Tasia's Table: Cooking with the Artisan Cheesemaker at Belle Chevre

My history before I turned fifteen was mostly shaped by my Alabama horizons: the creeks, Guntersville Lake, the feel of the grasses on my bare feet, and the smells of my grandmother’s lunches served on the dock. It is difficult for me to describe a meaningful day in my life without using the word “food,” and that has a great deal to do with my Southern heritage and maternal grandmother.

But “food” for me also has a great deal to do with my Greek heritage, which I didn’t come into until I was a young adult.

I traveled to Greece for the first time, at fifteen, to visit my family there. I didn’t speak the language or understand intrinsically the culture I was being introduced to, but it ended up shaping me nonetheless.

The amazing thing is that these two seemingly very different cultures are, in actuality, very similar— very, very similar— especially where food and hospitality are concerned. Aren’t I lucky?

Both cultures have an unspoken language that dominates the traditions of the table. I still to this day don’t speak much Greek, and my Greek stepmother doesn’t speak much English, but I came to understand that the language in which love is communicated to one’s family is the kind that you can put on your plate. The number one reason I continue to go to Greece, aside from my beloved family, is the food. It’s best served in someone’s home (although the tavernas do a pretty damned good job) because Greeks have an almost fierce desire to please one’s guests, not with lavish furnishings in one’s home, and not with the witty and stimulating conversation (though those are always lively), but with the food.

Women in Greece, not unlike women in the South, compete for attention on who makes the best fritters or moussaka— even family members vie for the title of “the best”; I do with my two Greek sisters. The only difference I can articulate between the two cultures in this aspect has to do with articulation itself— Greeks are vividly verbal whereas a Southern lady would demurely defer her rightful title to someone else.

The Southern Recipes website (olsouthrecipes.com) has a section called “Etiquette at the Southern Table.” I couldn’t help smiling when I read that “much of Southern life revolves around food, and when you enter a Southerner’s home, even for a casual visit, you should expect to be offered a snack and beverage.” Interestingly enough, these customs could just as easily describe a dinner table in Greece.

To arrive at my grandmother’s house as a child to spend a weekend or sometimes an exultant whole week was to be rewarded with treats in all the corners and cupboards in her kitchen. The freezer and pantry, the pot on the stove, and the biscuit bowl on her counter all held wonders.

I knew when a visit was due when she called and said that she was cooking up things that only I adored.

My beloved Southern grandmother is no longer living, but I discover the same joy from my stepmother every time I visit my family in Greece.

I was given a wonderful gift with both of these heritages, and it is an easy one to share. For me, cooking and feeding friends and family are, and will always be, forms of celebration, times to play.

Here are a few of my favorite Southern recipes and a few of my favorite Greek ones.

Cheeseburger in Paradise

On my first trip to Greece to spend a summer with my Greek family, my fifteen-year-old self did not make friends with the food. I thought that they had it all wrong.

My Greek stepmother is a Greek goddess sent to earth in mortal form to make sure her brood’s every need is met— but not in a June Cleaver kind of way, as she is just as fiery as any Greek. She tried so hard to please my fickle teenage-American sensibilities with her cooking.

Thinking Americans like eggs and bacon for breakfast, that is what I got, but it was not bacon by my assessment, and the eggs were scrambled all wrong and brown and with the bacon cooked in it.

And it wasn’t just the eggs and bacon that were twisted.

Three weeks into that first trip I thought I might die if I couldn’t have something familiar to eat. My father noted my discontent and told me that if I could just hold on until later in the week we would go to a place, a special place, a few towns over that made a fantastic cheeseburger. He was going well out of his way to please me and I knew it and I also knew that it must indeed be a great place, one schooled in the ways of American fare, as he, true to fashion, had built it up in my mind as the best (a phrase that I now realize accompanied anything that he liked).

Over the next few days, I had dreams of that cheeseburger like a teenage boy might dream of, well, whatever it is that teenage boys dream of.

The day finally came. I remember walking up to the restaurant— a small bar-like place that had a counter where you could order and just a few small tables inside spilling out to more on the sidewalk. The sign outside had the comforting and familiar red and white of my Coca-Cola South, a sign that meant to me at that moment that we had come to the right place.

Alas, when the cheeseburger was delivered there was no familiar orangey cheese melting and spilling outside its bun borders. Yet the fries that I ordered were spilling out! Fries on the burger??!! There were onions, but they were cooked inside the patty ( just like the bacon all mingled inside the eggs).

My heart had already sunk just looking at it after it was delivered. It was not a cheeseburger, and to my limited and very shallow fifteen-year-old-self I was not in paradise.

Heat oil in deep-fat fryer to 365 degrees. Drop batter by tablespoonfuls into oil and fry until golden brown, roughly 3 minutes.

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. In a bowl, combine all ingredients without overmixing; I use my hands. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook’s note : If you like, you can place a tiny ball-shaped piece of meat in a hot skillet to test for correct seasoning.

Form 1½-inch balls from the mixture. Place balls on a wire rack set on top of a baking sheet. (These are more traditional if fried in olive oil on the stove top, but I find that the oven at high heat gives a great crispy texture and saves the messy frying.)