Crete: A holiday for the tastebuds

In amongst the sights and sounds of Crete, were some smells and tastes. Our first taste of Cretan cuisine was on arrival at the hotel, where we were greeted by classic Cretan hospitality. We were ushered to a seat and brought some hard bread, cheese and honey to be washed down by raki with honey - the Cretans like their honey! The cheese resembled Spanish Manchego, although with its own subtleties and we were told to eat it with the honey; it was strange in theory but worked surprisingly well in practice. Raki is a traditional spirit in Crete, made from the parts of grapes left over after wine making (pomace). During the course of our holiday, we had raki chilled, with honey and warmed. The wine of Crete was also interesting as it seemed most restaurants served a home brew for about €5 or €6 for 500ml, which varied in taste and was made of grape varieties I'd never heard of. In the supermarket the price dropped even lower to €2,60 for a decent 1.5 litres of wine!

A solid favourite of my boyfriend was the classic Greek salad. Whilst the basic ingredients stayed the same, olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, feta and oregano, each restaurant had their own take on the dish; some included onions, some included green peppers and others added lettuce. A common factor was to top the salad with a large block of feta, for the customer to crumble in themselves, rather than being cut into chunks as it often is here.



As expected, a range of dips and  olives was always on the menu and was often brought out with bread at the start of the meal. Some dips were recognisable, such as tatziki and taramasalata, whereas other combinations of garlic, cheese and vegetable dips were, well, a lucky dip!

There seemed to be two classic ways of cooking meat in Crete. The first was to grill it as a kebab, known as souvlaki. Whilst we were skeptical at first of the idea that kebab and chips could be a traditional dish, but the simple flavours were done so well it became delicious. This seemed to be the key to Cretan cuisine; simple food, done well. The other way of cooking meat, was to slow cook it in stock, wine and herbs. We had this with goat in Chania and it resulted in a truly melt in the mouth texture, although the flavour was left to the goat, rather than the herbs.


Breakfast was a whole new situation. Our hotel provided freshly squeezed juice and homemade lemonade every morning. Our enthusiastic caterer introduced us to traditional Cretan breakfast items, including rusks topped with chopped or sun dried tomatoes, feta and capers (Dakos). We were also offered little Cretan pastries, much like empanadas, filled with spinach or cheese (often referred to in English as 'green' or 'cheese' pies), sweet pies filled with mild cheese (Kalitsounia), Cretan yogurt, with honey of course, and a range of sweets and biscuits. Each day there was also a cake, ranging from semolina cake to lemon meringue pie, although I'm fairly certain these aren't traditional breakfast foods.

Most restaurants were very generous with their portion sizes and full of hospitality. At the end of almost every meal we were presented with raki and a sweet, including a delicious cinnamon bread and butter pudding, pastries, fruit and at one place, a salty yogurt covered in a sweet coulis - not my favourite dish! Nevertheless the food was so good I came home weighing a few pounds more than when I left.