Food of Europe: Of Cucumbers, Smelt and Miracles

I have had a love-hate relationship with cucumbers for as long as I can remember: I loved to hate them. I have often joked that I can’t stand to be in the same room with a cucumber. Ha Ha. Ha. 

My antipathy probably dates to when I got married. This vegetable had never been served on a plate before me - to my recollection - until I got married. (I am pretty sure that this fact is attributable to my father who no doubt despised them. He had a somewhat limited palate. Even though he was raised on a fruit farm, he never ate cherry pie (!) until he was in the army.) My former wife loves English cucumbers. They were introduced to my environment and, truth be told, I somehow felt inferior because I didn't like them. My antipathy only deepened.

But on our first night in Greece, a miracle happened: I ate cucumbers (!) ... in a Greek salad. (My children will appreciate the significance of this event.) And they weren’t bad. The miracle occurred just down the street from our hotel (see picture below). We headed out that evening for something to eat after having cocktails in our room. We asked the front desk clerk if he could recommend a place that was close by, somewhere where we could get a salad.

He sent us to a small taverna half a block away. Between the hotel and the taverna, however, was another small restaurant on the other side of the street. A man whom we assumed to be the proprietor tried to get us to eat at his place, but we went with the desk clerk’s recommendation. We would later learn how displeased the man was with our decision.

Meanwhile, we arrived at the other place and sat down at a small table on the sidewalk. As far as I recall, we were the only customers there; but perhaps it was early by Athenian standards. 

There were no English menus. In fact, there were no menus. Mark told the man we wanted a Greek salad. He nodded in recognition, but waited while we told him what else we wanted. Seeing no response forthcoming, he took the initiative and started questioning. “Fish? Meat?” Somehow or other, Mark communicated that we’d like fish. As the man walked away into the bowels of the restaurant, I asked Mark what kind of fish we were getting. His response: “I don’t know.”

Mark went down the following morning and took this picture of our taverna and its proprietor (standing).

Shortly, we were presented with a standard Greek salad: tomatoes, red onions, feta cheese and … cucumbers. The miracle likely would not have happened had I not had a stiff cocktail beforehand. I started eating and said, “What the hell,” and bit into a cucumber. I waited for the retching to start, but it didn’t. In fact, the cucumber didn’t taste too bad. I had another piece. No bile rising. Hmmm. I felt a small stirring of victory and pride in myself for having ventured where I had never ventured before.

Then the fish arrived. Sardines. Or at least that's what I thought at the time. I learned later that they were smelt, or marithes (in Greek). Breaded and fried. It was time for the second miracle.

I don’t believe I had ever eaten a sardine before. (This is what was going on in my head at the time, but I would have felt the same way about smelt.) In fact, I’m positive I had not – unless it was camouflaged in something else. I’m also positive I could not have eaten those fishies had I been cold sober. As it was, I plunged in with gusto, and I loved them! I commented to Mark at one point that eating them was kind of like eating French fries. As I look at the picture now, I wonder whether I could do it sober. That will be my next challenge.

Two nights later, we were getting ready to leave the Greek island of Santorini at dusk. I’ll leave a description of our experience on that island to a later post. For now, I want to continue with the theme of food. There were lots and lots of restaurants up on the plateau of Santorini, but our cruise coordinator, Nadia, recommended a simple tavern down on the pier below, close by where we would catch the tender boat back to our ship. 

The food was amazing. I had chicken souvlaki – which was delicious - but what I couldn’t get enough of was the Tzatziki that was served with dinner. The concoction of yogurt, garlic, cucumbers and olive oil was so good that I asked for more. This, too, was a miracle because I had always turned down tzatzikii at the Salt Lake Greek Festival when ordering gyros. (What was I thinking!)

Mark took a picture of the grill out back

Nadia, our cruise director, and I discussing Greek food

What a revelation. I guess it took coming to Greece for me to learn to like cucumbers, sardines and Tzatziki.

A Mini-Greek Festival; A Man's Man

I love going to the Greek Festival in Salt Lake, held every year in early September at Holy Trinity Cathedral downtown. I love the main courses, I LOVE the desserts, I love the singing and dancing, and I love the atmosphere generally. Opa!!

We weren't able to make it to the festival last year, nor will we make it this year; but as luck would have it, we were invited to dinner Sunday night at the home of some neighbors down the street, and it turned out to be a sort of private Greek festival. Our host Bill is of Greek descent and his wife Sharon - a fabulous cook - is of Lebanese descent. Another neighbor had been invited as well as a couple, Nick (there had to be a Nick at a Greek dinner) and Cathy, about our age whose grandparents had all immigrated from Greece.

The food was ... amazing. Nick had made some battered fried zucchini with home-made tzatziki (made from strained yogurt - usually from sheep or goat milk - mixed with cucumbers, garlic, salt, olive oil, and sometimes lemon juice, and dill or mint or parsley). In the past, I had always declined to have tzatziki because it has cucumber in it, and for most of my life - at least as long as I can remember - I have had a hate/hate relationship with cucumbers. Nick's stuff, however, was delicious; I frankly couldn't even taste the cucumber. I'm sure each dollop had at least 300 calories in it.

Sharon had also made hummus, a feta cheese dish and shrimp cocktail (not Greek, but delicious nonetheless). Entrees included Dolmathes (stuffed grapevine leaves), Fasolakia (green beans in tomato sauce), Spanakopita (spinach pie), cheese-stuffed puff-pastry triangles, Pilafi (rice) and - the piece de resistance - Pastitsio, a baked pasta dish with a filling of ground meat and a béchamel sauce top. 

There was no dancing or singing to go along with the meal, but there was plenty of good conversation. It was interesting to listen to the "Greeks" talk about their parents coming from Greece to work in the mines here in Utah and to farm. Cathy spoke of her great-grandfather who had been killed in a mining accident in Wyoming. His widow and two small children had then moved back to Greece and, years later, had come back to the States.

Cathy also spoke of visiting her grandparents' native village in Greece and of meeting relatives there who had told her that, back in the day, when the men working in Utah had sent money home to Greece to support their families, these funds typically were enough to not only support their families but also the entire village. Families shared resources and all benefitted. 

It was also interesting to talk to Bill, Sharon, Nick, Cathy and Peeches (the lone Catholic at dinner) what it had been like to grow up non-Mormon in Salt Lake City. Like many others before them, they spoke of being excluded, of other kids' parents not allowing them to play with their children, of being welcomed into local LDS teens' circles - but only as ringers for their sports teams, etc. It is different now, they said, but they remember.

Now, on another note, I wrote the other day of projected homophobia on the soccer field. In response to this post, I received the following email from, Phyllis, a friend of ours who lives in Denver and who has known Mark from his residency days there. It meant so much to me that I wanted to share it here:

"I'm so sorry about your dip into sadness at the soccer game; I remind you that probably none of the other parents at the game had been called Monster Legs in the previous week (or ridden 175 miles on their bikes either.)  Maybe I should cross stitch a sampler with Monster Legs on it to remind you. I know quite well myself how the old stuff can crop up just any old time and skew one's outlook, though.   Stand back and look at yourself and maybe think about how some of those "man's man" dads at the soccer game would be handling all the things that are on your plate ... And another thing occurred to me just this second:  my father was kind of a man's man....very athletic in a natural way, well dressed, wonderfully articulate, very smart, very funny, also very critical, very aloof, emotionally unavailable, not necessarily something to be envious of Mr. Broom."

I told her that I'd pay good money to have a cross-stitch that says "Monster Legs."