Akira: A Touch of Spice

Greek food is surprisingly simple. The flavors are reduced to the simplest elements and accentuated with just a pinch of one or two spices. Unlike American cuisine, which is salted and spiced until the taste of the base produce is nigh indistinguishable, Greek food uses one or two spices and relies on the cooking style to truly explore a dish's flavor.

This has turned up both beautiful and disgusting results. For instance, at a restaurant near the Acropolis, I was served a chicken salad which amounted to nothing more than unseasoned chicken tossed in at least a cup of mayonnaise and celery and peppers. It was all just sort of jumbled together without spice, mucky and mushy and unpleasant in texture and taste. I despise 3 out of 4 of those things so the dinner was a bust. But, the restaurant was not a total failure as the pasta with red sauce I tasted off another's plate was warm, robust, and flavored with the rich, salty fat from the beef in the sauce.

I frequently visit a little bakery down the road from my apartment and have only been disappointed once--and that may have been my own fault as I waited to long too eat it. The sweets are my sort of delicacies: light on sugar and glaze, thick with fruit or large globs of hazelnut-flavored chocolate. I adore all I bread I have come across in Athens. It lacks the incredible amounts of sugar characteristic of American bread--I'm realizing more and more how much sugar is in American food. The bread here is dense with low, subtle flavors. It's less yeasty and sweet and I love it.

My favorite bread, thus far, has been at Corfu, in an up-scale restaurant we visited after a tiring day. The crust was pliable, it gave to the teeth but took a good tearing when using one's fingers. Again, it was dense, the little pours close together and spongy. It absorbed olive oil like a vacuum and held it without dripping. The main course--a meatball soup with lemon sauce--was much too heavy with lemon juice, making the dish acidic and difficult to stomach. The rooster was a bit tough, like turkey cooked one minute too long, though the veal was tender and dripping in a savory mushroom-wine sauce. Both were lightly spiced, with the flavor-focus instead on the meat and how it responds to various methods of cooking.