so that the purpose-built tourism infrastructure (namely hotel complexes) can continue working throughout the year. Ryanair has come to the rescue as a first step to solving this problem: for the first time, the toursim season will be extended by a month this year in Hania, as Ryanair will continue flying from Hania to London twice a week in November. This is possibly a trial run for something bigger. Ryanair has complained of the high taxes imposed on winter flights, at a time when there are generally no tourists, and the Greek state could therefore lower the costs for airlines using the airport (ie drop the 12-euro tax per passenger). Sure, this can be done: but Ryanair must have sniffed something good happening in Greece, otherwise it wouldn't be doing us this favour, would it?! And look at one of The Guardian's recent pieces on Greece - towards the end of the high summer season, they are admitting that Greece looks to be back on track after all. Even Google is onto Greece: this week, it launches a program (piloted in Crete) to help Greek tourism grow online. 

Final words: image is everything
So it's all looking good: as long as we can maintain a good image and just as importantly, focus on keeping on track, we can't be doing that bad. Certainly, many problems did surface even in this record-breaking year: we still need to address very basic issues such as road safety, road construction and rubbish disposal allowing tourists to throw away their rubbish in an environmentally friendly way which is something they are already used to doing in their own countries (eg giving them the opportunity to separate their trash at the beach, which is not being done now). While there is definitely room for improvement in all sectors (notably in the lack of tourism education), we can't avoid the inevitable either: there will always be a crisis around the corner that will hit us just when we least expect it. One way or another, you will face a crisis and you will not be able to predict its form (unless it is a self-created crisis - Greeks learnt the hard way); you won't be prepared for it, but in order not to destroy your credibility, you need to react to it in some way that shows you are handling it well. But all crises pass, and the world continues to grow and develop after such events. Even though such events dampen our confidence levels, we can't let the culture of mediocrity hamper our development. Why should we pave the road to others' success when we can be part of the success story ourselves?

UPDATE: Ryanair certainly knows a good thing when it sees it; more destinations from Hania come next season.

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Greek cuisine, Greek identity and the economic crisis: a crisis of taste

A dietitian friend of mine in Germany recently asked me about the relationship between Greek food and the economic crisis. Here is a seminar I presented last year about this very topic. Presenting it again this year has given me a chance to give it a reality check - yes, it still holds true. 

GREEK CUISINE, GREEK IDENTITY and the ECONOMIC CRISIS

Maria Verivaki

English teacher, Food blogger

Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania

ABSTRACT 
Greek cuisine is often associated with concepts such as hospitality, homeliness and tradition, all of which require certain sacrifices, in terms of time and money. It is also seen as an important and defining element of Greek identity. But the economic crisis has affected standard Greek values and the Greek identity is being reshaped as developments change the structure of Greek society. The traditional cuisine associated with Greece cannot remain untouched by this. What changes has Greek cuisine, as related to Greek identity, undergone due to the crisis?

The economic crisis brought this 'new' form of heating - and 'old' form of cooking - into my home.

This paper does not attempt to answer the question directly. Rather, introspective insights will yield partial answers to this issue, using personal experience and knowledge gleaned from various sources, mainly from the Greek national and international press coupled with personal experiences, with particular emphasis on the area of Western Crete, where the author lives and works. The question will remain open, as a recommendation for further research into the topic of Greek identity and how it relates to Greek cuisine.

INTRODUCTION
Greek cuisine is mired in the myths created about it by the nostalgic diaspora, history enthusiasts and sun-seeking tourists. Numerous books have been written about it, acquainting the whole world with the concept of Greek cuisine, while at the same time standardising Greek food in the minds of both those of Hellenic and non-Hellenic heritage. While there are many standard dishes instantly recognisable as Greek food, the basic ingredients and meals that are often ascribed as Greek and known to the non-Greek world represent only a limited range of the full gamut of Greek cuisine. What's more, what is prepared in the Greek home is rarely representative of what is cooked in the tavernas and restaurants for the tourist.

Greek food is glorified in pictures. Sometimes the setting is more important than the food. 

GREEK CUISINE 
The country of Greece is as varied as its cuisine. The north is known for its redolent pita, the south for its great variety of horta, and the islands for their regional specialties originating in their limited supply of ingredients. But what is often presented in restaurants in a country with a booming tourist industry associated with it is a variation of mainly summer specialty dishes such as yemista and horiatiki salata. In Crete, some regional specialties will be added, perhaps boureki and kalitsounia. In the north, these regional specialties will be replaced by the locality's specialties, maybe tirokafteri and some kind of pita. But all Greek eateries will unfailingly mention (for example) tzatziki and moussaka, and these dishes will be presented in such a way that one expects them to be commonly prepared in the average Greek home by the average Greek home cook.

Haniotiko boureki: a very regional dish from Hania

The truth is that Greek cuisine is made up of a regional range of different cuisines, in the same way that a number of regions make up the country. Many of the locally well-known dishes will not necessarily be well-known to Greeks outside the region concerned, nor will they even appear on a tourist restaurant menu. But these specialties are now appearing in high-end Greek restaurants, often in variable forms from those originally found in the home and non-tourist kitchens where they are still commonly prepared. One of the reasons for this is the economic crisis: as Greeks are rediscovering and reshaping their identity, they are digging up and uncovering more basic elements of their culinary history in an attempt to reach beyond the surface of the traditional identity that they have - often mistakenly - become synonymous with.

Bougatsa Iordanis: a local specialty of Hania, different to other forms of bougatsa in Greece.

The Greek diaspora has always played a major role in the global dissemination of Greek cuisine. The diaspora is made up of people of Hellenic origin who congregate in different places around the globe outside Greece. Their regional differences are not accentuated as they relate with each other abroad for the simple reason that they find themselves outside the country - there, they become Greeks, and so does their food. In the diaspora, they are no longer a Cretan, Athenian, Samioti, etc; they are Greek. Their shared Greek experiences are expressed in their shared Greek food.

Sometimes the only Greek element of Greek yoghurt sold abroad under this label is the design of the packaging.

The economic crisis has created a new Hellenic disapora wave - this in turn will have some influence in the dissemination of Greek cuisine and how it is being redefined in global terms, as expressed in the homes of those new immigrants and the food businesses that are operated by them. In the same way that the 1922 crisis in Smyrna reshaped Greek cuisine within the Greek borders, so too are the new Greek migrants likely to redefine Greek cuisine outside the country, in the food that they prepare in their home, the products they import, and the Greek restaurants they operate.

Before looking into Greek cuisine abroad, we need to understand what it is all about in the domestic environment: what Greek cuisine means in the urban/rural context, lifestyle choice, the concept of a Greek product and its promotion, shopping trends, the difference between eating at home and eating out, the influence of unemployment and soup kitchens, the resurgence of gardens, chicken coops and foraging and Greek television food programs.

THE URBAN/RURAL DIVIDE
One of the reasons for the varied range of cuisine that one will come across at any one moment all over Greece is the different landscape that Greeks live in. Mountains and coastlines yield different food in different quantities. This is in antithesis with the urban landscape, particularly that of a densely populated capital city like Athens, which is concreted and does not give people the opportunity to be self-sufficient to any degree. The local seasonal abundance which rural life depends on for its culinary creativity is to be found in the street markets (laiki) of urban Greece where producers and/or their products congregate from all over the country. Hence, urban Greeks conceivably have a greater range of products available to them at any one time compared to the rural Greek.

My home cooked summer meals often depend on what is in the garden. I obviously had access to cucumbers and vine leaves and herbs to make this meal. 

But in an economic crisis, where money is scarce, food choices become limited by what you can afford, which is especially true in a city. The rural Greek household, on the other hand, despite having always been much more limited in terms of the range of products found in the average rural kitchen, will not be greatly affected by an economic crisis. Rural Greek kitchens are supplemented not by a weekly laiki, but by the gardening season. In a crisis, this is hardly likely to change, as people continue to grow a good deal of their own produce, maybe even more than they used to before the crisis as a way of safeguarding their future.

The colours of my local laiki last weekend.

A Greek laiki shopping experience is not complete without one of those clunky wire baskets with wheels. Personally, I prefer the shopper.

Unlike the more technologically advanced nations, Greece has a relatively more balanced urban/rural population, at 60/40. This means that for every 1 person living in the city, there are approximately 2 people working in the countryside, which often involves work that has to do with food production. Compare this figure to the UK's urban/rural population, which stands at 80/20 - each person living in the countryside equates with 4 living in urban areas. In Greece there are more people working with food, compared to other European countries. This factor accentuates the relationship of the Greek people with their culinary heritage. Food is seen not just as a means of survival, but a form of expression, and a regional one at that, as each Greek region produces a variety of distinct products. 

My husband is a keen gardener. 

The different food available in the rural and urban context will naturally give rise to a different kind of cuisine. An urban cook looks for inspiration from the range of products in a store, while the rural cook will look into her garden and base meals around it. An urban cook will also be able to use prepared ingredients while the rural cook may be spending more time processing a product before preparing it for a meal. A possible influence of the economic crisis may be that the finished meal cooked in either kitchen - the rural or the urban - will not necessarily reflect what is traditionally labelled as Greek cuisine: the urban cook will prepare a meal according to her pocket, which may mean cutting corners (eg my pastitsio which contained leftover makaronada mince and much more pasta), whereas the rural cook may prepare a frugal meal using a wide variety of whatever is available in the garden with a less conventional mixture (eg my spanakopites which contain a variety of horta rather than mainly spinach, or adding orange in a salad, like it was added during the war as related to me by my mother-in-law).

LIFESTYLE CHOICE
The modern world has given people the choice to live however they like wherever they like. Whether you live in the city or the countryside, you can eat the same food. Supermarkets, refrigeration and the free market have given Greek people the opportunity to eat all kinds of food that even their parents may not have dreamed of eating in their youth. These days, most Greek people, wherever they live, are within reach of pre-cooked packaged beetroot available at fresh produce stalls, ready-to-cook refrigerated pizzas and a store (usually a supermarket) that sells Chinese noodles as a standard product. Soya bean meat substitutes are readily available for vegetarians, which is quite a different concept to fasting according to Greek tradition, as is gluten-free food, an unknown concept in Greece until only relatively recently.

My Greek guests like to be surprised by my international cooking. These Chinese dumplings were made using local ingredients, flavoured with Asian sauces.

The freedom to choose what we eat allows us to diverge from tradition and eat in a way that does not reflect our cultural background. Indeed, with the rise in travel, a more conscious attitude towards healthy food (meaning less meat, less fat and less fried food), and the wider availability of products among the range generally regarded as global cuisine has paved the way towards a move away from Greek cuisine. Freedom of choice has also helped working people immensely; when there is no one to do the cooking for you, you can choose between a packet of ready-to-cook spanakorizo or a pizza in the freezer section of the supermarket; pre-cut salads with less conventional leafy greens (eg red lettuce varieties or baby spinach) are now common (and many supermarkets sell imported salads of this sort); and if you don't have the time to make a spanakopita yourself, you can buy ready ones at a range of prices to suit your pocket. The same applies to a dinner party - these days not everyone cooks a traditional Greek meal for their guests (this is mainly done in villages), while having your party catered for, or cooking something less conventional is becoming all the more common.

The economic crisis influences our choices in our freedom to choose what to prepare, cook and eat, whether we are cooking for ourselves or for others. At my own dinner parties, I often prepare Asian specialties like spring rolls using Greek ingredients. At a recent dinner party I attended in Hania, given by a newly-wed couple, we were served ready-to-cook spanakotiropitakia as an hors d'oeuvre, a baked macaroni-bacon-cheese dish for mains, served with a 'fancy' green salad (lettuce with pomegranate and balsamic vinegar). Such meals are cheap/easy to produce, but not essentially 'Greek' in nature. This style of cooking points in the direction that Greeks are tending towards: global cuisine that does not cost too much time or money.

GREEK PRODUCTS
This leads us to a pressing issue in our times: what exactly do we mean when we talk about a Greek food product? Is it a product produced on Greek soil? Can it include a finished product made in Greece with imported ingredients? What about a product with a mixture of origins and/or ingredients? There are many ways to illustrate this concept. I will use three examples: Greek meat, Greek milk and Greek yoghurt.

MEAT: Greek meat is often regarded as meaning the meat from an animal born/raised/killed in Greece. But few people will read the fine-print on the label concerning the origin of the animal. Beef sold in Cretan supermarkets, for instance, is often born in France, where it was raised up to 5 months old, then it is brought into Greece where it continues to be raised, until it is finally slaughtered in Greece. The meat from such animals is sold as Greek meat. The recent horsemeat scandal has heightened awareness against imported meat - but Greek meat is rarely purely Greek anyway and it is more expensive than imported beef.

MILK: Milk has been a contentious economic sore point for many years, since well before the crisis, when a litre of milk was being sold at about the same price as a litre of petrol. After a long campaign (well before the crisis), the average price of a litre of milk decreased. But truly cheap milk in Greece is never of Greek origin; Greek milk consistently continues to be more expensive than imported milk, selling approximately at 1.5 times a higher price. During the crisis, people tend to buy cheaper products. The cheapest milk on the Greek supermarket shelves is consistently not produced in Greece.

Somewhere in the US...

YOGHURT: Greek yoghurt is a high point of discussion all over the world. What is Greek yoghurt? Is it yoghurt made in Greece? Is it yohgurt made with Greek milk? Is it a particular kind of yoghurt? And when can a yoghurt be labelled 'Greek'? We understand that the phrase 'Greek yoghurt' basically means 'strained yoghurt'. In Greece, the most popular brand of strained yoghurt is made with a mixture of milk imported from France and Germany. Labels bearing the phrase 'Greek yoghurt' appear all over the world - they rarely write 'strained yoghurt'; the closest they come to describing what they mean by Greek yoghurt is when they write 'Greek-style yoghurt'.

THE 'GREEK FOOD' CRAZE
The subject of Greek yoghurt leads to the issue of the Greek food craze abroad. Despite the bad reputation of the Greek economy in global terms, we find that Greek cuisine enjoys a record high degree of popularity. Greek food is being recognised in Western countries in ways that it was not considered in the past. This is possibly due to the perceived health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, its high reliance on cooking with olive oil and fresh vegetables, and the taste quality of export-value Greek food products. The economic crisis has partly fuelled this foreign interest because the main export products in Greece are to do with food.

Greeks often sell Greek products packed/prepared in a way that will appeal mainly to foreign buyers, not locals. 

In the scramble for market share, suddenly Greek food is is being exported in all sorts of forms for all sorts of prices. Farmed snails, olive oil in decorative bottle designs, truffles found in Greece, mastich crystals and mastich-flavoured drinks, among others, including some of the more well known products such as wine, honey, feta and olives, coupled with the 'organic' label, are being sold at the high end of the market. Some of these products are not being targetted towards the local market, eg farmed snails and olive oil in decorative bottles; they would be considered by most Greeks as over-priced as well as easily replaced by cheaper and more readily-available products. In terms of the economic crisis, what is the degree to which these enterprises benefited from it? Did they originate in the economic crisis, or were they a natural progression of the Greek food export market? Has food marketing in Greece changed to accommodate a new kind of post-crisis food market or is this Greek food craze a purely foreign export issue? These food-based questions all provide some kind of insight into the Greek identity.

EATING IN vs DINING OUT
Going out for a meal had always been the norm for many Greeks: taverna food was considered quite cheap in the pre-crisis days. But it is now widely reported in the media that Greeks don't eat out much, and a quick glance in the local tavernas will probably confirm that. Beyond the taverna though, we see the cafes full to the brim on most warm days. It's cheaper to go out to a cafe than a taverna, which explains why people choose the latter. So going out is still important in the crisis period in Greece, but the setting has changed. And so has the expenditure. Due to the change in the setting, no doubt the food has changed too.

Souvlaki is the most popular meal out these days - young people are seen crowding round the often very limited outdoor seating areas.

One of the most popular meals out these days is the souvlaki. Souvlaki stores have opened up at very quick rates in the last year or so. Since the economic crisis gripped the country, the price of souvlaki in all forms has gone down, which shows how far the crisis has penetrated: souvlaki is the most popular Greek fast food, and it was generally viewed as the cheapest. Souvlaki is more than just a meal. It makes you feel good, the equivalent of a family 'happy meal', eaten by all age groups, making an outing to a souvlatzidiko the perfect family mid-week jaunt. Going for out a souvlaki is a psychologically uplifting experience, and it is a very democratic meal - there are various choices available, all being sold for roughly the same price.

TV COOKERY PROGRAMS
Greek television is not without its food shows and they remain very popular. We see home cooks showing us how to cook cheaply, gourmet cooks making fancy foreign desserts, modern cooks using labelled ingredients (the infamous philadelphia cheese that goes into anything and everything, from pennes with sausage to stuffed chicken), and homely cooks doing something exciting in the kitchen on the morning shows of the private free-access channels.

If a host of different cooking shows were all playing at the same time on different channels, and you had only one television and no recording facilities, which one would you watch if you felt like watching a TV food show?

* A program that shows you how to cook a well-known traditional Greek dish
* A program that shows how to cook something unusual, not common or creative, eg melitzanopita
* A program that shows how to cook within the spectrum of international cuisine, eg globally well known sweets made by a famous Greek dessert chef
* A program showcasing frugal food, eg a supermarket-sponsored food show featuring easy-to-make meals that don't cost much
* Something showing traditional Greek regional dishes, eg the kind that home cooks in rural regions make, which don't often make it into the cookbooks

Melitzanopita (eggplant pie), made by myself. 

We can watch all these shows on Greek TV. So, how 'Greek' is the food they are cooking? Is it part of the Greek cuisine spectre, or is Greek cuisine veering towards global cuisine trends, where the traditional tried and tested is being replaced by modern global food? Do people cook like this at home, or are they sticking to traditional Greek cookery? Is it cheap to cook like this, or has the crisis affected us in terms of the nationality of the food we prepare at home? Is this an urban trend, or has it also infiltrated the Greek rural kitchen? Is it a special-use cuisine, or do people aspire to cook like this on a regular basis? using a particular brand-name food product, eg mass-produced cheese spread in a pizza?

All the above options are available to Greek TV viewers, and they are popular all over the country, regardless of the landscape.

COST
Price is the most important factor for most people, as exemplified by the Greek Potato Movement, a move to cut the middleman out of the food-buying chain and get products straight from the producer. Surveys have also shown the following trends in Greek consumers:

82% seek specials
80% compare prices
77% prefer Greek products over imports
74% use a shopping list
71% buy only what they need
70% buy the cheaper alternatives
93% have limited their 'eating out'
63% buy less meat
60% buy less fish
51% buy fewer sweets
48% buy less alcohol

UNEMPLOYMENT and SOUP KITCHENS
The consequences of unemployment have led to rapid detrimental effects in the home environment. People find themselves with not enough money to buy quality food. The fact that they are unemployed does not give them the luxury of preparing the slow-cooked traditional Greek meals that they may have been raised on. People are constantly on the move in such a way that they do not necessarily spend so much time at home, even if they are not employed. Suddenly, they find themselves in a new situation, one that has often been referred to as reverting to past habits.

This meal was served in a soup kitchen in Hania. 

There is the preponderance of the home garden, which has always been an effective way to save money. Convenience food is also being sought in discount supermarkets, as a way to keep the food budget of a household down. People are always on the lookout for cheap food sources.

Foraging has always been a popular activity in Greece, but it has taken on new proportions during the crisis: there is a certain amount of 'foraging' going on which is not always legal (people may be trespassing onto fields that are not theirs to harvest procuts). For those who live in urban environments, food parcels and various handouts by non-profit organisations are commonly organised. And we have probably all been witness to the sight of people searching in rubbish bins. These people are often looking for something useful in them, which usually means something to eat. Soup kitchens are now found even in places where food insecurity was never an issue in the past, together with community grocery stores and community gardens. Solidarity against hunger is being shown in various forms all over the country.

CONCLUSION
As Greeks, we all share a common concept of what constitutes Greek food, but we are Western Europeans at heart and our food and lifestyle choices reflect this. The economic crisis has westernised us even more. Despite having less money, we all still eat - we are not starving.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal cuisine (Και φτηνό, και Ελληνικό)

Most Greeks these days buy their food according to the way their pockets are feeling: we look around for bargains, but at the same time, we look for food that represents our Greek tastes and eating style. There is a greater insistence on buying Greek products on the part of Greek consumers: some chicken wings and legs. despite the crisis in their pocket, they actively seek out Greek products. I was at LIDL the other day where I came across what looked like cheap fresh chicken. I did my sums, and realised that this chicken was slightly more expensive (only slightly) than the frozen chicken legs that I had bought from another supermarket. "The other supermarket's were probably not Greek though," another shopper said to me when we were comparing prices together. She was right - they were packaged in Belgium, which doesn't necessarily mean that the chicken was Belgian. LIDL often comes under fire for selling sub-standard food, lacking taste and quality. But it's selling Greek food, and that's really important to Greek citizens at the moment.

Last night's dinner consisted of 10 chicken wings (800g for €2.17: about €0.55 per person among the four of us), which I fried buffalo-style, each cut into two pieces, with some of my summer-preserved tomato sauce. To simplify things, the antioxidant properties of olive oil are not lost when it is heated; the antioxidant properties of tomato (carotenoids) break down, unlike in olive oil which resists, but it has been verified that they too are still not lost (from some recent research from MAICh).

LIDL also sells a lot of pre-packaged food that does not require a long cooking period. Cheap convenience food is also being sought in discount supermarkets, not just as a way to keep the food budget of a household down, but also to help people to get a meal on their plate in quick time. Many of these products do not originate from Greece, but Greek people's food choices are no longer necessarily Greek in nature; they are more likely to necessarily be cheap. The consequences of unemployment have led to rapid detrimental effects in the home environment. Unemployment does not give people the luxury of preparing the slow-cooked traditional Greek meals that they may have been raised on. People are on the move in such a way that they do not necessarily spend so much time at home in this way, even if they are not employed. Suddenly, they find themselves in new situations that are constantly changing. And if they are one of the lucky ones to be still working, they are working longer hours than before - sometimes, there is little time available to cook.

While I was shopping at LIDL, I picked up this frozen paella (€3.29). I had no time to cook a meal for the next day, so I told my 11-year-old to follow the instructions on the back of the packet, and she cooked this for lunch yesterday for the family (they said they liked it - but  at €1.10 per person, it wasn't as cheap as I normally cook, from scratch).

Despite being a foreign supermarket chain, originating in the country that many Greeks blame for the country's woes, LIDL.gr cannot be chided for its efforts to sell their Greek customers what they want: putting aside the gimmicky food (eg the festive desserts and posh-looking black sepia-flavoured pasta it is selling at the moment in the run-up to Christmas), it has a lot of Greek-flag labels on its food products. Under its own private label, it sells beans and rice grown in Greece, pasta made in Greece with Greek flour, Greek fruit and vegetables, Greek eggs, and Greek chicken. What's more, it sells all this food cheaply, the main consideration these days when people go shopping, which is obvious from the move to private label shopping in Greece in recent times, at unprecedented rates. It's a matter of finding the magic combination of cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal - and it is still possible to eat cheap 'n' Greek 'n' frugal, but you need to be well organised and well informed to take advantage of the offers available at the supermarkets, as I've mentioned before in previous posts.

Egg and potato omelette (30 eggs for €3.33 at LIDL, small potatoes for €0.38/kilo at INKA), bagged rocket for €1.19 at LIDL, some pomegranate from our tree, and for some indulgence, locally produced wine (Kudos, Dourakis) for €6.50 at INKA; our evening meal two nights ago.

Greeks eat like most Westerners these days, with a Greek twist. During the 2nd Symposium of Greek Gastronomy: Food, Memory and Identity in Greece and the Greek Diaspora, I spoke about Greek cuisine, Greek identity and the economic crisis. My conclusion was as follows:

"As Greeks, we all share a common concept of what constitutes Greek food, but we are Western Europeans at heart and our food and lifestyle choices reflect this. The economic crisis has westernised us even more. Despite having less money, we all still eat - we are not starving."

The economic crisis means our pockets are not so full of money these days, but there is still cheap locally produced food to be found in Greece, and non-Greeks know this - they like our food too.

If you would like to be in for the 100% Greek food giveaway I am organising through my blog just leave a comment on the Dakos in a jar post. 

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Nouvelle Greek cuisine (Νέα ελληνική κουζίνα)

I'm in the kitchen, cooking my frozen garden-grown fasolakia...

... when husband calls out to me: "Come and see!" So I rush into the living room to see what he's watching on TV, which happens to be an ad for a new food programme (the man's-heart-stomach thing is not just a cliche). Dr Cook does leg of lamb, roasted floury potatoes, and other very pretty looking food that reminds us of nothing to do with traditional Greek food, but something from the web pages of the slick fashionable food-based webzines.

Post by Organically Cooked.
Nevertheless, Dr Cook (Yiannis Loukakos) represents the trend that Greek cooks are moving towards - international cuisine with pretty plating. This is also the way that Greeks want to cook.

Right after the Dr Cook ad comes along another ad featuring yet another new-TV-season food programme on the same channel: I've just come from the Polis - Από την Πόλη έρχομαι (as Greeks, we all know that 'Polis' refers to Istanbul when it was still known as Constantinople), which has been filmed entirely in Turkey.

Post by Organically Cooked.
Now, this cook (Μαρία Εκμεκτσίογλου) seems to be doing things along traditional lines, piling mountains of traditional food on platters, a bit like the way I present my own food in my kitchen. Although plating is also important in 'poLItiki kouZIna', the ingredients in combination with the spices and cooking techniques are what arouse the senses. And this is also the way urban Greeks like to think we cook, using an Asia Minor granny's secret recipes.

Both these two new shows, which are to start being screened on the same weekend, give us a hint of the dilemma most Greeks are facing these days - should I stay (traditional) or should I go (global)?

On the same channel yet again, another food show has already started screening: it's called No Recipe and it features the Greek celebrity chef Dimitris Skarmoutzos, often nick-named 'the chef with the tattoos'. he's teamed up with FAGE yoghurt, which uses his recipes on their packaging.

Post by Organically Cooked.

He uses a mixture of travel and food (a bit like Ilias Mamalakis used to do) to present his own recipes using unusual Greek ingredients.

Not everyone will be able to watch these Greek food shows, as they are only being streamlined in Greece. (If you do not live in Greece or you don't have a Greek IP address, you will need the help of a hacker.) This group of Greeks will be waiting to see what their local food markets will offer them in terms of Greek products.

Click here to see what's being sold abroad as Greek food - and take part in the giveaway, if you like, of a Greek product that is being specifically targeted for the foreign market.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.

Dakos in a jar - and a giveaway (Ντάκος σε βαζάκι)

Giveaway! To be in the draw, leave a comment on this post. 

Dakos is the now famously healthy Cretan snack made of paximadi (hard barley rusks), topped with grated tomato, mizithra (Cretan soft white cheese) and olive oil. Extras include perhaps some oregano, olives and capers, but not much else. Dakos is eaten throughout the summer in Crete when there is an abundance of fresh tomatos. It has also become very well known among other Greeks, who can now buy Cretan rusks and extra virgin olive oil on the market throughout the country. Tomato is available all year round, but because the best tasting tomatos grow in the summer, Cretans don't usually make this snack in the winter. Mizithra is replaced by crumbled feta for those who don't have access to the fresh Cretan cheese, which does not enjoy a long shelf life. Mizithra is sold very fresh, but it freezes extremely well, and mainlanders have been known to cart dozens of kilos of mizithra from the island while they are on holiday to take it back home with them on the ferry boat, which of course offers refrigeration storage facilities. It's a very easy snack to prepare, and can act as a main meal.

In the market-oriented world that we are living in now, the widespread availability of fresh food to prepare your favorite meals is not enough - if we can have something frozen or bottled, so that we don't have to do any preparation whatsoever, but just defrost/open the packet/bottle, it is regarded as sometimes even more preferable than fast food. It's a fast-paced world, even in a crisis. But even in such a fast world, I was still surprised to see this new product on the supermarket shelf, the other day, as I turned to leave the deli section: sitting on a prominent position on the promotion shelf was a jar carrying the label Dako's (at a cost of €2.95 for a jar containing 300g).

Dakos in a jar?! That's a difficult one to imagine, but the label does specifically say: "Σάλτσα για παξιμάδι με ελαιόλαδο, φέτα και μυζήθρα)" (Sauce for hard rusks with olive oil, feta and mizithra). In the company's website, the product description states the contents as: "tomato concasse, feta cheese, water, mizithra cheese, extra virgin olive oil, sundried tomatoes, sugar, corn starch, oregano, citric acid, lactic acid", while serving suggestions include as a spread on rusks and bakery products, on canapes, as a pasta sauce, and a salad dressing. These methods of use are very sound, given the texture of the product, which looks rather liquid and dense.

It certainly won't give the real effect of grated tomato and mizithra cheese on rusks, but it might act as a good substitute for that very languished Greek abroad, who yearns for the taste of home. For the average Greek holidaymaker, it may also bring back memories of a holiday under the sun - Dako's may yet be the perfect substitute. These two points bring it home to us that this new product, despite being produced locally, from local/Greek ingredients of high international repute, may actually not be destined for the local market: it is probably suited to foreign tastes serving foreign interests.

There are in fact many new products now on the Greek market which often sound strange to the average Greek. Things like wild sea salt in fancy packaging, truffles preserved in olive oil, farmed cooked frozen snails, masticha capsules, seafood sausages, and olive oil in fancy bottles, among many others. Many of these products would interest the average Greek too, but they are, generally speaking, expensive products, not directly aimed towards Greek buyers. They are being produced for export to the international markets a premium prices. In  my presentation at the 2nd Symposium of Greek Gastronomy: Food, Memory and Identity in Greece and the Greek Diaspora, I spoke about the "Greek food craze" abroad:

"Despite the bad reputation of the Greek economy in global terms, we find that Greek cuisine enjoys a record high degree of popularity. Greek food is being recognised in Western countries in ways that it was not considered in the past. This is possibly due to the perceived health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, its high reliance on cooking with olive oil and fresh vegetables, and the taste quality of export-value Greek food products. The economic crisis has partly fuelled this foreign interest because the main export products in Greece are to do with food. 

"In the scramble for market share, suddenly Greek food is being exported in all sorts of forms at all sorts of prices. Farmed snails, olive oil in decorative bottle designs, truffles found in Greece, mastich crystals and mastich-flavoured drinks, among others, including some of the more well-known products such as wine, honey, feta and olives, coupled with the 'organic' label, are being sold at the high end of the market. Some of these products are not being targeted towards the local market, eg farmed snails and olive oil in decorative bottles; they would be considered by most Greeks as over-priced as well as easily replaced by cheaper and more readily-available products.

In terms of the economic crisis, what is the degree to which these enterprises benefited from it? Did they originate in the economic crisis, or were they a natural progression of the Greek food export market? Has food marketing in Greece changed to accommodate a new kind of post-crisis food market or is this Greek food craze a purely foreign export issue? These food-based questions all provide some kind of insight into the Greek identity.

I have decided not to open my jar of Dako's, as it does feel a little squeamish to me, opening a jar to make dakos in Crete. Besides, winter is setting in slowly and there will no longer be any more fresh tomatoes to grate, so our dakos-eating season will be put on hold until the warmer season returns next year (yes, dakos is a seasonal dish). But I can't leave Dako's sitting around unused in my pantry (despite the August 2015 best-before date): I have decided to gift it through a giveaway, to any very languished Greek(-o-phile) that leaves a comment on this post, who may wish to recreate a taste of Crete before their next trip. I've also added a packet of paximathi (barley rusks) with olive pieces* added to them to accompany your Dako's.

GIVEAWAY! If you are the winner (to be announced this coming Sunday), hopefully, you will get it before Christmas (did you know that Greek post offices now open on Saturday?!), and you can let me know if it worked out for you! To be in the draw, leave a comment on this post.  

* Barley rusks with olive pieces are also a novelty, but these are made by a local company, and are destined for the local market: their packaging is flimsy, monolingually Greek and lacking appeal - but they are a welcome change for the local who is looking around to spend his/her money in a different way; it's a start to new ways of thinking.

©All Rights Reserved/Organically cooked. No part of this blog may be reproduced and/or copied by any means without prior consent from Maria Verivaki.