Traditional products GREECE (Country) EUROPE - GTP

Traditional foods, sweets, herbs and decoctions

TILOS (Island) DODEKANISSOS
  Foods: Stuffed goat baked in the oven, giaprakia (a type of dolma), tomato sauce goat stews, koulourida (a home made pasta), lasagne, (made from the koulourida pasta sheets cut into squares and rolled by hand), Greek salad with brine preserved caper leaves, oven baked pork with wheat, mezithra cheese, Tilian cheese (a type of hard feta cheese), cheese triangles, mezithra triangles, kabroumas pork (onion fried pork meat), hondros (cracked wheat fried in water or milk), pan fried vegetable pies etc.
  Sweets: Loukoumades, xerotigana, diples, melekouni, pouggakia (pastry filled with almonds and sesame seeds), seven kneaded koulouria and pies amongst others.
  Infusions- Herbs: Sage, sapsiho (marjoram), thyme (used in baked meats), oregano (used in oven baked meats and in sauces), rosemary, savory (used in baked fish dishes and in salads), mallow (boiled and used to cure constipation), “Pigeons beauty” (Italians say it is the dynamite that breaks the stones in the kidneys), aoustros-polykombos (helps prostate problems).
(Text: Manolis Makris)
This text (extract) is cited February 2004 from the Dodekanissos Union of Municipalities & Communities pamphlet.

The Cretan folk tradition

CHANIA (Town) CRETE
The Cretan folk tradition which is marked mainly in weaves, "tsevredes", carpets, blankets etc. and expresses the feel of beauty and artistic mood of the people of Chania. Simple village women, but also organized associations, produce weaves from silk or wool. Handicrafts from glass, wood and metal, along with pottery, woodwork and metalwork workshops. Particular is also the art of producing boots "stivania" at Skridlof road in Chania where the smell of processed leather is dominant. Also Cretan knifes are characteristic with the witty four-lined poems.

This text is cited Sep 2002 from the Municipality of Chania URL below, which contains images.

http://www.chania.gr/eldocs/genika.html#2

TYCHERO (Small town) SOUFLI
(Following URL information in Greek only)

http://tychero.evros.gr/TOURISTIKOS/paradosh.htm

Sweets of the Spoon

CHIOS (Island) NORTH AEGEAN
An old story...
  From ancient times, Chios was well known for the excellent quality of its products, especially for its abundance and variety of seasonal fruits. Grapes and figs constituted the base of this variety which was gradually enriched by almonds, pistachios, walnuts, apples, quince, sour cherries and cherries, as well as citrus fruits, in other words, bitter oranges, famous chian tangerines, oranges and bergamots.
  In order to extend the consumption of these seasonal fruits as long as possible, many preservation methods were applied. The safest and simplest method turned out to be the boiling and the preservation of the fruits in some kind of syrup. The creation of various recipes depends on the herbs, the spices or other flavoring substances added in the boiling water. When refined sugar came into play, the use of the ancient Mediterranean sweetening substances, such as honey, molasses, carob honey, etc, gradually declined.
  The traditional spoon sweet recipes were primarily used in the production of homemade sweets of the spoon. However, as time passed, these traditional recipes formed the base of the production of spoon sweets by large and well organized manufacturers.
The Chian Sweet of the Spoon
  The spoon sweet played a central part in social life, since there was some kind of semiotics that associated the different facts of life with the color and the kind of sweets offered in each occasion. Therefore, people served white sweets at marriage announcements, colored sweets in celebrations, dark-colored sweets in mourning and so on.
The Mastic Sweet
  On its way from the East, sugar brought with it its secrets. The Persian and Arabic recipes were combined with ours to create a delightful tasty result.
  The Chios mastic, an exclusive product of the island, combined with sugar, gave birth to the spoon sweet - mastic, also known as hyporvrychio, a different and more intensely flavored form of vanilla. Since the last century, this kind of mastic has been spread in the Greek Diaspora gentry’s estates and mainly in Constantinople as the welcome sweet by the name of the "White Sweet". It is still the official treat in the Patriarchate today.

This text is cited May 2004 from the Promoting Tourism Prefectural Committee of Chios URL below, which contains images.

Chios Prefecture Tourism Committee web page