Greece: Gyro and Grit

 

Greece: Gyro and Grit

Greece is a land of tall mountains, villages clinging to rocky cliffs, and where the waters of the Aegean glitter against stones older than empire. It is a country shaped by philosophers and fishermen, by islanders who outsailed conquerors, and by revolutionaries who refused to bow to sultans, juntas, or austerity technocrats. Though Western imagination loves to freeze Greece in marble, with stories weaved like the fates of columns, gods, and philosophers, its modern story is something far rougher, hungrier, and more human. It is a tale of peasants striking against landlords, tobacco workers walking off the factory floor, students tearing down dictatorships, and pensioners hurling stones in Syntagma Square.

For two centuries, Greece has lurched between liberation and repression, monarchy and republic, foreign occupation and internal fracture. In 1821, peasants, priests, and sailors launched the Greek War of Independence, igniting one of the first successful national revolutions of the modern age. But freedom did not bring peace. The 19th and early 20th centuries saw violent land struggles in Thessaly, urban worker uprisings in industrial cities like Thessaloniki, and bitter clashes between agricultural poverty and political power. World War II introduced Nazi occupation and some of the fiercest partisan resistance in Europe, followed by a civil war that split families, towns, and the national identity itself. The 1960s brought assassinations and democratic stirrings; the 1970s, a brutal military junta and the student uprising at the Athens Polytechnic. And in the 21st century, Greece again found itself in the streets, workers, youth, and pensioners protesting austerity measures that threatened to hollow out everyday life.

Through all of this, Greek cuisine remained the nation’s most uniting factor, a shared vocabulary of olive oil, grains, and greens that transcended class. Food in Greece has always been pitched between survival and celebration, between scarcity and stubborn joy. In uprisings, occupations, and general strikes, meals transcended simple sustenance. 

This post traces Greece’s modern history through ten dishes, and the rebellions, protests, and movements they quietly nourished.

We begin with Fasolada, the modest bean stew revered since antiquity, which became an emblem of the Greek War of Independence, when subsistence foods fueled farmers and guerrillas fighting the Ottomans. Next comes Batzina, a zucchini pie from Thessaly, tied to the 1910 Kileler Peasant Revolt, when farmers rose up against landlords who had long controlled the plain. Spanakopita, flaky and green with foraged spinach, echoes the 1936 Thessaloniki Tobacco Workers’ Strike, when factory laborers confronted police and demanded dignity. Horiatiki, the village salad, is rooted in Crete’s rugged independence and linked here to the 1938 Cretan Uprising, an island revolt against authoritarian central rule.

Then the sweetness of Loukoumades carries us into the dark years of World War II, when these honey-drenched fritters, easy, cheap, communal, fueled partisan resistance in occupied villages. Tomatokeftedes, the volcanic tomato fritters of Santorini, mark the era of the Greek Civil War and the Dekemvriana, when political violence split the country after liberation. Kreatopita, a meat pie from the north, is tied to the 1963 assassination of Grigoris Lambrakis, a turning point that exposed deep-state repression and birthed Greece’s modern democratic left.

From there, we reach Moussaka, the layered national dish of Greek home kitchens, which here becomes the dish of the 1973 Athens Polytechnic Uprising, when students challenged the colonels’ junta and helped ignite the fall of the dictatorship. Gyro takes us into the streets of the 2010s, its cheap, hand-held portability making it the unofficial food of the Anti-Austerity Riots, when the working class clashed with riot police amidst collapsing wages and imposed hardship. And finally, Pastitsada, the Corfiot pasta stew, guides us to the 2015 Referendum and Austerity Rebellion, when Greece rejected external demands for deeper cuts and confronted the limits of European economic power.

So grab a plate, maybe something wrapped in paper, maybe something bubbling out of a clay pan. This is Greece told not through temples or tragedies, but through the meals that marched beside its people. 

Fasolada: Beans of Freedom

Fasolada, the unassuming bean soup revered as Greece's national dish, traces its roots deep into antiquity, a testament to the land's enduring frugality. Born from the fertile soils of the Mediterranean, where white beans, harvested since ancient times, were combined with olive oil, onions, carrots, celery, and tomatoes in a simple pot, it was a staple of the poor. In classical Greece, legumes fueled philosophers and farmers alike, but under centuries of foreign domination, fasolada became a symbol of survival. Thickened with bay leaves and herbs foraged from rugged hills, it stretched meager resources to feed families through famines and feasts. By the Ottoman era, this hearty broth, often ladled from communal cauldrons in village squares or monastery kitchens, embodied the resilience of a subjugated people, simmering slowly like the grudges that would one day boil over.

For nearly four centuries, from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the early 19th century, Greece languished under Ottoman rule, a patchwork of provinces in the vast empire stretching from the Balkans to the Middle East. The Ottomans, masters of conquest, imposed the devshirme system, conscripting Christian boys into Janissary ranks, while taxing the rayah, the non-Muslim subjects, with crushing jizya and harac levies. Greek Orthodox Christians, clustered in mountain villages and coastal enclaves, preserved their identity through the Church, which doubled as educator and guardian of Hellenic heritage. Yet, life was harsh: arable land was seized for timars, military fiefs granted to Ottoman officials, leaving peasants to toil on infertile slopes. Rebellions flickered sporadically, like the Orlov Revolt of 1770, inspired by Russian promises but crushed with brutal reprisals. Amid this oppression, fasolada sustained the rural masses. In remote Peloponnesian farms or Cretan monasteries, families gathered around clay pots bubbling over wood fires, the soup's nourishing warmth warding off hunger after days of labor. Beans, cheap and storable, were a godsend; a single harvest could feed a household through winter, symbolizing the unyielding spirit of the klephts, bandit-rebels who roamed the hills, evading Turkish patrols. These outlaws, romanticized in folk songs, lived off the land, sharing fasolada in hidden camps, its steam rising like prayers for liberation.

As the Enlightenment swept Europe, seeds of revolution took root in Greek soil. Expatriate intellectuals in Vienna, Paris, and Odessa, merchants enriched by trade, imbibed ideas of liberty from Voltaire and Rousseau. The French Revolution's cry of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" echoed across the Ionian Sea, inspiring the formation of secret societies. Chief among them was the Filiki Eteria, founded in 1814 by three merchants in Odessa: Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanuil Xanthos, and Athanasios Tsakalov. Cloaked in Masonic rituals, the Eteria recruited clergy, intellectuals, and warriors, swearing oaths on icons to overthrow the Sultan. By 1820, its network spanned the diaspora and homeland, with figures like Theodoros Kolokotronis, a grizzled klepht turned general, pledging allegiance. Rural Greeks, the backbone of this movement, fueled their clandestine meetings with fasolada's simple nourishment. In tavernas and monasteries, plotters broke bread over bowls of the soup, its communal sharing fostering bonds of solidarity. As whispers of uprising spread, fasolada became the unsung hero of preparation: easy to prepare in bulk, it sustained families stockpiling arms, its beans providing protein for the long marches ahead.

The spark ignited on March 25, 1821, when Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the revolutionary banner at the Agia Lavra monastery, proclaiming "Freedom or Death." This act, mythologized in Greek lore, unleashed a wave of uprisings across the Peloponnese, Crete, and the islands. Peasants armed with scythes and muskets stormed Ottoman garrisons, while philhellenes, foreign admirers like Lord Byron, flocked to the cause. Kolokotronis, leading irregular bands of fighters, employed guerrilla tactics honed in the mountains, ambushing Turkish columns and retreating to craggy strongholds. Fasolada was their lifeline: in besieged towns like Tripolitsa, where revolutionaries captured the Ottoman stronghold in September 1821 amid horrific massacres, fighters subsisted on vats of the soup cooked over communal fires. Rural warriors, far from supply lines, foraged for ingredients, wild herbs enhancing the broth, stretching rations to endure sieges. The dish's humility mirrored the fighters' ethos: no frills, just endurance.

As the war dragged on, Ottoman counteroffensives under Ibrahim Pasha, son of Egypt's Muhammad Ali, ravaged the countryside. The 1822 Chios massacre slaughtered 25,000 islanders, scattering survivors to the seas, while the siege of Missolonghi in 1825-1826 became a symbol of defiance. Lord Byron died there of fever, but the defenders, reduced to eating rats and fasolada thinned with seawater, held out for over a year before a desperate sortie ended in slaughter. In these grim moments, the soup's warming essence bolstered morale; monks in fortified monasteries distributed it to refugees,forging unity among disparate clans, Mainiots, Souliots, and islanders alike.

The conflict's brutality drew international attention. Philhellenic committees in Europe and America raised funds, while Romantic poets lionized the Greeks as heirs to classical glory. Yet, internal divisions plagued the revolutionaries: factions under Kolokotronis clashed with urban elites like Alexandros Mavrokordatos, leading to civil wars in 1823-1825 that weakened the cause. Ottoman-Egyptian forces exploited this, reconquering much of the Peloponnese by 1827. Fasolada remained a constant amid chaos, rural fighters, evading capture in olive groves, cooked it in hidden enclaves. The turning point came with foreign intervention: Russia, Britain, and France, alarmed by Ottoman atrocities and geopolitical stakes, dispatched fleets. The decisive Battle of Navarino in October 1827 saw allied ships annihilate the Turco-Egyptian navy in a "untoward event," as the British called it, paving the way for autonomy. As negotiations unfolded, Greek fighters persisted on their staple diet, fasolada sustaining them through the final skirmishes.

Resolution arrived piecemeal. The 1829 Treaty of Adrianople forced the Sultan to recognize Greek autonomy, formalized by the 1830 London Protocol establishing an independent kingdom under Prince Otto of Bavaria. Borders were drawn, excluding Crete and much of the north, but sovereignty was won after nine years of bloodshed costing over 100,000 lives. The war birthed modern Greece, inspiring Balkan nationalisms and weakening the Ottoman Empire. Fasolada, woven into this tapestry, emerged as more than food: it was the broth of defiance, nourishing the rural soul of the revolution. Peasants who fought with pitchforks and faith returned to their fields, ladling the soup in peacetime celebrations, its flavors evoking the communal struggle.

Today, fasolada endures as a Lenten staple and everyday comfort, simmered with love in Greek kitchens worldwide. 

I’ve made many soups, but this emerged as one of my favorites. 

Fasolada (Greek White Bean Soup)

A hearty, traditional bean soup fueled by simplicity and olive oil.

Ingredients

• 2 cups dried white beans (or 2 cans, drained and rinsed)

• 1 large onion, chopped

• 2 carrots, chopped

• 2 celery stalks, chopped

• 3–4 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 can (14 oz) crushed tomatoes

• ⅓–½ cup extra virgin olive oil

• 1 bay leaf

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Fresh parsley for garnish

Instructions

1. If using dried beans, soak overnight, then boil until tender (about 1 hour); drain.

2. In a large pot, heat olive oil and sauté onion, carrots, celery, and garlic until softened.

3. Add beans, tomatoes, bay leaf, oregano, salt, pepper, and enough water or stock to cover by 2 inches.

4. Simmer 45–60 minutes (20–30 if using canned beans) until thick and flavorful.

5. Remove bay leaf, garnish with parsley and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve with crusty bread.

Batzina: Fuel for the Fields and the Fire of Revolt

The history of batzina, often called the "lazy pie" (koliopita or batsos), is one of economic necessity and culinary innovation. Emerging in the Ottoman-era heartlands of Thessaly, it provided a dense, cheap, and filling meal for the landless peasant class (koligoi). Unlike more sophisticated pies, it required no expensive, time-consuming phyllo dough, relying instead on a simple batter of locally grown cornmeal, grated pumpkin (or zucchini), and the regional salty, firm cheese called batzos. Baked directly in a pan over an open fire, it was the perfect portable food that could be made from the crops the peasants were permitted to grow on their small plots. This simplicity is what elevated it from a mere dish to an enduring symbol of agrarian life.

In the late 1800s, as Greece clawed its way into modernity, Thessaly's plains were a patchwork of promise and peril. Annexed from the Ottoman Empire in 1881 after the Congress of Berlin, this breadbasket region, flat, fertile, irrigated by the Pinios River, held the key to the young kingdom's agricultural wealth. But freedom from Turkish rule didn't mean liberation for the peasants. The Ottoman legacy lingered in the form of tziflikia, sprawling estates often exceeding thousands of acres, owned by wealthy beys, Greek diaspora capitalists, or absentee landlords in Athens and abroad. These chifliks, as they were known in Turkish, had ballooned under the 1858 Ottoman Land Code, which favored large holdings and eroded communal rights. Peasants, mostly landless koligoi, worked them as sharecroppers, handing over up to two-thirds of their harvest in rent, plus taxes and tithes. Debt was a constant shadow; a bad season meant borrowing from the landlord at usurious rates, trapping families in cycles of servitude.

Life in rural Thessaly was grinding. Families huddled in mud-brick huts, rising before dawn to tend fields of wheat, corn, cotton, and tobacco, crops that enriched owners but left workers starving. Women ground corn into meal for batzina, mixing in pumpkin from small garden plots if they were lucky, or foraging wild greens when times were lean. Children herded goats for milk and cheese, the pie's binding agents. Malaria stalked the marshes, claiming lives; illiteracy was rampant, education a luxury for the elite. Greece itself was impoverished, saddled with foreign debt from the War of Independence, its economy propped up by loans from Britain, France, and Russia. King Otto's Bavarian-imposed rule had given way to George I in 1863, but corruption festered. Urban intellectuals in Athens dreamed of the "Great Idea", reclaiming Byzantine glories, but for peasants, the idea was survival. Socialist ideas trickled in via migrant workers returning from America or Europe, whispering of unions and rights. Newspapers like the Thessalian "Agrarian Voice" fanned discontent, decrying the tziflikia as feudal relics. Batzina, baked in communal ovens and shared at village gatherings, became a warm slab fueling heated discussions about land and dignity under the olive trees.

By the early 1900s, tensions simmered. Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis had modernized infrastructure, railroads snaked through Thessaly, linking Larissa to Volos, but progress bypassed the poor. Foreign investment flooded in, yet profits flowed out. The 1893 economic crash, triggered by a grape phylloxera blight and global downturn, crushed smallholders and swelled the ranks of the landless. Peasants petitioned endlessly for reform, but Athens dithered, fearing backlash from powerful estate owners who bankrolled politicians. In 1907, a minor uprising in the village of Melouna hinted at the storm ahead. Socialist organizers like Marinos Antypas, a fiery advocate assassinated in 1907 by a landlord's henchman, galvanized the koligoi. Antypas's murder ignited outrage; his calls for land redistribution echoed in tavernas where men broke batzina and vowed change. This pie, born of the soil they toiled, symbolized their bondage, made from the very corn and pumpkins grown on tziflikia lands, yet barely enough to stave off hunger after rents were paid.

The spark ignited on March 6, 1910, in the village of Kileler, near Larissa. It was a Sunday, market day, but the air crackled with purpose. Thousands of peasants from across Thessaly had converged, organized by the nascent Farmers' Federation. They demanded the breakup of tziflikia, fair land distribution, lower rents, and an end to exploitative contracts. Many had marched for days, sustained by batzina wrapped in cloth, its dense, cheesy crumb providing energy for the trek. Banners fluttered: "Land to the Tillers!" "Down with the Chifliks!" As they boarded trains to Larissa for a mass rally, troops intervened. At Kileler station, soldiers fired into the crowd, killing several and wounding dozens. Chaos erupted; peasants fought back with stones and farm tools. News spread like wildfire; uprisings flared in nearby villages, Pyli, Platykampos, Armenio. In Larissa, protesters stormed government buildings, clashing with cavalry. By day's end, at least six peasants lay dead, including leaders like Kostas Skotiniotis, but the revolt had exposed the regime's fragility. Batzina, that unassuming fuel, had powered the marchers' resolve; in campsites along the way, families shared it around fires, plotting the end of their subjugation.

The army crushed the revolt swiftly, arresting hundreds and imposing martial law. Trials followed, with harsh sentences for ringleaders. Yet Kileler wasn't forgotten, it became a martyr's cry. Public outrage in Athens forced Prime Minister Stephanos Dragoumis to promise investigations, though little changed immediately. The Balkan Wars (1912–1913) shifted focus, annexing more territories but exacerbating agrarian woes with displaced refugees. Eleftherios Venizelos, rising to power in 1910 amid the Goudi Coup's aftermath, recognized the powder keg. His liberal reforms included tentative land expropriations in 1911, buying out some tziflikia for redistribution. But true change dragged on. World War I and the National Schism delayed action; Venizelos's return in 1920 accelerated it. The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne brought Greek refugees from Asia Minor, pressuring the government to act. Between 1917 and 1936, laws nationalized estates, redistributing over 2 million acres to 150,000 families. By the 1930s, under the Second Hellenic Republic, koligoi became smallholders, though inequalities persisted.

Today, batzina's savored in tavernas, perhaps with modern twists like herbs or yogurt, but its core remains: cornmeal, pumpkin, cheese, a testament to the peasants who rose from the fields. In every bite, there's the echo of those who marched on empty stomachs, fueled by a pie that promised not just survival, but revolution.

Batzina is easy to make, but you won't find a more grounded meal.

Batzina (Thessalian Crustless Zucchini Pie)

A rustic, "lazy" summer pie—crispy edges, soft center.

Ingredients

• 4–5 medium zucchinis (about 1 kg), grated

• 200–300g feta cheese, crumbled

• 1 cup full-fat Greek yogurt

• 3–4 eggs

• ½–¾ cup olive oil (plus extra for pan)

• 1–1½ cups all-purpose flour

• 1–2 tsp baking powder

• Handful fresh mint and/or dill, chopped

• Salt and pepper (feta is salty, so taste first)

• Optional: sesame seeds for topping

Instructions

1. Grate zucchini, salt generously, let sit 20 minutes, then squeeze out excess water thoroughly.

2. Whisk eggs, yogurt, and olive oil. Add herbs and squeezed zucchini.

3. Mix flour and baking powder; fold into wet mixture until thick but pourable. Fold in feta.

4. Pour into greased 9x13-inch pan (keep thin for crispiness). Sprinkle sesame if desired.

5. Bake at 350°F (180°C) 40–60 minutes until golden. Cool slightly before slicing. Best at room temperature.

Spanakopita: Layers of Resilience 

Spanakopita’s origins stretch back to ancient Greece, where poets like Philoxenos in the fifth century BC sang of similar savory pies filled with herbs and cheeses, sustenance for shepherds and farmers toiling under the relentless Mediterranean sun. These early versions, simple and rustic, drew from the land: spinach or foraged greens like dandelion and sorrel, mingled with feta or other tangy cheeses, bound by eggs and herbs. The phyllo itself, a labor-intensive dough stretched paper-thin, likely evolved during the Byzantine era, when layered pastries symbolized abundance amid scarcity. But it was under Ottoman rule, from the 15th century onward, that spanakopita as we know it took shape. Turkish influences blended with Greek traditions, turning it into a portable staple of the poor. In the Ottoman Empire's vast territories, including occupied Greece, it became "peasant food," baked in communal ovens or over open fires, affordable and nourishing for those scraping by on meager wages. A single triangle could fuel a day's labor, its layers hiding a hearty core of greens packed with iron and vitamins, essential for bodies worn by endless toil. For the working class, spanakopita wasn't just food; it was survival, wrapped in resilience.

By the 1920s, Greece was a nation scarred and reshaped. The Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922 had ended in catastrophe, the "Asia Minor Disaster" flooding the country with over a million refugees from Anatolia. These displaced souls, many ethnic Greeks, crammed into urban slums in cities like Thessaloniki, swelling the ranks of the urban proletariat. The economy, already fragile after World War I, buckled under hyperinflation and debt. Governments flipped like phyllo sheets in the wind: the monarchy restored in 1920, a republic proclaimed in 1924, only for coups to rattle the fragile democracy. Workers' rights were a battlefield. Unemployment soared; official figures in 1930 pegged it at 30 percent higher than before the crash of 1929; driving laborers into desperation. Factories churned out textiles, tobacco, and ships, but owners squeezed profits from long hours, low pay, and hazardous conditions. Trade unions emerged, inspired by socialist and communist ideas seeping in from Europe. The General Confederation of Greek Workers (GSEE), founded in 1918, pushed for eight-hour days and collective bargaining, but faced brutal repression.

In 1929, the Venizelos government passed the Idionymon law, a draconian measure allowing imprisonment for mere "subversive ideas," targeting communists and anarchists. This wasn't abstract; it silenced voices demanding fair wages and safety nets. Refugees, competing with locals for jobs, fueled ethnic tensions, but also solidarity in the factories. Thessaloniki, a bustling port city with a mosaic of Greeks, Jews, and Slavs, became a hotbed. Tobacco processing, grueling work sorting leaves in dusty warehouses, employed thousands, many women and children. They rose before dawn, packing spanakopita triangles into baskets: a quick breakfast of flaky dough encasing spinach, onions, and dill, perhaps scavenged from urban gardens or bought cheap from street vendors. It was fuel for the grind, portable enough to eat on the factory floor or during hurried breaks. For these workers, the pie's layers mirrored their lives, fragile on the surface, but bound by a tough, nourishing heart. As communist organizers whispered of revolution, spanakopita sustained secret meetings, its affordability making it a staple in soup kitchens run by labor groups.

The 1930s deepened the crisis. The Great Depression hit Greece hard; exports plummeted, banks failed. King George II's return in 1935 via a rigged plebiscite installed a conservative regime under Kondylis, but instability reigned. Parliamentary deadlock in early 1936 left a caretaker government under Konstantinos Demertzis, powerless against rising strikes. Workers' demands escalated: higher wages to combat inflation, unemployment benefits, and an end to police brutality. Communists, though outlawed, infiltrated unions, channeling rage into action. In Thessaloniki, the tobacco industry, dominated by foreign companies like the American Tobacco Company, exploited seasonal labor, paying pennies for backbreaking shifts. Women, comprising much of the workforce, faced sexual harassment and exhaustion, yet they organized fiercely. Amid this, spanakopita evolved as urban workers' ally: baked in bulk by neighborhood cooperatives, it became a symbol of communal strength. A slice could stretch a family's budget, its greens providing vitamins against malnutrition rampant in slums. As tensions simmered, these pies traveled in workers' pockets to rallies, their warmth a small comfort against the chill of uncertainty.

The spark ignited on April 29, 1936. Thessaloniki's tobacco workers, numbering around 5,000, declared an indefinite strike. Their demands were straightforward: a 40 percent wage increase, better working conditions, and recognition of their union. Solidarity spread like wildfire; bakers, tram drivers, and printers joined, paralyzing the city. By May 8, a general strike gripped Thessaloniki, with 25,000 workers marching through streets lined with Ottoman-era buildings. Protesters chanted for bread and justice, many clutching spanakopita wrapped in cloth, sustenance for the long haul on picket lines. The pie's portability shone here: no need for fires or utensils, just a quick bite to stave off hunger during chants and standoffs. Negotiations in Athens faltered, and word reached the crowds: no concessions. Fury boiled over.

On May 9, the "Bloody May" dawned. Police and gendarmes, armed with rifles and batons, confronted the throngs at Egnatia Street. Shots rang out; protesters fell. Twelve were killed, including a young mother named Anastasia Karapanou, and over 200 wounded. The city transformed into a war zone; barricades rose, stones flew. Yet amid the chaos, spanakopita sustained the fighters. Volunteers distributed pies from hidden bakeries, their flaky exteriors cracking like the regime's facade, revealing the resilient filling within. The strike's violence shocked Greece; newspapers splashed images of bloodied streets, galvanizing national sympathy. In Thessaloniki's Jewish quarters, where many tobacco workers lived, communal ovens churned out spanakopita for the injured, a quiet act of defiance.

The aftermath was swift and transformative. By May 11, the government crushed the uprising, forcing workers back with military orders. Over 100 were arrested in mild clashes, but the real repression loomed. The strike's echoes rippled southward, inspiring agrarian revolts in Thessaly and industrial walkouts in Athens. Prime Minister Demertzis died suddenly; Ioannis Metaxas, a royalist general, stepped in as interim leader. Fearing communist takeover, bolstered by the strike's red flags, he suspended parliament on August 4, 1936, with King George II's blessing. The "4th of August Regime" was born: a fascist-inspired dictatorship mimicking Mussolini's Italy. Metaxas banned strikes, dissolved unions, and imposed censorship. The Idionymon law intensified; thousands, including communists and Jews, were jailed, tortured in chambers adorned with swastikas. Yet, concessions trickled: nationwide collective agreements and a minimum wage were instituted, nods to the workers' fury.

The strike immortalized working-class militancy. Yiannis Ritsos' poem Epitaphios, inspired by a mother's lament over her slain son, became an anthem of resistance, set to music by Mikis Theodorakis decades later. Spanakopita, that humble pie, endured as a metaphor, its layers evoking the stratified struggles of class, ethnicity, and power. For urban workers, it remained daily fuel, baked in defiance during underground meetings.

Greece's interwar turmoil foreshadowed World War II's horrors, but the 1936 strike planted seeds of labor rights that bloomed post-war. 

Today, spanakopita graces tables worldwide, and for good reason. Its a taste of pure comfort in a mixed up world.

Spanakopita (Greek Spinach Pie)

Flaky phyllo layers with garlicky spinach and feta filling.

Ingredients

• 1 lb fresh spinach, chopped (or frozen, thawed and drained)

• 1 large onion, finely chopped

• 2–3 garlic cloves, minced

• 300–400g feta, crumbled

• ½ cup ricotta or cottage cheese (optional for creaminess)

• 2 eggs, beaten

• Handful fresh dill, chopped

• ½ cup olive oil or melted butter

• 1 package phyllo dough, thawed

Instructions

1. Sauté onion and garlic in oil; add spinach until wilted. Cool and squeeze out liquid.

2. Mix with feta, ricotta (if using), eggs, dill, salt, and pepper.

3. Brush baking dish with oil/butter. Layer 6–8 phyllo sheets, brushing each.

4. Spread filling evenly. Top with 6–8 more brushed phyllo sheets.

5. Score top, bake at 375°F (190°C) 40–50 minutes until golden. Rest before cutting.

Horiatiki: The Village Against the State

Horiatiki is not a composed salad in the modern sense. It has no dressing made for elegance, no delicate balance engineered by chefs. It is assembled, not crafted. Tomatoes chopped large and uneven, cucumbers split open, olives crushed or torn, a slab of feta laid on top. Olive oil is poured freely, not measured. Oregano is pinched between fingers, not weighed.

The dish known across the world as “Greek Salad”, the iconic medley of tomatoes, cucumber, onion, feta, and olives, is properly called Horiatiki Salata, meaning "Village Salad" or "Peasant's Salad."

Contrary to its image as an ancient Mediterranean staple, the form we recognize today is relatively modern, driven by an agricultural revolution and a specific moment in Greek political history. While rural Greek diets have always relied on olives, wild greens, and cured cheese, the generous use of tomatoes and cucumbers, both New World imports, came much later. Tomatoes were initially met with suspicion in Europe and were only widely embraced in Greece for daily cooking in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The official name, Horiatiki Salata, cemented itself in the mid-20th century as the dish became codified and standardized for tourism and urban tavernas.

But its origins lay in the daily rhythms of rural Greece, particularly Crete. For centuries, farmers ate what could be gathered quickly in the heat of the day: vegetables pulled from fields, cheese preserved in brine, olives cured for survival, bread baked once and stretched as long as possible. Horiatiki was never meant to impress. It was meant to sustain. In that sense, it carried a worldview fundamentally at odds with authoritarian modernity. Where fascist regimes prized discipline, uniformity, and spectacle, horiatiki prized locality, seasonality, and autonomy. It was the taste of a life lived beyond centralized control.

By the time Ioannis Metaxas seized power in August 1936, Greece was already fractured between city and countryside, labor and land, order and memory. The Thessaloniki tobacco strike earlier that year had terrified the ruling class. Urban workers had shown that collective action could paralyze an entire city. Metaxas, with the blessing of King George II, responded not with compromise but with suspension of parliament, censorship, mass arrests, and the construction of a corporatist police state modeled loosely on Mussolini’s Italy. The 4th of August Regime promised stability, discipline, and national rebirth. In practice, it meant silence enforced by prisons, exile islands, and surveillance.

Yet Metaxas’s grip weakened the farther one moved from Athens. Nowhere was this more true than Crete.

Crete had never fully internalized obedience to mainland authority. Its history was a long chain of revolts, against Venetians, Ottomans, and even the Greek state itself when it felt betrayed. The island had joined Greece late, only in 1913, and even then retained a powerful regional identity rooted in armed resistance, clan loyalty, and the legacy of Eleftherios Venizelos, the Cretan-born statesman whose liberal republicanism clashed sharply with Metaxas’s monarchist authoritarianism. Venizelism was not just a political ideology on Crete; it was personal. It lived in family histories, in old rifles kept behind doors, in songs sung quietly at tables heavy with food and memory.

After 1936, Metaxas moved quickly to crush Venizelist networks. Political parties were banned, newspapers shuttered, and known opponents arrested or exiled. Local politicians in Chania and Rethymno, many of them Venizelists, were dismissed or placed under surveillance. The regime attempted to impose its youth organizations, its salutes, its slogans, onto an island that had learned, through centuries of occupation, to distrust imposed order. What the dictatorship saw as national unity, Cretans experienced as cultural suffocation.

By 1938, tension had thickened into something combustible. Rural poverty remained endemic, exacerbated by the Depression and state controls. Farmers resented new regulations, new taxes, and the presence of gendarmes enforcing laws written far away. Rumors circulated, some exaggerated, some real, of forced loyalty oaths, confiscated weapons, and arrests to come. Beneath the surface calm of olive groves and whitewashed villages, resistance was quietly organizing.

On July 29, 1938, the illusion of control shattered. In Chania, armed Venizelist officers and civilians rose against the regime. The uprising was not mass-based in the way later resistance movements would be, but it was serious, coordinated, and symbolically explosive. Rebel forces seized key positions, raised anti-dictatorship proclamations, and called for the restoration of constitutional rule. For a brief moment, Crete stood apart from the authoritarian mainland, asserting its right to decide its own political fate.

This was not a workers’ uprising fueled by factories and unions. It was a village revolt, led by former officers, local politicians, and farmers who understood resistance not as ideology but as inheritance. Their sustenance did not come from communal bakeries or urban kitchens but from household tables. In homes and tavernas across western Crete, horiatiki was eaten before meetings, after patrols, between arguments about tactics and loyalty. Tomatoes sliced from backyard vines, feta from local shepherds, olives harvested months earlier, food that required no supply chains, no state approval. To eat horiatiki was to participate in an economy the regime could not fully regulate.

The Metaxas government responded with overwhelming force. Within days, naval units blockaded the island. Warplanes flew overhead, a brutal reminder of the imbalance between rural uprising and modern state power. Troops landed, arrests followed, and the rebellion collapsed under the weight of military superiority. Leaders were detained, some imprisoned, others exiled. The message was unmistakable: armed dissent would not be tolerated, even on Crete.

But the resolution of the uprising was not merely repression. Metaxas understood, at least instinctively, that Crete could not be ruled solely through terror. The regime avoided mass executions, opting instead for targeted arrests and administrative punishment. Local elites were co-opted where possible. Public order was restored, but uneasily. Beneath the surface, resentment hardened. The revolt had failed militarily, but it succeeded culturally. It reaffirmed Crete’s identity as a place where dictatorship would never be accepted as natural.

The 1938 Cretan Uprising did not topple the dictatorship. That would come only later, shattered by war and occupation. But it exposed the regime’s limits. Just as the Thessaloniki strike revealed the power of urban labor, Crete revealed the stubborn endurance of regional autonomy. Together, they formed a warning Metaxas could suppress but not erase: Greece could be ruled by force, but it could not be remade at will.

When World War II arrived, and Crete again became a battlefield, this time against Nazi paratroopers, the memory of 1938 mattered. The island’s readiness to resist did not emerge overnight. It had been rehearsed at village tables, over simple meals, in quiet defiance. Horiatiki, eaten without ceremony, carried forward a philosophy older than the state itself: that land, food, and freedom are inseparable.

This salad, simple yet flavorful, is a cornerstone “Mediterranean dish”, and should be enjoyed as such.

Horiatiki (Greek Village Salad)

The classic—no lettuce, just bold summer flavors.

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 4 ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges

• 1 cucumber, sliced into half-moons

• 1 green bell pepper, sliced

• 1 small red onion, thinly sliced

• 12–15 Kalamata olives

• 200g block feta cheese

• Extra virgin olive oil (generous drizzle)

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• Salt to taste (sparingly)

• Optional: capers or red wine vinegar splash

Instructions

1. Arrange tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, and onion on a platter.

2. Top with olives and feta block.

3. Drizzle liberally with olive oil, sprinkle oregano and light salt.

4. Serve immediately with bread to soak juices—no tossing until plating.

Loukoumades: Sweetness Under Occupation

Loukoumades are ancient in origin, traced back to enkrides of classical Greece, fried dough drizzled with honey, offered to Olympic victors as rewards. Over centuries they became a festive food, associated with weddings, name days, and religious celebrations. They were made communally, dropped into hot oil by hand, fished out together, and passed around while still steaming. Even before the war, they carried an implicit meaning: this is food you share, food you don’t eat alone. That meaning would become sharper under occupation.

The 1938 Cretan Uprising had shown the limits of Metaxas’s authority, but it did not end his rule. What ended it was war. In October 1940, Fascist Italy invaded Greece from Albania, expecting a quick victory. Instead, Greek soldiers, many from rural villages like those that had resisted Metaxas, pushed the Italians back into the mountains. For a brief, intoxicating moment, Greece tasted unity. Loukoumades appeared again at tables and barracks, fried in celebration, honey stretched thin but shared generously. Victory felt possible.

That moment collapsed in April 1941. Nazi Germany intervened, invading through Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Athens fell within weeks. Crete, already scarred by rebellion, became the site of a new kind of war. In May 1941, German paratroopers descended from the sky in Operation Mercury. Cretan civilians, many still armed from earlier struggles, attacked them with rifles, knives, even farming tools. It was resistance without uniforms, without orders, instinctive, inherited. The Germans eventually took the island, but the cost shocked them. Their response was merciless: mass executions, burned villages, collective punishment. Crete entered the occupation already in open defiance.

Occupation fractured Greece into zones controlled by Germany, Italy, and Bulgaria. The state collapsed. The king and government fled to Cairo. What replaced them was not order, but hunger. The winter of 1941–42 brought famine, especially to cities like Athens and Piraeus. An estimated 300,000 Greeks died from starvation and related causes. Bread disappeared. Oil was confiscated. Honey was hoarded or requisitioned. Loukoumades vanished from public life, not forgotten, but deferred.

Out of that collapse emerged resistance. By late 1941 and 1942, partisan groups began forming in mountains and villages, drawing on older networks of Venizelists, communists, and anti-fascists hardened by years of repression. The largest was EAM (National Liberation Front), with its armed wing ELAS, dominated by the Communist Party but sustained by ordinary villagers. Others followed, EDES, EKKA, often ideologically divided, but united by opposition to occupation.

The resistance did not live off ideology. It lived off food. Villagers hid fighters in barns, fed them from gardens already stripped bare, and shared what little oil or flour they had left. Loukoumades returned here, not as festival food, but as an act of defiance. When a village managed to slaughter a goat without attracting patrols, when oil could be saved, when a spoon of honey survived the requisitions, loukoumades were made quietly at night. Dough mixed with water and yeast. Oil heated carefully so the smell wouldn’t carry. Honey diluted, stretched, whispered over the top. Small portions. No waste.

Their shape mattered. Loukoumades are not uniform. They cluster, stick together, separate imperfectly. Each one is small, fragile, easily crushed, but together they fill a bowl. Partisan cells worked the same way. ELAS units were decentralized, operating independently, relying on trust rather than hierarchy. If one cell was destroyed, others survived. Like loukoumades, they were made in batches, passed hand to hand, never meant to last long.

From 1942 to 1944, the resistance escalated. Sabotage of railways, ambushes of patrols, and intelligence operations multiplied. The most famous was the blowing up of the Gorgopotamos viaduct in 1942, cutting a key Axis supply line. Such acts were impossible without civilian support. Villages paid the price. Entire communities were burned in reprisal, Kalavryta, Distomo, Kandanos. The occupation became a war against the population itself.

And yet, life continued. That fact, more than armed attacks, was what fascism could not tolerate. Weddings still happened, quietly. Name days were still marked. When they could be, loukoumades appeared again, less honey, more syrup made from boiled-down sugar or even grape must. Sweetness improvised. 

By 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies. German forces took over former Italian zones, tightening control but also stretching themselves thinner. ELAS expanded rapidly, liberating large swaths of the countryside. In these “Free Greece” zones, local councils formed, schools reopened, and food was redistributed as best it could be. Communal kitchens returned. Loukoumades were made openly again in some villages, not abundant, not lavish, but public. Fried outdoors. Shared without whispers. For the first time since 1941, sweetness was no longer clandestine.

But unity did not last. As liberation approached, tensions within the resistance sharpened. Ideological divisions hardened into armed clashes. The question was no longer only how to expel the occupiers, but who would rule afterward. Loukoumades, once shared across differences, began to retreat back into family spaces, eaten among those you trusted. The bowl narrowed.

In October 1944, German forces withdrew from mainland Greece. Athens was liberated. The occupation ended, but peace did not arrive. Almost immediately, fighting broke out between ELAS and British-backed government forces in December 1944, the Dekemvriana. The resistance that had fed itself under occupation now fractured into camps preparing for civil war. 

Loukoumades survived because they were never owned by a party or a flag. They belonged to moments when people chose to make something generous out of almost nothing. 

Make some loukoumades and steal your own brief moment of joy.

Loukoumades (Greek Honey Donuts)

Crispy fried dough balls soaked in honey and cinnamon.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 1 packet (2¼ tsp) instant yeast

• 1 cup warm water

• 1 tsp sugar

• ½ tsp salt

• Oil for frying

• Honey, cinnamon, and chopped walnuts for topping

Instructions

1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water; let foam 5–10 minutes.

2. Mix in flour, salt; form sticky dough. Rest 1 hour until doubled.

3. Heat oil to 350°F (175°C). Drop teaspoonfuls of dough; fry until golden.

4. Drain, drizzle warm honey, sprinkle cinnamon and walnuts.

Tomatokeftedes: Red Hunger, Bitter Peace

Tomatokeftedes emerged most clearly in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, especially on Santorini, where volcanic soil produced tomatoes of extraordinary intensity but limited shelf life. Before canning was widespread, tomatoes ripened all at once and spoiled quickly. Tomatokeftedes were a solution: grate the tomatoes, squeeze out excess liquid, add onion, herbs like mint or oregano, and enough flour to bind. Fry them fast. Eat them hot. Preserve flavor when preservation itself was impossible. From the beginning, they were a dish about damage control.

That sensibility defined Greece after liberation.

When the Germans withdrew in October 1944, Athens erupted in celebration. Flags reappeared. Prisoners were freed. Exiles returned. But the structures of unity forged during the occupation collapsed almost immediately. The resistance had defeated a foreign occupier, but it had not resolved the question of power. Who governed Greece now, the monarchy in exile backed by Britain, or the resistance movements that had fed, armed, and governed much of the country during the war?

The answer came violently in December 1944.

The Dekemvriana began with a demonstration in Athens on December 3rd. EAM supporters gathered to protest the disarmament of ELAS while right-wing militias and collaborationist forces remained intact. Shots were fired into the crowd. Dozens were killed. What followed was a month of street fighting that turned liberated Athens into a battlefield. ELAS fighters, many of whom had spent years fighting Nazis in the mountains, now faced British troops, tanks, artillery, and a government determined to reassert control.

The symbolism was devastating. Liberation had barely begun before Greeks were killing Greeks in the streets of their capital. The same people who had hidden food together, shared loukoumades in whispered defiance, now passed each other behind barricades, unsure who was enemy and who was neighbor.

Food changed accordingly. Communal kitchens fractured. Sharing became dangerous. Families cooked inward, quietly. Tomatokeftedes fit this moment perfectly. They didn’t require planning or celebration. Tomatoes could be scavenged. Herbs grew wild. Oil was still scarce, but a shallow pan and restraint could stretch it. They were cooked indoors, quickly, eaten without ceremony. Red, fried, sustaining. No sweetness. No illusion.

The Dekemvriana ended in January 1945 with the Varkiza Agreement. ELAS agreed to disarm. Political prisoners were promised amnesty. Elections were promised. On paper, peace returned. In reality, the war simply went underground.

The period between 1945 and 1946 became known as the “White Terror.” Former resistance fighters, especially those associated with the left, were hunted, beaten, imprisoned, or executed by right-wing militias, gendarmes, and remnants of collaborationist networks now absorbed into the state. Villages that had supported ELAS were punished. The countryside, already exhausted by occupation, entered a new cycle of fear.

This was a time of profound disillusionment. The enemy was no longer foreign. The violence had no clear front. People disappeared at night. Lists circulated. Old grudges resurfaced under the cover of ideology. Families split, not over abstract politics, but over survival, who had joined which group, who had accepted which protection, who might be next.

By 1946, the civil war was no longer latent. Armed clashes resumed between the Democratic Army of Greece (DSE), formed largely by former ELAS fighters, and the government army, now backed heavily by Britain and, increasingly, the United States. The Truman Doctrine would soon formalize Greece as a frontline state in the emerging Cold War. Aid poured in, money, weapons, advisors, but it did not bring peace. It brought escalation.

The Greek Civil War was brutal and intimate. Villages changed hands repeatedly. Mountains became killing grounds. Civilians were displaced en masse. Children were evacuated, some to Eastern Bloc countries, others into state institutions. Brother fought brother. Parent informed on child. The war was not just fought with bullets, but with hunger as a weapon. Entire regions were cut off from food supplies to starve guerrillas out of hiding.

In this environment, cooking became survival strategy. People ate what they could grow, steal, or stretch. Tomatoes remained one of the few reliable crops in many areas, especially in the south and on the islands. Tomatokeftedes required no meat, no cheese, no eggs. Just enough flour to give structure. They could be eaten alone or with bread. They also traveled well. Wrapped in cloth, they could be carried to fields, to hiding places, to refugee camps. Cold, they were still edible. Like the people who made them, they adapted.

By 1949, the war ended decisively with the defeat of the DSE. The government prevailed, backed by overwhelming foreign support. The cost was staggering: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands displaced, entire regions depopulated. The left was crushed politically. Prisons and exile camps filled with those deemed suspect. Silence was enforced.

The aftermath was not reconciliation, but amnesia. The official narrative erased the resistance’s role in liberation and framed the civil war as a defense against chaos. Trauma went unspoken. Families avoided certain topics at the table. Food, again, carried what language could not.

In postwar Greece, as reconstruction slowly began and the state pushed forward, tomatokeftedes remained on tables, a simple, austere dish of sustenance.

As far as fried fritters go, these are some of the best.

Tomatokeftedes (Santorini Tomato Fritters)

Juicy, herby tomato bites—Santorini's summer specialty.

Ingredients (makes ~20)

• 500g ripe tomatoes, finely chopped or grated

• 1 small onion, finely chopped

• 2–3 spring onions, sliced

• Handful fresh mint and parsley, chopped

• 1 tsp dried oregano

• 100–150g feta, crumbled (optional)

• 1 cup flour (adjust for thick batter)

• Salt, pepper

• Olive oil for frying

Instructions

1. Salt tomatoes; drain excess liquid 15 minutes.

2. Mix with onions, herbs, feta, seasonings. Add flour gradually for thick batter.

3. Heat ¼-inch oil; drop spoonfuls, fry 2–3 minutes per side until crisp.

4. Drain on paper towels. Serve warm with yogurt or lemon.

Kreatopita: Layers of Silence, Layers of Awakening

The concept of a kreatopita (meat pie) is ancient and pan-Hellenic, rooted in the peasant tradition of encasing precious ingredients, whether cheese, vegetable, or meat—in a sturdy pastry shell for preservation and portability. As far back as antiquity, pies were a practical method of distributing a small amount of expensive filling among many people. However, the specific version of kreatopita discussed here, structured, often made with phyllo or a thick, yeast-based dough, and incorporating rice or bulgur to extend the meat, is most deeply associated with the 20th-century history of modern Greece. 

After the defeat of the Democratic Army in 1949, Greece entered what was officially called peace and what many experienced as a prolonged ceasefire with memory. The civil war had ended decisively, but its winners governed with suspicion, not reconciliation. The state that emerged was monarchist, anti-communist, and heavily supervised by foreign powers, first Britain and then the United States. The Truman Doctrine and Marshall Plan money rebuilt roads, ports, and factories, but it also rebuilt security services, surveillance networks, and a political culture where loyalty mattered more than citizenship.

For the defeated left, the war did not end in 1949. It simply changed form. Tens of thousands were imprisoned, exiled to islands like Makronisos and Ai Stratis, or barred from work through loyalty certificates that determined who could be a teacher, a civil servant, even a dockworker. Families learned which topics could not be discussed at the table. Names were avoided. Histories were flattened. This was a country rebuilding itself materially while amputating parts of its own past.

Meat had returned, cautiously, to Greek kitchens in the 1950s as rationing ended and agriculture stabilized. But abundance was uneven and insecure. Meat pies were a way to make something lasting from something precious. A small amount of minced meat could feed many if layered correctly. Rice absorbed juices. Pastry created boundaries. It was food designed for households that had learned how quickly things could be taken away.

The 1950s are often remembered as a decade of reconstruction and emigration. Hundreds of thousands of Greeks left for West Germany, Australia, Canada, and the United States, pushed by poverty and political suffocation. Those who remained lived in a society obsessed with order. The police were omnipresent. Paramilitary networks that had hunted leftists during the “White Terror” were never fully dismantled. Elections occurred, but within narrow limits. The left existed, but largely underground or fragmented, its leaders jailed or exiled, its legitimacy officially denied.

Yet pressure accumulates even in sealed containers.

By the late 1950s, cracks began to appear. The death of King Paul, economic modernization, urbanization, and the rise of a younger generation less directly scarred by the civil war began to shift the political landscape. In 1958, the unthinkable happened: the United Democratic Left (EDA), a coalition that functioned as the legal political expression of the banned Communist Party, became the official opposition in parliament. For the state, this was alarming. For ordinary people, especially workers, students, and rural families, it was electrifying.

EDA’s rise did not mean revolution. It meant recognition. It meant that people who had survived defeat, prison, and exile could now speak, carefully, legally, about wages, housing, peace, and democracy. Meetings were held in cafés and village squares. Food returned to its role as social glue. Kreatopita appeared at gatherings because it was practical and communal. It could be cut into many pieces, eaten standing up, shared without ceremony. It fed conversation.

One of the most visible figures to emerge in this environment was Grigoris Lambrakis. A physician, a former Olympic long jumper, and a resistance veteran, Lambrakis embodied something unsettling to the postwar order: moral clarity without militancy. He was not a guerrilla. He was not a party apparatchik. He was a doctor who treated the poor, an athlete who had represented Greece internationally, and a parliamentarian who spoke openly against nuclear weapons, militarism, and Greece’s subordination to foreign interests.

In April 1963, Lambrakis participated in a peace march from Marathon to Athens, modeled explicitly on the symbolism of democratic endurance. The march was banned. Police stopped participants. Lambrakis walked alone for much of the route, carrying a sign with the peace symbol. The image spread. So did the anxiety of the state.

On May 22, 1963, after speaking at an anti-war rally in Thessaloniki, Lambrakis was attacked in the street by far-right extremists riding on a three-wheeled vehicle. He was struck in the head and died days later. The attack was not spontaneous. It occurred in full view of police, who did nothing to stop it. Witnesses intervened where authorities did not.

Lambrakis’s assassination shattered the carefully maintained fiction of postwar normalcy. Greeks had lived for years with quiet repression, but this was public, undeniable, and obscene. A sitting member of parliament had been murdered for advocating peace. The response was immediate and massive. His funeral became one of the largest demonstrations in Greek history. The slogan “Ζει” ,  “He Lives” , appeared everywhere, scrawled on walls, whispered in crowds, spoken where his name had been silenced. 

In homes and cafés, people gathered not just to mourn but to talk. Kreatopita appeared again, not as symbolism imposed from above, but as what people knew how to make when many needed to be fed. Meat pies were brought to wakes, to meetings, to cramped apartments where students, workers, and professionals debated what Lambrakis’s death meant. Each slice was a reminder of how much effort it took to hold things together.

The investigation into the assassination, led by examining magistrate Christos Sartzetakis, exposed the depth of state complicity. Police obstruction, links between extremists and security services, and a culture of impunity were laid bare. The façade cracked. Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis famously asked, “Who governs this country?” and soon resigned, leaving for exile in Paris.

Out of this crisis emerged a broader democratic movement. Lambrakis’s death catalyzed the formation of the Lambrakis Youth, a mass organization that drew students, artists, workers, and intellectuals into political engagement. Music, poetry, and food all played roles in this awakening. Mikis Theodorakis set resistance to melody. Tables were laid. People who had learned to keep their voices low began to speak again.

The rise of the democratic left in the early 1960s did not resolve Greece’s contradictions. The forces that killed Lambrakis were not dismantled overnight. Reaction hardened as much as resistance grew. The struggle over Greece’s future intensified, pulling in the monarchy, the military, and foreign powers. Within four years, a military junta would seize power, attempting to crush precisely the awakening Lambrakis had inspired.

But between the silence after the civil war and the darkness of the dictatorship, there was this moment, fragile, unfinished, alive. A moment when people believed that democracy might be rebuilt not through forgetting, but through confronting what had been done.

As far as meat pies go, encasing it in phyllo dough, makes this one of the most unique.

Kreatopita (Greek Spiral Meat Pie)

Buttery phyllo coiled around spiced meat filling.

• Ingredients

Filling:

• 500g ground beef or lamb

• 1 onion, chopped

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 2 tbsp tomato paste

• Spices: cinnamon, allspice, paprika

• Optional: feta, parsley

Assembly:

• 10–12 phyllo sheets

• Melted butter or olive oil

Instructions

1. Brown meat with onion/garlic; add paste, spices, simmer until thick. Cool; mix in feta/parsley.

2. Layer 2 phyllo sheets, brush oil, add filling line along edge; roll into rope.

3. Coil in greased pan; repeat until full. Brush top.

4. Bake 375°F (190°C) 40–50 minutes until golden.

Moussaka: Layers Beneath the Tanks

The dish known across the Mediterranean as moussaka is the result of centuries of culinary cross-pollination, making it a fitting symbol for Greece's own layered history. The very concept of cooking vegetables, most famously eggplant, in a rich, savory casserole came to the region during the Ottoman era. Similar layered dishes existed in the Levant and the Balkans, often using thinner vegetables like zucchini and different kinds of binding agents. However, the Greek version, as it is largely known today, crystallized in the early 20th century.

It was the chef Nikolaos Tselementes, often considered the father of modern Greek cookery, who radically transformed the dish. Educated in Europe and seeking to "purify" Greek cuisine from perceived Turkish and Ottoman influences, Tselementes published his highly influential cookbook in 1910. He took the existing eggplant and meat mixture and crowned it with the French-derived béchamel sauce, replacing the simple breadcrumbs or cheese historically used. This addition created the iconic, creamy white crust that defines the dish in Greece and internationally. By anchoring the tradition in humble ingredients (eggplant, minced meat, potatoes) and elevating it with a European technique (béchamel), Tselementes created a dish that was both deeply traditional and aspirationally modern. It became a staple of middle-class tables and tavernas, ready to take on the political burdens of the modern Greek state. It also became the staple of meals eaten under repression.

In the years after Lambrakis’s assassination, Greece moved steadily toward a confrontation it had long postponed. The shock of 1963 had exposed the rot beneath the post–civil war order, but exposure alone did not dismantle it. Instead, the state oscillated between reform and repression, democracy and threat. Elections followed. The Center Union under Georgios Papandreou won power in 1964, buoyed by popular demands for demilitarization, educational reform, and an end to the security state. For a brief moment, it seemed as though the promise ignited by Lambrakis’s death might be fulfilled.

That promise was short-lived. The monarchy intervened. The military grumbled. The United States watched closely, obsessed with stability and anti-communism in the eastern Mediterranean. In 1965, Papandreou was forced out in what became known as the Apostasia, a palace-backed political rupture that shattered parliamentary legitimacy. Street protests erupted. Students filled Athens. Slogans echoed from the same walls where “Ζει” had been painted two years earlier. The country entered a period of instability known as the “Long Sixties,” marked by demonstrations, strikes, and constant political crisis.

The long sixties caved to violence on April 21, 1967.

In the early hours of that morning, a group of mid-ranking army officers seized power, preempting elections they feared would return the center-left, and possibly legitimize the left itself. Tanks rolled through Athens. Politicians were arrested in their homes. Thousands were detained within days. The Colonels announced they had saved Greece from chaos, communism, and moral decay. What they delivered instead was a seven-year dictatorship built on censorship, torture, exile, and fear.

Public life shrank. Music was banned. Books disappeared. Conversations lowered their volume again. The junta tried to manufacture a new Greek identity rooted in obedience, nationalism, and sanitized tradition. Moussaka, ironically, became part of this imposed folklore. The regime promoted an image of “authentic Greekness” for tourists: sun, ruins, souvlaki, moussaka. The dish was served in restaurants plastered with blue-and-white décor while prisons filled with dissidents. It was a hollow performance of continuity, tradition stripped of memory.

But food cannot be fully controlled by propaganda. In kitchens, moussaka retained its real meaning. It was cooked for families divided by arrests and exile. It was brought to houses where sons were missing, daughters watched, fathers beaten. It was baked for name days that could not be celebrated publicly, for gatherings that pretended to be apolitical while quietly sustaining connection. Like all slow dishes, it resisted urgency. It required stillness in a time of forced paralysis.

Resistance did not disappear under the junta; it submerged. Students became its most volatile carriers. Universities, crowded with young people who had grown up after the civil war and felt less bound by its silences, became sites of pressure. In 1972 and 1973, protests broke out over conscription, curriculum control, and police presence on campuses. Each confrontation tested the regime’s claim to total control.

The breaking point came in November 1973 at the Athens Polytechnic.

On November 14, students occupied the Polytechnic campus after a strike escalated into open defiance. They barricaded the gates, set up an improvised radio station, and began broadcasting calls for freedom, democracy, and bread, ψωμί, παιδεία, ελευθερία. Workers joined them. Ordinary Athenians gathered outside the gates, bringing food, water, cigarettes. Moussaka appeared here not as spectacle but as pure unvarnished food. Baked in trays, cut into squares, passed hand to hand, it fed students who had not left the campus for days. Its layers mirrored what was happening outside: students, workers, intellectuals, the cautious and the brave, stacked together by necessity.

For three days, the Polytechnic became a liberated zone in miniature. The broadcasts pierced the silence the junta had enforced for six years. People who had learned to whisper heard voices speaking plainly again. The regime hesitated, then chose force.

In the early hours of November 17, tanks were sent in. One rammed the Polytechnic gate as students clung to it. Soldiers flooded the campus. Dozens were killed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested. The uprising was crushed militarily, but something irreversible had occurred. The myth of the junta’s invincibility shattered. The violence was too visible, too naked, too reminiscent of earlier wounds.

In the immediate aftermath, the regime tightened repression, but it was already hollowing out. International condemnation intensified. Internal divisions within the junta deepened. Hardliners ousted Georgios Papadopoulos and installed Dimitrios Ioannidis, whose reckless adventurism would seal the dictatorship’s fate. In July 1974, his regime backed a coup in Cyprus, provoking a Turkish invasion. Faced with national catastrophe, the junta collapsed. Civilian rule returned. Konstantinos Karamanlis came back from exile. Democracy, battered and incomplete, was restored.

Moussaka emerges from this period altered but intact. After the fall of the junta, it returned openly to tavernas not as staged folklore but as real communal food. It was cooked for celebrations of release, for homecomings, for the first uncensored conversations in years. Its layers now carried memory: of nights when radios were hidden, of students crushed by steel, of meals eaten quickly before curfews.

Moussaka is often dismissed as heavy, old-fashioned, something tourists order once. But it is precisely its heaviness that matters. It is not meant to be light. It is meant to sit with you. It is meant to remind you that things are built, not improvised, that resistance accumulates slowly, layer by layer, until the heat becomes unbearable.

The Polytechnic uprising did not overthrow the junta on its own. But it exposed it, delegitimized it, and made its continuation impossible After years of silence, Greece found its voice again not all at once, but through sustained pressure. In kitchens, in campuses, in streets. 

And sometimes, that is enough to outlast the tanks.

Put simply, moussaka is my absolute favorite dish to cook. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Moussaka (Greek Eggplant Casserole)

Layered comfort: eggplant, meat sauce, creamy béchamel.

Ingredients

• 2–3 eggplants, sliced ¼-inch

• 1 lb ground lamb/beef

• Onion, garlic, cinnamon, tomatoes

• Potatoes (optional base layer)

Béchamel:

• Butter, flour, milk, eggs, nutmeg

Instructions

1. Salt/roast eggplant slices.

2. Brown meat with aromatics; simmer sauce.

3. Layer: eggplant (potatoes), meat, eggplant; top béchamel.

4. Bake 375°F (190°C) 45–60 minutes. Rest 20 minutes.

Gyro: Revolutions That Turn

While the gyro, from Greek meaning 'turn' or 'rotation', feels utterly contemporary, its roots are an echo of upheaval. The concept of meat roasted on a vertical spit arrived in Greece primarily through the mass migration of Asia Minor refugees following the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) and the subsequent population exchange. It is a direct culinary cousin to the Turkish döner kebab, a food tradition perfected in the Ottoman Empire. For decades, it was a regional specialty, a portable piece of cultural memory. But it was only later, in the turbulence of a changing nation, that the gyro became the ubiquitous symbol of modern, restless Greek life.

The collapse of the military junta in 1974 inaugurated the Metapolitefsi, Greece’s long transition back to democratic life. Political prisoners were released. Exiles returned. Censorship fell with startling speed. The Communist Party was legalized, ending decades of enforced illegality. Parliamentary democracy reestablished itself, fragile but real. The trauma of dictatorship did not vanish, but it was no longer unspeakable.

In the decades that followed, Greece stabilized without fully healing. Entry into the European Economic Community in 1981, and later the European Union, promised prosperity, security, and belonging. Andreas Papandreou’s governments expanded the welfare state and elevated long-marginalized groups. Living standards rose. Credit flowed. Consumption replaced scarcity as the dominant experience of daily life. Democracy became routine.

Gyro flourished in this environment. Though its origins lay earlier, shaped by Asia Minor refugees and culinary cousins like döner, it became omnipresent in post-junta Greece. Pork and chicken turned behind glass storefronts across Athens and Thessaloniki, in provincial towns and ferry ports alike. Wrapped in pita with onion, tomato, fries, and tzatziki, gyro was cheap, filling, and egalitarian. It belonged to students, night-shift workers, taxi drivers, and families stretching wages at the end of the month. Unlike celebratory dishes tied to holidays or tables, gyro lived on sidewalks and street corners. It followed people into public space.

By the 2000s, that public space seemed secure. The adoption of the euro in 2001 brought low interest rates and easy borrowing. Infrastructure expanded. Construction boomed. The 2004 Olympic Games were staged as a declaration that Greece had arrived—modern, European, confident. Gyro shops multiplied, feeding tourists and locals alike. The spit kept turning. The costs remained invisible.

They surfaced suddenly.

In late 2009, Greece revealed that its deficit figures had been systematically understated for years. Trust evaporated. Markets panicked. Borrowing costs exploded. By 2010, Greece stood on the edge of sovereign default. The response came from outside: a series of bailout agreements negotiated with the European Union, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. In exchange for loans, Greece accepted austerity measures unprecedented in scale.

Wages were cut. Pensions slashed. Taxes raised. Public sector jobs vanished. Hospitals and schools hollowed out. Unemployment surged, particularly among the young. Entire households lost their primary income. What had been framed as a temporary correction became a grinding, open-ended crisis. For many Greeks, the post-junta promise, that life would gradually improve, that Europe guaranteed stability, collapsed almost overnight.

The streets filled again.

Beginning in 2010, Athens entered a cycle of protest that would define the decade. General strikes paralyzed the city. Ministries were occupied. Parliament was surrounded. Syntagma Square became a focal point of rage, debate, and endurance. Protesters clashed with riot police. Tear gas became routine. Fires burned. The language of crisis shifted from statistics to bodies: exhausted, unemployed, choking, marching.

Gyro was everywhere in this landscape, not as metaphor but as infrastructure. Vendors stationed themselves near protest routes. Shops stayed open late, feeding people who had spent hours chanting, running, and regrouping. Gyro was cheap enough for shrinking wallets, fast enough to eat between confrontations, and portable enough to carry through streets clouded with gas. It fueled people who could not go home, or who no longer had a home to return to.

Its form mattered. The rotating spit mirrored the sensation many Greeks described: a feeling of being trapped in an endless cycle, cuts followed by protests, protests followed by negotiations, negotiations followed by more cuts. Nothing seemed to move forward, only around. Each new austerity package shaved off another slice: income, security, time. The core remained, but thinner each year.

The political consequences were seismic. The parties that had governed since the restoration of democracy, PASOK and New Democracy, were increasingly seen as architects and enforcers of austerity. PASOK, once dominant, collapsed under the weight of association with the bailout agreements. Trust drained away.

Into this rupture stepped SYRIZA, a coalition of left-wing parties long confined to the margins. They spoke openly against austerity, against the memoranda, against the notion that economic necessity erased political choice. Their rhetoric echoed the streets rather than the boardrooms. They promised not revolution, but refusal.

Their rise was rapid and fueled by lived experience. In the elections of 2012, SYRIZA surged from obscurity to the center of political life. By the time campaigning began for the January 2015 election, their ascent felt inevitable. Alexis Tsipras, young, defiant, and visibly outside the old political caste, embodied the rejection of business-as-usual. His lack of polish was part of the appeal. He looked like someone who might have eaten gyro at a protest rather than catered meals at negotiations.

When SYRIZA won and Tsipras became prime minister, it marked a clear break with the post-junta political order. For the first time since the crisis began, a government had risen directly from the anger of the streets rather than fear of markets. Expectations were enormous. So were the constraints. 

Gyros continue to be the king of Greek street food.

If you’ve ever frequented a Greek-owned pizza place, you’ve seen or had a gyro. Try making one at home! Its definitely worth it.

Gyro (Homemade Greek Wraps)

Tender spiced meat with classic toppings.

1. Ingredients

Meat:

• 1 lb ground lamb/beef mix

• Onion, garlic, oregano, cumin, paprika

Plus: Pita, tzatziki, tomatoes, onions

Instructions

1. Mix meat with seasonings; form loaf, bake 350°F (175°C) 45–60 minutes.

2. Rest, slice thinly.

3. Lightly fry or grill slices of meat as you cut. 

4. Warm pita; fill with meat, tzatziki, veggies.

Tzatziki

• 1 cup Greek yogurt

• ½ cucumber, grated/squeezed

• 2 garlic cloves, minced

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tbsp vinegar or lemon

• Dill, salt

Mix; chill 30+ minutes.

Pastitsada: The Referendum at the Table

Pastitsada is the signature dish of Corfu, the largest of the Ionian Islands, and its story is one of foreign influence layered onto local custom. Its origin is traceable directly to the four centuries of Venetian rule (1386–1797), a period that left a mark on Corfiot language, architecture, and, most importantly, cuisine.

The dish is the island's luxurious adaptation of an Italian ragù, specifically the peverada or spezzatino (meat stew), married with pasta. However, the Venetians introduced two elements that transformed it from a simple stew into the distinctly Greek Pastitsada: abundant tomato (once it became available across Europe) and, crucially, a heavy use of warm spices like cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg. These spices were not common in mainland Greek cooking, but were favored by the Venetian trading empire, which had access to them via the spice routes.

Over time, this luxurious, slow-cooked meat and pasta dish became the centerpiece of Corfiot life, a required feature for every major celebration, from wedding feasts to Sunday lunches. Its complexity and cost became markers of status and family pride. It is a dish that speaks to abundance, time, and an unapologetic theatricality in the kitchen. It is not a crisis dish.

But it became one in 2015.

By the time SYRIZA came to power in January 2015, Greece had already endured half a decade of austerity. The bailout agreements signed since 2010 had hollowed out wages, pensions, and public services. Youth unemployment hovered near 50 percent. Emigration became a survival strategy. What had begun as emergency measures hardened into a permanent condition. The language of inevitability, there is no alternative, settled over political life.

SYRIZA’s rise was a rejection of that language. Born as a coalition of radical left parties, activists, and remnants of older socialist traditions, it had spent years opposing privatization, labor deregulation, and external control over Greek policy. During the height of the anti-austerity protests, SYRIZA was not merely present, it listened. Its leadership spoke of restoring sovereignty, ending the memoranda, and renegotiating Greece’s debt on humane terms. The promise was not utopia, but relief. Not abundance, but breathing room.

Alexis Tsipras became prime minister at thirty-nine, the youngest in modern Greek history. His victory felt generational. He did not carry the scars of exile or junta repression, but the exhaustion of a country that had followed every rule and still been punished. For many Greeks, SYRIZA’s win marked the first time since the crisis began that politics responded upward, from kitchens and streets, rather than downward from Brussels and Frankfurt.

From the beginning, SYRIZA’s government was hemmed in by reality. Greece remained dependent on external financing. Banks were fragile. The European Central Bank held decisive leverage. Negotiations with creditors began immediately, framed as a confrontation between democratic mandate and financial discipline. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis spoke openly of breaking with the logic of austerity, of refusing the moral framing that cast debt as sin and suffering as penance.

The response was cold. European institutions insisted on continuity: reforms, targets, cuts. The message was consistent, elections do not change economic obligations. Each meeting extended the crisis without resolving it. Capital fled the country. Liquidity tightened. The pressure was not subtle; it was structural.

Inside Greece, daily life grew more tense. Cash withdrawals were monitored. Businesses hesitated. Families counted expenses more carefully than ever. Still, something else persisted alongside fear: expectation. SYRIZA had not been elected to manage decline, but to stop it.

That expectation culminated in July 2015.

After months of stalled negotiations, Tsipras called for a referendum on the latest bailout proposal. Greeks would vote Yes or No, accept the terms demanded by creditors, or reject them and face uncertainty. It was a stark question, framed under extreme pressure. Banks were closed. Capital controls were imposed. ATMs dispensed limited cash. The future narrowed to a binary.

The referendum was not only about policy. It was about voice. For years, austerity had been implemented as necessity, insulated from popular consent. Now, for the first time, Greeks were asked directly whether they accepted the trade-off: stability at the price of continued impoverishment.

The result was unambiguous. Over 60 percent voted Oxi—No.

The celebration was immediate and emotional. Syntagma Square filled not with riot police and tear gas, but with flags, music, and exhausted relief. The vote was read not as a technical rejection of a document, but as a collective assertion of dignity. Greeks had been told repeatedly that resistance was irrational, irresponsible, even immoral. The referendum said otherwise.

In the days following the referendum, many Greeks cooked as an act of insistence, meals that took time, such as pastistsada, ingredients that cost more than necessary, tables that gathered people despite fear. 

And then, the reversal came.

Within days, the Oxi vote was effectively nullified. Faced with the threat of bank collapse and expulsion from the eurozone, the SYRIZA government accepted a new bailout agreement, harsher in many respects than the one rejected by voters. Privatizations resumed. Pension reforms deepened. Austerity continued.

The sense of betrayal was profound. Not because Greeks were naïve about power, but because the referendum had made that power visible. People had been asked to speak, and when they did, their answer was overridden by economic force. The lesson was brutal: sovereignty existed, but only within boundaries set elsewhere.

SYRIZA fractured. Varoufakis resigned. The party split between those who argued that compromise was unavoidable and those who saw capitulation as a moral collapse. Tsipras called new elections in September 2015 and won again, this time on a platform of managing austerity rather than ending it. The hope that had fueled the January victory narrowed into resignation.

Pastitsada after 2015 tasted different.

The dish did not disappear, but its context changed. It became rarer, reserved again for occasions that justified the expense. Its abundance felt heavier. What had once signaled confidence now carried memory: of what life had been, of what was defended and lost. Cooking it became an act of mourning as much as celebration.

The aftermath of the referendum did not produce mass uprising. Instead, it produced fatigue. Protest numbers dwindled. Cynicism deepened. Many Greeks concluded that resistance had been tried, and failed. Austerity became normalized, not because it was accepted, but because alternatives seemed unreachable. Politics narrowed from transformation to management.

Yet even in that narrowing, something remained.

The referendum did not change Greece’s economic trajectory, but it altered its historical record. It preserved a moment when refusal was articulated clearly and collectively. It left behind evidence that compliance was not inevitable, that consent was contested. Like pastitsada itself, the referendum was excessive, costly, and difficult to sustain, but it proved that another tempo of life had once been imaginable.

Pastitsada is not street food. It does not move. It waits. It sits at the center of the table and demands attention. In 2015, Greece paused long enough to ask what it was willing to become. The answer was spoken loudly, even if it was not honored.

Frankly, this has become one of my favorite pasta dishes. 

Pastitsada (Corfiot Spiced Meat Stew with Pasta)

Rich, aromatic Sunday stew.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs beef (or chicken/rooster), cubed

• Onions, garlic, tomatoes

• Red wine, spices: cinnamon stick, cloves, allspice, bay leaf

• 1 lb bucatini pasta

• Grated cheese (kefalotyri/Parmesan)

Instructions

1. Brown meat; sauté aromatics.

2. Deglaze with wine; add tomatoes, spices, water.

3. Simmer covered 2–3 hours until tender.

4. Cook pasta; toss in sauce or serve meat atop. Top with cheese.