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Tastes and smells of Cyprus |
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Written by Administrator
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Saturday, 26 December 2009 |
Thirty dishes in one evening, this delicious drinks and captivating aromas in the air. Alekos, our Cyprus travel companion, a botanist. What's under their noses Mediterranean bouquet, the freshness of this spread into prime factors. - It's rosemary - a twig breaks off a long thin with purple flowers.
This sage - rubs in the hands of leaf covered with bright Meszki. - It's hibiscus - shows red flowers on dense shrubs. The air also carries the sweet smell of citrus: the early spring of Cyprus drowns in oranges, lemons, and grapefruit. Fragrant groves are everywhere: the hills, ravines, on the seashore. In one of them plunged into the coast near the fishing village of Polis. It is mid-February and just last harvest. For every box of fruit tree - it smells in the nose turns up. High shrubs Refrigerant hoses (junction with mandarin orange) appear as green spheres densely covered with fruit. When I pass by, a tree bursts out laughing. Next do the same. Open list - in the middle of the girl in and headscarf.
- Hello - emerges delighted that she managed to scare me. Her neighbor, too. Incur me inside the green ball that I saw how much was the fruit. It is said that Cypriots build houses if they were to live forever and eat if they were to die tomorrow. This first became apparent especially after the accession of Cyprus to the European Union in 2004, the island looks like places like a vast construction site, which are alien to urban development plans and projects, land use planning. Any places where he and comfortable as he pleases. And the second - just go to any pub! Island cuisine is rich and exotic, a lot of influence in the Turkish and Arabic. Without them, the Cypriot table there is indeed no such tahina - beaten sesame paste with garlic, olive oil, salt and lemon - or classic hummus, tahina or kneaded with peas, or mouth-watering dishes with mutton or lamb, smoked beef - lountza. Dips are typically Greek - pink taramasalata (fish paste) and yoghurt tzatziki and fresh seafood dishes (fish themselves do not eat here so much).
On the table during a meal can enter several (indeed, apparently even to thirty!) Dishes. Actually do not know when the end mezze (starters), and begins a main course. The mezze be careful not to overeat in the middle of the feast. Combinations is a lot. First Mandatory olives, taramasalata, tahina, tzatziki and hummus. To them, delicious Greek salad with feta cheese and olive oil and halloumi, a salty grilled goat's cheese, the local specialty. Then - Various różności. Grilled bacon and meat balls, vegetables and lamb chops or lountza ... To this day I remember fish mezze in a family tavern in Paphos. It began innocently of tiny fish. Behind them entered the table slices octopus in red wine, whole crabs, big prawns, squid with on gold stalks with bouquets, blue and gold squid ... The two most famous wines in Cyprus is Commandaria and Zivania. The first is celebrated here as the port of Porto, and even the taste is similar. This 16-percent sweet "ambrosia", the recipe comes from the knights of the Knights Hospitaller arrived on the island in the twelfth century the name from them: for a time in a castle near Limassol Kolossi had established himself Grand Master - Comandor. Cypriots know that the liquor must be careful. On the island of love almost everyone will tell you the legend of King Richard the Lionheart, passing this way on a crusade, he married the princess of the castle in Limassol Berengaria. Wedding feast was lavishly Commandaria and the king failed in its obligations wedding night.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 04 February 2010 )
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