0:00 there's one thing that New Yorkers know really well the Yeo from Street carts to diners I ate yeos before I could even remember as a kid and queens I grew up close to the neighborhood of aoria which is one of the largest Greek neighborhoods outside of Greece and while I had the odd calamari or Greek salad in my life I didn't know the full range that Greek cuisine had to offer until now [Music]
1:03 so I decided to take a food tour through the heart of Athens to learn what Greek cuisine is all about this is Julia and Duke a motherson Duo who run the food tour's delicious Athens food has been integral to their family for Generations many people claim that Greece has the best food in the world freshness and simplicity are held in the highest regard we could even go back to ancient times when he procat this is attributed with saying let food be thy medicine and let medicine be thy food and as epicurus said we should look for someone to eat and drink with before looking for something to eat and drink in Greece food is more than just food it's what nurtures our health and
1:50 our souls let's take a journey into Greek food and how it shapes the lives of Athenians so want see that just everything to do with Athens it's about why Athens is such a vibrant City oh cool I like that figure out because not every city that's this big a population is this Lively yeah yeah yeah it's it's interesting cuz in Australia there's a lot of people who they think Athens is a bit like run down or you shouldn't stay here for a long time imagine but I love it oh yeah yeah like I think it's the opposite and I think well even just the night life cuz I went on this bar hopping to hard yeah it was so cool really grungy there's all this like cool underground stuff like it felt very beling it was very strange yeah I
2:37 didn't really realize it so we are starting with bugata it's a pie that comes from northern gree something that they have it as breakfast homemade filo a card semolina flour butter sugar and milk and some powder sugar and some cinnamon Pho dough can be found in the huge variety of Greek baked goods but why why is it so popular it was something easy for the people you don't need a lot of things to prepare the f flour water sugar even there are fows without the gift so it was easy for the people that they were hungry people that they didn't had enough to cook for their family they would get cheese if they had cheese or they would go around H their garden and they would pick up the greens that you can find in the
3:23 Greek Countryside so great coffee a coffee that we have it in the morning but during the day after a nap in the afternoon use the leftover either to water our plants or H for fortune telling add a little bit of water to the bottom of the cup and then we swirl it around and we've got designs we've got some symbols and there are people that they think that they can predict the future we are at the food market the spicy Street everything about spices everything about herbs some of the old shops in the center of aam 1910 1920 1930 lots of places is over here that they belong to the same family that they opened up since 1910 or any other year
4:10 k b or BMA aish word that means fresh meat because this is what they were doing so the Armenians came here and they gave us another method another way how to cure the meat but over here we have something that we love something that we have at all year h long dolma dolma means that something has been wrapped and stuffed so what is it fresh grape leaves stuffed with rice olive oil a lemon juice D salt and pepper so start with that one to try the [Music] meat right next door to the cured meats and cheese mongers we entered a spice
4:55 store the aroma was invigorating oregano Rosemary and thyme the smells of Grease all melding together in a single place I was fascinated to see how Athens has all of your food needs located within a few blocks circling AAS Street cheese meat spices Greek Delights olives everything you need is right here now let me explain you what is all about the Greek diet seasonality Simplicity and freshness we want to cook with what is in season we don't need many ingredients to prepare something nice and uh we want them fresh so green beans now in season we call them Barbo fasula this is how we
5:42 call them and of course in summer time we need the tomatoes fresh juicy we use these beans we cut the two edges we put them in a pot we add onion lots of grated onion lots of grated fresh tomato lot of olive oil in 35 minutes we have our lunch ready the only thing that we need a big slab of feta cheese fresh bread to deep into the sace cold wine or cold beer this is what is all about the Greek diet seasonal fresh and simple as Julia continued to teach us about the foundations of the Greek diet she mentioned how it was intimately tied with the Greek Orthodox religion as with many aspects of Greek culture but how wait we're going to taste this Olive a different way my dad's way with a
6:29 dessert at the same time Hal the beginning of the land F we cannot have anything that has to do with an animal so this is the only dessert that doesn't have anything to do with an animal no butter no milk no eggs nothing to do with blood so there is a Monday every year that starts the fastest that we have that Des Greek Orthodoxy suggests fasting throughout the year the specifics may vary but there are periods where people refrain from eating meat fish dairy products and even olive oil could this be why Greek food veers more towards plant-based than other nearby cultures there my sister yeah so we
7:16 started on restaurants but later we opened up a food block we started to keep preserve the recipes of grandmothers not to lost the recipes among the years of course yeah because I imagine when your great-grandmother came over here those recipes were starting to get lost because it's a big city lots of happening also they didn't write down their recipes they knew five 10 recipes uh by memory and that's it and she started writing down uh recipes from grandmother's and what's one of your grandmother's recipes that you remember during summer I'm always asking something that we are going to later oh nice okay not
8:02 from here not from here but a recipe that she's making my favorite and do you know why you're y stuff stuffed vegetable stuffed vegetables stuffed vegetables with rice you're going to sh oh nice addas is the owner along with his sister and his cousin and they bring everything from their Island lesos the third biggest Greek island next to the Turkish Coastline and they are known for yog YT SI milk yogurt 6.6% fat they're still putting in in The Clay Pot not polished Clay Pot in order the yogurt can breathe and be strained doctor says that we can eat it as a
8:48 Prebiotic okay so over here we've got rtin and we've got the perfect bite grilled bread a slice of tomato a piece of that grilled meat and french fried potatoes then going to a Greek House Sunday's lunch it will always be meat so the grandmother uh on Sunday's lunch she will be the one that she's going to prepare the perfect bite are you ready for the grandmother yes yes I'm coming for you it's all your this hasn't happened to me since like 2 years old so when was it that when was the last time that somebody fed you there you are there [Music]
9:34 for the final stop of this tour we went to try some of the best cooked Greek food in one of Athens oldest cafes behold the yummy sta Peppers or tomatoes that are hollowed out and then stuffed with a mixture of rice herbs and vegetables oh yeah I basically feel the yes there in the room of course Greek cuisine wouldn't be the same without feta so feta the oldest cheese because we read about feta in a book of Homer Iliad and odyssey ilad it was all about troan 10 years in tro and odyssey it was all about the king OAS King ulyses to
10:19 find his home his Island iaki he made 10 years to find his Island because he was cursed by the gods along his SHP he was stopping in some islands to see if his Island and for supplies and one of the islands was serifos the Cyclops Island cyclopes really big men just one eye in the forehead and over there polyus a cyclop and the son of the of posidon the god of the sea captured OAS and he put OAS in his cave over there OAS saw that polyus he was a shepherd of sheeps and goats and he was milking the animals this milk became cheese and this cheese was feta cheese around 7 we found out that a lot of countries have something similar and they call it feta but nothing to do with the taste we asked
11:06 them politely to change the name and they refused so we addressed the European Law Court to decide for the authenticity and for the originality of the feta something really common in Europe France did that for champagne and C Bri Italy did that for proo mozzarella parmesan so we addressed the European Law Court for feta and later for other cheese as well and products it took them 10 years years like OAS was in the Mediterranean or like the troan war after 10 years they decided that fet is Greek and nobody else can call it like this protected destination of origin meet Christine a locco of kukak a
11:53 neighborhood that borders the Acropolis it has undergone a huge transformation in the past few years years due to the influx of Tourism and short-term rentals kiala Theo and then deep City Center like monasi and all oh interesting yeah but those three neighborhoods they are touristic but not that much where they are very but not as monasi is it's very expensive this is very expensive it is an expensive area because it's City Center and a lot of tourists and a lot of airbnbs popping every corner many of those places that you see are airbnbs so which makes it tough I assume to it's very tough as a local me living here I've seen the rise of Tourism yes it was
12:41 high before the corona but after that high rocketed it's insane it's insane yeah yeah yeah it's very so um who's moving here aside from Airbnb is it also your other Europeans we have a lot of digital Nomad there oh yes notic that because in the coffee shops now there's more people with laptops Athens is been one of the countless other cities experiencing the challenges of short-term rentals and their effects on the prices of long-term rents locals in attractive neighborhoods like Uki are being priced out and with the changing demographics comes a changing neighborhood Christine took us to one of her favorite Hangouts morning bar a trendy Cafe serving up unique
13:28 twists on classic pastries along with great quality espresso sitting down for coffee and having a long chat is a Greek tradition so that's exactly what we did okay so coffee is a tradition here in Greece in general but also in Athens right a lot of coffee they were very into making great quality coffee with this uh from this area those coffee beans so it's normal for a th to just sit down and have coffee like this is this is something that almost everyone does everyone does it yes I like that this Coffee Culture because it's it's nice and lounging and you can really sit down and chat yeah wait how do the Greeks feel about chatting because very
14:15 good I would say it's normal right to just chat for a while I think it has to do with a climate the more warm a country is the easier it is for them to just go and sit out and enjoy the day and relax and spend their time doing nothing maybe so this creates an environment that it's easier to Chads I would say uh for example I in Germany I've been there many times when it's very very cold yeah they don't really want to go out and interact that much so I think it's climate thing and then what do mostly people shout about it depends between
15:01 between friends you can chat about very deep things as well yeah continuing that tradition of the ancient Greek philosophers who sat down with wine well not in that romantic way of course but I wouldn't call it philosophy right right wow this is this is literally bow house yes design of the cups and everything in in dinner I know and lunch it's normal to share plates what do people do for coffee or pastries and things like that they share as well if they want to okay I mean it it's very it comes very natural to me to say do you try and if you are disgusted or something we can cut it in half and you get the half and I'll get the half it's okay don't go for it okay so this is a zucchini sweet
15:48 bread and I'll just grab it by hand yeah exactly because we're not animals we're not animals thinking about the tour ear earlier with Julia and Duke I wonder what Christine had to say on how one defines Greek food warm foods that involve a lot of vegetables like bam I don't know it's Bri it's basically you got all the vegetables you had zucchini eggplant onion potatoes carrots tomatoes yeah you put olive oil a bit of tomato paste some oregano and salt and pepper you put it in the oven it comes out after 40 to 60 minutes amazing that's what I love about GRE I love a lot of uh olive oil for your
16:35 bread that's what I love about Greek cuisine is just like oh you take a little bit of this a little bit of that just put it there and boom you're done so I suppose this is bugata this is a deconstructed bugat yes that's cream yeah yeah yeah I hate deconstructed now we have to put it together well grab some grab grab why why I mean the whole thing in Bata is that the Fe otherwise it would it would be called cream but wow here we got eggs with pieces of bread and cheese this is what I love about the Greeks it's so easy to have a long chat about the deeper aspects of Life all while having a good time but it was time to get on exploring
17:21 and see what more this concrete jungle built on ancient ruins has to offer uh you know what but I will make a nice tour of you okay I will take you to a favorite road of mine zakar Zar so this road is a very old neighborhood and you can see some of the old hous is there as well that they are still standing so beautiful and so expensive I would kill to have a grandmother too was leaving there so she could leave me her house but I don't the interesting thing about Athenian neighborhoods is that they have this communal feeling any direction you walk you will find people chatting unique
18:08 shops that carry the personalities of their owners and all the essentials that you need for daily errands you don't need to walk more than 15 minutes for anything here in Athens and Kaki is no exception and this is my cleaner let me see if he has my sheets just one St do arids live with a with a actual Greek after exploring kukak Christine suggested that we visit a neighborhood that hasn't been changed yet by the massive rise of
18:57 Tourism [Music] ah beautiful I love [Music] it oh these are beautiful I know right my favorite neighborhood to live is upper petralona because it's more homey than kuki Anala still they have tourists but most of the tenants are people that
19:45 live there and the balconies are big we sit out at our balconies so much because as you can see the weather is pretty much sunny all the time we also put a lot of plants it's like a home outside the home to to to Vibe aside from coffee another typical way to spend time with others is MZ different plates of food that are commonly shared with a table it's another way that Greek culture feels very communal yamas yamas this Creed cheese I'm excited for this with the honey and the mint wow yeah and these are figs oh wow [Music]
20:33 M you really need to pretend I am not oh yes I still this is now the hip thing in New York City to eat Bia is fancy Jesus you pay like $25 for this those hipsters this is this is terrible if one goes on a date because by the end of the date you look like you just drank someone's blood so monkey you cannot possibly think that you will eat it without bread very refreshing very juicy that beats the Beats I've had over in New York that beats the Beats yeah yeah it
21:19 beats the Beats still wow that looks good so this is the oh this is green [Music] beans I'm so excited for these green beans right here look at that oh my God o is that healthy M oh wow that's good olive oil wow so what do you love most about Athens what's the thing that you think people really need to know about they don't know yet I think what I love about Athens it's actually what everybody knows it
22:04 has many things many cultures many people and this is what I love most about I mean it's not new that it's a very crowded City and it has a lot of people Athenians non Athenians non- Greeks Greeks it's so nice because you can see this Multicultural thing that is it's growing and it's very nice because it's it's growing healthily minus the raisins but in the neighborhoods that there are a lot of uh immigrants already from for the past 10 to 20 years they put their element to the Greek interface very nice the combination all right was I looking good
22:49 was I looking like Beyonce oh well we'll do that and [Laughter] post look like I love her Athens is more than just the neighborhoods that surround the Acropolis the metropolitan area of Athens extends from the mountains to the Sea including the ancient ports of pyus which is not only a place where hordes of tourists flock over to their fairies so they can Gallivan through the islands but it's also a burgeoning area in its own right after a short 20-minute cab ride we arrived at one of the very first urban areas planned in the grid iron then later we met with yorgos an
23:36 engineer by day and a documentary photographer by night we ventured up castella hill to catch the views of the city okay the people from parus must have strong calves yes with all the pills up there oh no look at that second just in time for sunset we're going to see amazing views okay that's the last difficult part now you could start seeing the other side of caros wow okay I'm excited so that's the view wow that is stunning we can see the entire city yes
24:22 almost yeah [Music] so that's the mountain aalo yes you could see the sun with all the smoke from the fire that's a problem here in Greece as I looked out to the vast GR concrete urban sprawl I noticed that aside from the Acropolis it's difficult to view Athens as an ancient city which
25:07 made me wonder how do Greeks today relate to their own history I think we have a problem here we depend so much in that history to me that's the irony people are very proud also it seems like people are not so knowledgeable or or deeply connected with the history yes because the problem problem here is that we depend so much in that history we think that everyone else owes us because in 2000 BC we we made something we invent democracy theater culture a lot of things and since then we've didn't do a lot of things to continue this history to continue our uh traveling time as
25:52 Greeks so we have these rocks there the Acropolis and all the other archeological sites and we say we did our part okay now pay up something like that Greece's history is not only about the Golden Age of the fifth century BC where the great philosophers produced ideas that went on to shape Western culture there was another major influence on Greece as we know it today we have the history from the ancient Greeks and we also have the history from uh the Ottoman Empire and a lot of things that happened in Greece today are based on what happened in their 400 years of the Ottoman occupation yeah
26:49 [Music] yeah you know I cannot help but feel sad to see two neighboring cultures at each other's throats the feud between Greece and Turkey feels all too real the wounds still too fresh I feel I can barely utter the name turkey in this country what happened to cause so much anger and resentment that still lingers today for nearly 400 years the Ottoman Empire occupied Greece living under occupation wasn't easy the culture of the East permeated into everyday Greek life then all that changed in 1821 when Greece fought for independence from the
27:35 Ottomans and won it was a momentous event for the Greek people but the story wasn't over yet throughout the next 100 years conflicts continued culminating into the Greco Turkish War which lasted from 1919 to 1922 and led to hundreds of thousands of Greek civilians systematically killed in Anatolia this led to a massive population exchange between the two countries up to 400,000 Muslims fled from Greece into turkey and around 1.2 million Greeks flooded the Greek mainland especially to Athens many remains of the Turkish past were erased
28:20 now it was strictly called Greek coffee and Greek Delights we still see the influence of this divisive have past all around Greece but has been purposefully forgotten and understandably so history is complicated Wars are ugly and sometimes there are moments in our past that we rather forget but despite all of the hardships Greece and its people remain strong people and the Turks we're the same I think and I believe believe as Greeks were are much closer in this anatolicum Americans Greece is neither
29:08 neither East nor West Greece is just Greece yes yeah yes um because sometimes we want to be westerners some other times we want to be but Greece is the birthplace of Western culture yes yeah but it has changed it has yes because is a minor yes because Greece geographically is in such position that a lot of people pass from here right that's a beautiful sunset so what do you think is Greece east or west or is it supposed to be more in the middle I think we are closer to East than West oh interesting but we are also Balon we are a cocktail of cultures yeah that's what I like about Greece in general it feels like very Multicultural even though it's mostly Greek that live here but the feeling
29:54 feels like Multicultural it's because they come from all parts of Greece or at least their families come from all parts of Greece yoro saai followed the tradition of the ancient philosophers who walked and talked contemplating deeply about Greek culture as we sauntered our way down to the basal Mani with boats on the marina flanked by the tall patakia which are Greek style apartment buildings usually mixed use of commercial on the ground level and residential above right here this place is a great example of how this city is [Music] vibrant do you know about the ancient art of Symposium yes of course a lot of
30:41 wine drinking and a lot of ideas sharing we still do that today in a way with coffee or with uh wine or chiuro the most interesting conversations between Greeks happen when they drink wine or chiuro or beer we a lot of things a lot of deep things a lot of times we don't know what we're talking about but we're talking all right let's do [Music] it here in Greece there is a tradition how we serve oo this uzo is from my Island in village in lesos so we shake it we heat it from the from the bottom to mix everything just smell it
31:28 you smell oh that's so fragrant I like it it smells like [Music] perfume and now we drink slowly slowly and wait for our food to accompany this there is a song yeah that say when you drink oo you became a god and B bread with some olive oil and oregano oh that looks good do we wait for the fish or usually people start eating whatever you like it's almost no rules when it comes to food right because everything shared anyway yes
32:14 yeah oh that's good that's the perfect combination that brings a lot of memories because I believe food is memory yeah and uh where wherever you try something when you try it again you'll remember the first time always always you remember the first time and CA Greek salad as well yes the typical Greek salad all right let's dig into some Greek salad oh thank you very much that's fried zucchini tast it alone and after that with some a lot of flavor bunch of flavor that's grilled sardines how does one eat them I'll show you I cut it in
33:04 half if you don't mind the small bone yeah you eat the bone as well yes in that fish yes in the small fish okay thank you we share everything so so this is Greek Tetris yes it's figuring out how the all the plates all fit together what is this right now that's gabos that's a similar fish to sardines it's a smaller and uh I suggest to eat it because it's fried to eat it like chips just be careful it's very hot how long is a typical Greek dinner oh we have a ritual when we eat
33:50 first of all where comes the salad and the starters then the main course then we eat something else then we have the dessert and fruit and after that we also end with end our day with a Greek coffee or an espresso Fredo espresso something like that so we have our steps uh when we eat that so it brings families together yes but in Athens it's such a big city in the surrounding areas yes does it bring friends and also family together yes of course of course but it don't happen too many times we try to find some occasions for example a national celebration or something else to to come all together something like [Music]
34:36 that and how about philotimo Philo is a very strange word I I don't know how to express it yeah it means friend and honor yes okay yeah for sure there's uh no other word in English to describe it or in any other language uh I'm trying to find the correct words to be to be honest I give you an example yeah ER like working extra hours because you want to to help a colleague finish his work that's philotimo you're not ignorant and say okay do your job I my
35:21 my time it's over here I go to have fun or go to rest you see your colleague that you have every day every day you you have a relationship it's a community yes Community yes something like that because I find most interesting about great culture is that America is very individualistic you you do it on your own you pull up your but straps you got to do it yourself no no but here I feel like it's people working together yes do you personally feel and then from your friends feel close to Europe or does it feel still disconnected to Western Europe we want to be like them but we aren't we try to be like them but we aren't in a lot of things we should be like them all on human rights on gender equality
36:07 inclusiveness we have to be like them for example I don't like the European culture that everyone they don't have this they are very individual they have this individualism they are not all together I don't like that I don't I don't want to be like them I don't want to celebrate like a Dutch yeah for example to uh to go and have a beer on next Friday at 5:00 because my calendar is free hear in this for example we have a lot of uh we do a lot of times when we finish work we say okay let's go grab a quick drink and then we go home and you do spontaneously there's not that much planning friends okay we say after a long hard day we say do you want to go grab a the beer and need something oh
36:53 yes of course let's go and then go home so like that we go I think in Europe they don't have that they have to plan everything yes certain places like the Dutch or the or the Danish have to plan exactly I can't live like that so in that part I don't want to be European I kind of like it because it's been so easy to interview people here and people are like yes let's do it it's very [Music] spontaneous is Athens changing do you feel like it's changing in any way or or for the better or the worse yes of course it's changing I think for the worst oh why is that because I think we invest so much in tourism and uh I Believe In the End Athens especially the city center will
37:39 be only for tourists and no and no for Greeks okay probably Greeks won't uh they won't afford to live in the city center they won't afford to go out there because everything is made for tourists of course we want people to come here and experience what we're living but okay we are here also and we and you come the tourists come for the summer but we live here all year the Dark Side of Tourism like we bring people in but they just kind of stay there is another problem culture in the city center in The Last 5 Years rented Apartments they're multiplied by 10 so that means that for me as an Athenian or one living
38:25 here in Athens I can't afford R because they're very expensive because someone pre pre pre prefer to have his apartment as an Airbnb because he will earn more but he wouldn't put it into rent for me or if he put it he'll put it for an obsurd price okay we want tourism we want people to come here but there must be some rules because we're here also right right right what's the positive side what do you think is the positive side of Athens what do you love most about the city the Multicultural side of Athens okay we have a lot of migrants and different kind of people mostly from the
39:11 Eastern parts of the world yeah but I like this uh this uh difference in culture because we have a lot of Commons for example with turs and Arabs but H I like that in Athens we have a lot of different ways to entertain ourselves all the major theaters are in Athens we have uh a lot of different ways to have fun than in smaller Villages or smaller cities here in Athens the choices are so many that I can't uh number them that's yeah that's and that's the benefit of living in a big city as well all right so what do we have here there are red mullet we call them barboni okay that's small red fish they're fried so let's
39:58 show you how wa and that's as summary as it gets yamas to that yamas as a traveler it's sometimes easy to forget that a city has contrasts it's not only about the famous landmarks or the vibrant Tas there are real challenges that locals experience every day it's not all good nor is it all bad through these conversations I feel like I've glimpsed into Athenian life but there's still more to learn food and history are but only two pieces
40:43 of a larger puzzle does architecture and the built environment also have a role to play in the lives of Athenians let's find out [Music] hey everyone Ariel here if you're feeling hungry after this episode you are not the only one Greek food is among the best cuisines in the entire world if you want to experience Greek cuisine and Greek monuments in real life you can book yourself an official urbanist trip go to tours. urbanist dolive to learn more information this is episode 2 out of six episodes of the Athens urbanist
41:28 stay tuned because next episode we're going to learn about why Athens looks so hectic and crazy in its urban planning it's a wild story stay curious my friends
