Greek cuisine

[2] It uses vegetables, olive oil, grains, fish, and meat, including pork, poultry, veal and beef, lamb, rabbit, and goat.

It continues traditions from Ancient Greek and Byzantine cuisine,[8] while incorporating Asian, Turkish, Balkan, and Italian influences.

[13] Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality and was founded on the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, olive oil, and wine, with meat being rarely eaten and fish being more common.

[14] This trend in Greek diet continued in Cyprus and changed only fairly recently when technological progress has made meat more available.

A notorious staple of the Spartan diet was melas zomos (black soup), made by boiling the pigs' legs, blood of pigs, olive oil, bay leaf, chopped onion, salt, water, and vinegar as an emulsifier to keep the blood from coagulation during the cooking process.

Culinary advice was influenced by the theory of humors, first put forth by the ancient Greek doctor Claudius Aelius Galenus.

Many Greek recipes, especially in the northern parts of the country,[20][21][22] use "sweet" spices in combination with meat, for example cinnamon, allspice and cloves in stews.

[38] Many dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece: lentil soup, fasolada (though the modern version is made with white beans and tomatoes, both New World plants), tiganites, retsina (white or rosé wine flavored with pine resin) and pasteli (baked sesame-honey bar); some to the Hellenistic and Roman periods: loukaniko (dried pork sausage); and Byzantium: feta cheese, avgotaraho (cured fish roe), moustalevria and paximadi (traditional hard bread baked from wheat, barley and rye).

[39] There are also many ancient and Byzantine dishes which are no longer consumed: porridge (chilós in Greek) as the main staple, fish sauce (garos), and salt water mixed into wine.

[40][41][42] Some dishes are borrowed from Italian and adapted to Greek tastes: pastitsio (pasticcio), pastitsada (pasticciata), stifado (stufato), salami, macaronia, mandolato, and more.

Typical home-cooked meals include seasonal vegetables stewed with olive oil,[66] herbs, and tomato sauce known as lathera.

[73] A typical Greek-style breakfast,[55][74][75][76] and brunch,[77][78][79][80] consists of Greek coffee, frappé coffee, mountain tea, hot milk, fruit juice, rusks, bread, butter, honey, jam,[81] fresh fruits, koulouri (sesame bread ring, a type of simit), Greek strained yogurt,[82] bougatsa, tiropita, spanakopita, boiled eggs,[83][84][85][86][87] fried eggs,[88][89] omelette,[90][91] strapatsada, piroski, croissant,[92] tsoureki.