Eat Crete
We managed a family holiday to Crete this year, our first time in Greece. It was relaxed friendly and hot! Apart from lapping up the culture at Knossoss and admiring Minoan artefacts at the Hiraklion museum, we swam, chilled and thoroughly enjoyed the food.
It still amazes to discover the abundance of fresh produce after our iffy British summer. To see oranges, lemons, limes, tomatoes and grapes all coming into fruit in the fields or gardens as well of course as the olive trees (we visited one which is nearly 3,000 years old) – one can understand how Elizabeth David was inspired after visiting the Mediterranean.
We stayed at Hotel Thelassi just east of Rethymnon, clean and spacious with an excellent taverna where we could eat our evening meal watching the sun set over the Meditteranean. The food was generous and to a high standard for three star half board. It was a treat to have a plate of tomatoes dribbled over with olive oil, a boiled egg and a little cheese and ham, a couple of olives with a mug of mellow coffee. Followed by, of course, by a bowl of Greek yoghurt and honey which was really delicious. (We passed an official Fage distribution depot while touring the island and it’s available in large family tubs in supermarkets – there were also adverts for a strawberry fruit corner version, yum). The honey was very golden, drippy, mellow-sweet and the perfect accompaniment for the yoghurt at breakfast time.
The evening meals were soups (tomato and the asparagus were our favourites) a range of local classics like beef stafado followed by light patisserie or ice cream and watermelon offered as pudding.
The Feta cheese was also looked great – also available in large sizes at the supermarket, along with catering style tins of olive oil. Other local produce in abundance right now was watermelon, plentiful and cheap, tasty and a good way to keep hydrated. We sampled a couple of really delicious fresh juices too, melon juice and orange juice which was squeezed from oranges plucked from the taverna owner’s garden moments before.
The taverna food was wonderful. On our run to the south coast the Preveli Taverna attracted us because a separate outhouse in the front garden housed the woodfire grill were succulent lamb was being slow cooked. The pork soudakis (kebabs) we ate there were delicious.
We also visited the restaurant attached to the botanical gardens of Crete, which involved a run out into the mountains and a climb up some hairpin bends. The view was well worth it! There was wonderful local fauna - crickets bees butterflies and lizards - to spot from the balcony and the specialist vegetarian food was tasty, although the highlight was a selection of fresh fruits picked from the gardens that day. This included plums, oranges, an unusual small fruit which tasted a little like a lychee and wonderful fresh figs. The skins of the figs were unexpectedly crisp, the flesh sweet and dark pink, and they tasted light and fragrant - so exotic for us British, used to the squishy slightly disappointing version of a fresh fig we get at home.
The fresh fish on offer also looked splendid, calamari and red mullet and plaice, plus sea bass all arranged on crushed ice at a local fishmongers – no wonder Crete can claim to have one of the healthiest diets in the world!
Hoping to continue with some of the good eating now we are home…
It still amazes to discover the abundance of fresh produce after our iffy British summer. To see oranges, lemons, limes, tomatoes and grapes all coming into fruit in the fields or gardens as well of course as the olive trees (we visited one which is nearly 3,000 years old) – one can understand how Elizabeth David was inspired after visiting the Mediterranean.
We stayed at Hotel Thelassi just east of Rethymnon, clean and spacious with an excellent taverna where we could eat our evening meal watching the sun set over the Meditteranean. The food was generous and to a high standard for three star half board. It was a treat to have a plate of tomatoes dribbled over with olive oil, a boiled egg and a little cheese and ham, a couple of olives with a mug of mellow coffee. Followed by, of course, by a bowl of Greek yoghurt and honey which was really delicious. (We passed an official Fage distribution depot while touring the island and it’s available in large family tubs in supermarkets – there were also adverts for a strawberry fruit corner version, yum). The honey was very golden, drippy, mellow-sweet and the perfect accompaniment for the yoghurt at breakfast time.
The evening meals were soups (tomato and the asparagus were our favourites) a range of local classics like beef stafado followed by light patisserie or ice cream and watermelon offered as pudding.
The Feta cheese was also looked great – also available in large sizes at the supermarket, along with catering style tins of olive oil. Other local produce in abundance right now was watermelon, plentiful and cheap, tasty and a good way to keep hydrated. We sampled a couple of really delicious fresh juices too, melon juice and orange juice which was squeezed from oranges plucked from the taverna owner’s garden moments before.
The taverna food was wonderful. On our run to the south coast the Preveli Taverna attracted us because a separate outhouse in the front garden housed the woodfire grill were succulent lamb was being slow cooked. The pork soudakis (kebabs) we ate there were delicious.
We also visited the restaurant attached to the botanical gardens of Crete, which involved a run out into the mountains and a climb up some hairpin bends. The view was well worth it! There was wonderful local fauna - crickets bees butterflies and lizards - to spot from the balcony and the specialist vegetarian food was tasty, although the highlight was a selection of fresh fruits picked from the gardens that day. This included plums, oranges, an unusual small fruit which tasted a little like a lychee and wonderful fresh figs. The skins of the figs were unexpectedly crisp, the flesh sweet and dark pink, and they tasted light and fragrant - so exotic for us British, used to the squishy slightly disappointing version of a fresh fig we get at home.
The fresh fish on offer also looked splendid, calamari and red mullet and plaice, plus sea bass all arranged on crushed ice at a local fishmongers – no wonder Crete can claim to have one of the healthiest diets in the world!
Hoping to continue with some of the good eating now we are home…
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