Greek Food Research Paper

The ancient culture of the Greeks has largely influenced their cuisine. Placed along the Mediterranean Sea, Greece was able to maintain orchards full of a variety of vegetables. Some of the staple domesticated crops of Greece are grapes, olives, figs, asparagus, dill, garlic and several others. Greek cuisine was not only influenced by what they could grow but also by the animals they could raise. They mainly raised goats, lamb, and pigs. Those domesticated plants and animals helped create we know today as traditional Greek cuisine.
On Sunday, I went to a local Greek restaurant called Christakis Greek Cuisine. The meal contained three courses: an appetizer, the salad, and the entre. The appetizer consisted of pita bread served with hummus, tzatziki, and kopanisti. The salad was a traditional Greek salad. The entre consisted of a lamb chop, pastitsio, dolma, a lemon potato, rice and asparagus. Together they created an array of food, which blended together traditional Greek cuisine and other foreign flavors. …show more content…
Looking through the menu I noticed that four ingredients ruled the menu. First, was the olive, whether in salads or in the form of olive oil, it seemed to be present in almost every dish. This makes sense, since olives are a staple crop of Greece and have heavily influence their cuisine. Second was lamb, it seemed to be the most popular meat on the menu. Next were grapes, another staple crop of Greece. Grapes were used to create all the wine and the leaves were used as a wrap in a dish called Dolma. Finally was lemon, which appeared in several dishes. This surprised me since lemons were not native to Greece but were domesticated in China. Due to early globalization, lemons were brought to Europe through the Silk Road and were quickly adapted to Greek cuisine. This was only one of the non-traditional Greek ingredients that I consumed during my