All Greek cooking, as all Turkish is, should be
done very slowly over a charcoal fire. A too great use of oil is the
besetting sin of the indifferent Greek cook. The egg-plant is treated in
half-a-dozen ways by the Greeks, stuffing them with some simple forced
meat being the most common.
The food of the peasant is grain, rice, goat when he can get it, a
skinny fowl as a great delicacy, milk, and strong cheese. A bunch of
grapes and a piece of sour bread forms a feast for him.
The Grecian wines are not unpalatable but very light. They are mostly
exported to Vienna, being fortified previous to their departure to
enable them to stand the voyage, and again manipulated on their arrival,
so that their original characteristics are considerably obliterated.
Athens
My trusted _collaborateur_ A.B. went on a yachting tour in Grecian
waters last spring, having a special intention of studying Greek
restaurants. He wrote to me as to Athens, and his report was short and
to the point: "Outside the hotels there is but one cafe, Solon's,
principally used as a political rendezvous. Its attractions are of the
most meagre description." A most grave _litterateur_ to whom, as he had
been lately travelling in Greece, and as I had not been there for ten
years, I applied for supplementary information, applied the adjective
"beastly" to all Greek restaurants, and added that the one great crying
need of Greece and Athens is an American bar for the sale of cooling
drinks in the Parthenon.
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