It's All Greek

Opa! It's Greek Festival time of year again and we went to the one in Bridgeport/Fairfield. Rain threatened so we went early, before most of the festivities began, but the food was there.

And, as a new vegetarian, I was sorely tempted (the first time, really). The chicken souvlaki looked and smelled so good. As did the moussaka (baked eggplant in bechamel with meat sauce) and the pastisio (baked noodles with bechamel and meat sauce). Mmmmmmm. I don't eat lamb, ever, so that wasn't a problem. But the others are some of my favorite foods. I had a noodle off the top of the pastisio, some bechamel from the moussaka, and the rice under the chicken. Splitting hairs? Disloyal? Whatever. Mainly, I inhaled my tiropita and spanikopita (spanakopita? spanokopita? choose your favorite spelling), which were excellent, plus feta and dolmades (stuffed grape leaves). Sis liked the crunchy phyllo off the top, Buddy liked the pastisio noodles and the tomatoes from the salad. Mama ate all of it, plus taramsolata, the caviar spread.

And then came the desserts. Of course, baklava and kataifi (which is like baklava with shredded wheat instead of phyllo), the cookies kourambiedes (butter) and finikia (walnut), diples (like a sopapilla), and my all-time favorite galatoboureko, a phyllo custard cake. Thank goodness the kiddos can have honey! Though, we didn't let them have any nuts. So we tried something new--a yellow cake flavored with orange, which they had labeled as karidopita (traditional walnut cake) but which I think was ravani (semolina cake with orange).

I have been going to Greek festivals off and on since I was a tween, though we weren't called that then. The one where I lived was huge and, as usual, the main focus was food. I don't remember what I ate then, probably chicken. Definitely dessert. When there wasn't a festival, we would go to a restaurant--for one birthday, my folks took me to the main one in the city and there was even some dancing (or at least I remember dancing). But no plate breaking. In college, my Greek class and I--I took ancient Greek for 8 semesters--would often go to the local restaurant for dolmades and the like.

Why the fascination with Greece? Chalk it up to too much mythology at a very young age. I'll credit Edith Hamilton and D'Aulaire with three things: a rejection of Christianity (because if people said the Greek gods weren't real, who was to say that the Christian God wasn't real? I was a precocious kid, building temples to Neptune at my parents' bay house to the shock of my aunts); a fascination with all things Greek, which eventually included two visits there; and a B.A. in Classical Studies. Everytime I go to a festival, I want to go back to Greece, to brush up my translation skills, but mainly to eat Greek food more often.

We did tour the agora with its Greek pride crafts and shirts, looked at the cultural display, bought some semolina and taramsolata. I almost bought more sweet cherry spoon fruit, but remember that I hadn't finished the jar from last year. Not that I will, just that I wouldn't.

Spoon fruit. I had read about this hospitable custom as a child--the presentation to a guest of a spoon of candied fruit in a glass of water. First you eat the fruit, then you drink the water. At home, we just gave guests something to drink, at my house now it's usually iced tea. And so, when I first went to Greece in 1989, and visited my friend Martha Bitsopoulou (whose name I include here in case she ever googles herself--we lost touch a long time ago and I can't find her or her sister Vicki)--I was thrilled to be the recipient of this custom.

Maybe I should have bought a new jar after all.