Feta and Peppers, please, hold the mayo

It's been awhile since I've made one of my Greek food posts. This is strange, as eating is one of my favorite activities.

Greece is peppered with places that sell food to go; I've already discussed pites. However, there are also a large number of places that sell sandwiches and crepes as an alternative to pites or bougatsa. Each of these lunch/snack shops has a big display of various sandwich fillings, from tomatoes, mushrooms, olives and peppers to various meats, and cheeses. You order the fillings you want, and watch them either get piled into a sandwich which may or may not be toasted, or placed on top of a frying crepe. I should explain that in Greece, the word 'toast' does not indicate toasted bread with jam and/or butter, it refers to toasted sandwiches, similar to panini. Crepes can be filled with sandwich fillings as well, or with sweet stuff like Nutella and nuts, for dessert. Just about every American I know in Greece has become completely enamored of Greek crepes. Part of the appeal is that you get to watch the crepe batter get spread out over the crepe pan with a little crepe spatula, and then watch the whole thing get flipped over and the ingredients piled on top before it's folded into a sandwich-like triangle. Working in a crepe shop looks really fun. In reality, it is probably fun for the first day or so, and then you reach the point where it's dull, and then you reach the point where you find yourself flipping crepes in your dreams, and soon you never want to flip a damn crepe again. However, since it's not my job, I think it looks fun.

Here are some of my favorite toast/sandwich/crepe ingredients:

Cheese:


Feta
This should be obvious. Feta is the Greek staple. It's everywhere; on sandwiches, crepes, in salads of all kinds, in slabs next to my cafeteria dinner, crumbled over stuffed vegetables, etc. I love the stuff. I always have had a fondness for feta, even before I came to Greece. Actually, though I am hardly a cheese connoisseur (or, for that matter, a connoisseuse) I think I am generally fond cheeses of the mediterranean region, and when I say "mediterranean region", I mean Greece and Italy. I know some people are crazy about brie, but I personally have never been able to work up much enthusiasm for it. It seems so thick, and sort of gluey when you melt it, and I don't know; I'm just not sure what all the fuss is about. Maybe I've never had good brie. In any case, though I have had some really good Gouda and cheddar, I think I prefer feta. It's nice and soft, fresh, crumbly, salty, and has a strong but not unpleasantly strong taste. I also think real parmigiana makes everything taste better, and oh-my-god there is nothing like real fresh mozzarella. But, I digress.

Manouri
I hadn't heard of this stuff before I came to Greece. In fact, I hadn't really tried it until a few weeks ago. But it's good. It's white and a littler softer and creamier than feta. It's also a little less crumbly and a little less sharp. It's really good on sandwiches with cucumbers and paprika sauce. (See below)

Salads:
I'm not referring to the quintessential Greek salad or green salad here; I'm talking about sandwich spreads or dipping sauces, which are referred to in Greek as 'salates'. Every sandwich shop has an array of salads to choose from, and there are even more available in tavernas.

Tzatziki
This is pretty much the classic Greek dipping sauce. Yogurt, garlic, cucumber, dill, and olive oil. It's creamy and delicious. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like it. Of course, tzatziki is not really so much a toast/crepe filling as it is a taverna appetizer, or a gyro topping, but I do know of several places that offer it on crepes.

Tirosalata (aka Ktipiti)
This one is new to most Americans; it's a sort of dip made of some combination of some or all of the following ingredients; smushed up feta, hot peppers, yogurt, olive oil, red peppers. Every place seems to have their own slight variation of tirosalata (which literally means "cheese salad"). However, it's almost always really damn good. In fact, pretty much everyone who has visited me thus far has developed an affinity for it. It can also be referred to as ktipiti, whichI have been told is a word that is in some way related to the Greek verb "to smush", because that's what is done to the feta.

Melitzanosalata
OK, this is really not a sandwich topping most of the time. It's made of smushed up roasted eggplants ('melitzanes'), and it's yummy. Some people also put mayonaise in it. I prefer the non-mayonaise version, as I generally find mayo to be less than appetizing. However, I have always had a particular fondness for eggplant. (Combined with similar particular fondnessess for yogurt and feta, it seems I was destined to spend time in Greece.)

Taramosalata
This is not a sandwich topping either, it's really something you eat with bread at a meal. It is a salad, however. A salad made of fish eggs. It's princess pink, the exact sort of color that a lot of little girls were wearing at Carnival. It tastes creamy and slightly, well, fishy. But not fishy in a gross, overly-ripe seafood way, just fishy enough to let you know that it's made from fish eggs. It's the only caviar I've ever tried, and I confess that the idea of eating fish eggs is a little bit strange to me. I don't know why, as I have been eating chicken eggs for a number of years now without any sort of squeamishness. In any case, it's not strange enough to keep me from eating it, just strange enough that whenever I do eat it, there's a tiny little voice in the back of my head saying "You're eating fish eggs. Those are fish eggs. FISH EGGS. FISH EGGS. FISH EGGS." This is the reason that I don't eat a lot of taramosalata, even though it tastes good.

Paprika
I discovered this stuff very recently, and I have only tried it once, but I plan to increase that number. Paprika sauce is a reddish spread, that I always assumed was made with Paprika, the spice that one uses for deviled eggs. As it turns out, it's made from ground up red peppers, tomato, mustard, and spices. Also listed under the ingredients on my package of it is "sauce". The Greeks seem to use the word "sauce" to refer only to some of the things that I would consider sauces; a Greek friend tells me that in Greek, something is a 'sauce' only if it includes tomato or cream. So basically, I really don't know what the word 'sauce' refers to on a list of ingredients, and I hope it doesn't refer to mayo or more fish eggs, but it doesn't really matter because the paprika salad is really yummy.

Rossiki, or Russian Salad
I've got to be honest. I don't really like this stuff. It's boiled vegetables (carrots, potatoes, peas) in mayonaise, and maybe yogurt. It's too much mayo for me, personally. I only like mayo in very small amounts. However, a lot of people really like Russian salad, and there are a lot of other, similar mayo based salads that I am unfamiliar with. I think there's one called Hungarian salad, and some others that I don't know the names of. They include things like ham, mushrooms, vegetables, and I don't know what else. If you're interested, you'll have to find a mayo lover to explain all this to you.

My final word on the subject is, sauces and salads are important. I know this, personally, as I have taken to bringing my own salad dressing to the cafeteria (the same old oil and vinegar gets dull after a while) and slathering my own paprika salad on the cafeteria sandwiches. This has improved the happiness of my taste buds by approximately 47%.
I was going to take a picture of some Greek foods for you, but my camera was unfortunately knocked off of my dresser last night by my cat, and now it's being dysfunctional. Anyone know a good camera repair shop in Thessaloniki?