Η καλή μέρα από το πρωϊ φαίνεται
“A good day starts from the morning.”
In the Greek kitchen, there are two tiers of breakfast. There is the proino (pronounced pro-ee-NO), breakfast proper; and the kolatsio (ko-lat-si-O), sometimes also called dekatiano, which means “tenth,” for the approximate time of the morning most people, whether at work in an office or a field, or at school, start to feel peckish and in need of a snack. More recently, a third breakfast tier—brunch—has taken hold in Athens and beyond.
Greeks of another generation wisely used to say it’s best to eat like a king at breakfast, a prince at lunch, and a pauper at dinner. In these days of fraying traditions, most urban Greeks do pretty much the opposite, forgoing the filling porridges of yore for something to grab on the go in the morning: one of the sweet or savory dunking biscuits called voutimata; or a small frigania, something akin to melba toast; or paximadia, rusks, that are enjoyed with coffee or with an herbal infusion—the latter woven into the tapestry of traditional customs that are still going strong.
But there are dozens of great foods, culled from Greek traditions or inspired by older recipes, that make excellent breakfast choices. Any of the savory pies (here), for example, provide substantial morning fare. The range of Greek cheeses and olives, accompanied by a slice or two of good tomatoes or fruit and rusks or good bread, are easy choices for a quick but healthy morning meal.
The traditional farm breakfast used to be a dense, steaming bowl of porridge made either from cracked wheat, bulgur, or trahana (see here). There is a tepid revival of this heady fare, and the recipe in this chapter, inspired by the offering at Avli restaurant in Rethymnon, Crete, is a delicious concoction of creamy bulgur studded with pomegranate seeds and raisins and perfumed with cinnamon.
Egg dishes are endless and delineated either by region or by ingenuity. Everyone loves a good omelet, for example, which makes for an easy first meal and just as easy an evening one. There are plenty of local, regional omelet dishes all around Greece, and some of them are included here.
My favorite Greek egg recipe is a kind of local egg-in-a-hole, the hole being not carved from bread slices but a hollow made in a skillet full of sautéed greens.
Breakfast, at least to my mind, is also an opportunity to have some fun in the kitchen. On my table, there’s usually something sweet and relatively healthy: an olive oil–lemon cake, nut-studded muffins inspired by the flavors of baklava, some of those dunking biscuits mentioned earlier.
The idea is to leave the house sated each morning, better able to face the world! In this chapter, I offer up a few of my personal favorite Greek or Greek-inspired breakfast goodies.
The popularity of Greek yogurt has opened up a whole new world of breakfast possibilities. Most “Greek yogurt” in the United States bears little resemblance to the range of yogurts one finds in Greece. These include the thick, protein-rich cow’s-milk yogurt now ubiquitously called Greek yogurt around the globe but distinguished in Greece as strangisto or “drained,” because once the yogurt is set, it is placed in large muslin bags and hung overnight so the whey drains out, resulting in the thick texture that has won over the world. Few of the American facsimiles of this product are actually drained, which is something to note when reading labels. (Most are thick because protein and thickening agents have been added to the product.)
Greek yogurt in Greece can be made from cow’s, sheep’s, or goat’s milk. Any of these yogurts can also be strained. Then there is a range of plain (and flavored) unstrained yogurts that are creamy and light, but not particularly thick. There is also my personal favorite, the selection of traditional yogurts usually set in small clay pots, and characterized by the delicious sour, thin, but almost leathery skin that forms on the surface.
One thing is for sure everywhere: Greek yogurt of every ilk is delicious with honey—preferably also Greek—and the two combined are an ancient and timeless breakfast pair.
Other things to mix into a bowl of Greek yogurt run the gamut from petimezi (grape molasses) or vyssino (sour cherry) syrup to fresh herbs combined with fruit or any combination of refreshing vegetables. Throw in some ice and press start on a blender to open up a whole world of smoothies or, as this scribe might pen them—Greek Yogurt Grab-and-Gos!
