First and foremost I have to state that I really really love how much Norwegians enjoy and appreciate greek products! Feta, olive oil, ouzo...
We do,too! :) And I can't help it, every time I find similarities I feel happy!
Now that I made myself clear on this, I can continue with some criticism.
I come across again and again to the term ''Greek salad''.
Yeah, well, only that it is NOT a greek salad!!!
Would any Greek accept a salad that contains lettuce, tomato, olives, onion, pesto and feta cheese with tzatziki on top (!!!!) as a greek salad?? Damn it, NO!
First of all, tzatziki is a salad itself! Yeah, right, a separated one! It isn't a sauce and I doubt that during the almost 30 years I lived in Greece I tasted a single combination of tzatziki and feta at the same dish! Even the idea gives me chills...
Everyone is of course free to use greek ingredients to his fancy, and it is nice to let imagination and creativity wild but by all means don't call it greek! And even more don't present it as greek in your menu!! It is quite unfortunate on how many restaurants and cafes here, you meet this distracting idea of greek salad. Especially when one can easily find ALL the ingredients that a real greek salad contains!
It's insane! It isn't either that Norwegians haven't visited Greece or tasted the real thing...
I really, seriously, honestly find no reasonable explanation why this happens!!! It's simply insane and it drives me crazy!
Let's see;
- slided tomatoes
- onion (the colour doesn't really matter) in small half-moon slices
- green paprika in rings
- feta cheese, in a shape of block 8x12 cm
- oregano or thyme
- olives
- salt, preferably sea salt (&for God sake not pepper!!)
- cucumber (of course, corrected after the kind contribution of Camillaki)
- optionally capers.
Here you go! Greek horiatiki (meaning from the village) salad 1000% acceptable of any Greek around the world!
And another thing the so called tzatziki is another painful story! No, yogurt with garlic and something green inside is not called tzatziki either but I'll stop here because I have an upper time limit in nagging and Ι'm right now approaching it!
Last but not least, you can actually find real feta here! No, I definitely don't mean appetina, but there are greek brands in some supermarkets and you can find it also in Bondens marked in Torg. Once I had an excellent chat with one of the farmers when I certified that he actually makes real feta cheese and we laughed about having a label to his stand like 'Approved by Greeks'! :D
2 comments:
No agouri??? :)))
Well the pesto was what did it for me! Isnt pesto supposed to be Italian?? (I think!)
And yes Ive seen these salads! :(
Nevertheless even with the right ingredients it wouldnt taste Greek here :(
Ps: ive seen different versions in Greece but i think its mostly made and changed to fit toyrists. Many doesnt use paprika. Some use olives some not. Some has the smallest piece of feta some have huge chunks yum! But yeah the real greek one is difficult to find...
Nice blogpost :)
Yes! yes! You're right!! Of course it has cucumber!!! I'll add it! My bad!!
Thank you for your nice words and for the very first comment too! :D
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