The new cookbook “Kalí Órexi” includes vegetarian recipes

2024-09-24 11:39:50

Going to a Greek restaurant with a vegetarian is not fun in this country. Many times it boils down to one person sitting at the table with some fries and a farmer’s salad, while the plates of others are piled high with mountains of meat: gyros, souvlaki or bifteki; with anything with Metaxa sauce – phew. It’s no wonder that Greek food has a reputation for being heavy on meat. It involves all the animals sacrificed in ancient texts like Homer’s Odyssey.

The amazing cookbook “Kalí Órexi” by Kon Karapanagiotidis and his mother Sia shows that Greek food is not just a meat shop. Both have compiled over a hundred vegetarian and vegan recipes from Greek cuisine. Many recipes can be different from vegetarian to vegetarian. The book’s range extends from small mezzes to soups and pies to pasta dishes and desserts. Karapanagiotidis, who lives in Australia and is a full-time human rights lawyer and head of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, has also cleverly woven political ambitions into her first cookbook. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with wanting to ban meat from your readers. Instead, in this book he explores the question “how food can make us human, how it can transform and support communities, and how it can work as a tool of resistance and political advocacy,” he writes. .

Roast feta with honey, rosemary and thyme.Sarah Pannell

It’s no secret that food is political. Cookbooks such as Sean Sherman’s “Sioux Chef” are devoted to foods thought to be lost and re-appropriated from long-lost and forgotten traditions. Karapanagiotidis therefore also drew on the Greek historical event in his cookbook. From the wars of the past, the Nazi occupation, to the Greek military dictatorship to the conflicts of the last twenty years. Greek food is not a myth at all: “Our food has, among other things, roots in Afro-Asian cultures – the legacy of people like Pythagoras, who brought their favorite recipes back to Greece from study trips they went to Egypt. At the same time, we Greeks pass on some of our favorite sweets like halva and baklava, which are now just as easy to get in Cairo as in Athens” – gyros diplomacy, so to speak.

There is another aspect that Karapanagiotidis probably knows better as a refugee activist: Even those who have to leave their homeland with only the clothes on their backs take recipes from their home kitchens with them. Food is always the best way to arrive in a new country, in a new culture and to feel at home. But the gyros diplomacy always reaches its end: “The problem is always that our food is acceptable, but we are not.”

MoussakaSarah Pannell

This may sound a little more political, given that it’s done with a cookbook. Anyone offended by too much political intent in a cookbook might be tempted to ignore Karapanagiotidis’ words and turn to recipes. They are actually not so much vegetarian reinterpretations, but rather authentic dishes – some of the traditions go back to ancient times, as the author emphasizes, not without a fair amount of pride. The vegetarian lifestyle already had followers in ancient Greece. And even vegetarian dishes are common, such as “Polyspori”, vegetarian offerings to the gods in thanks for a bountiful harvest. This is a far cry from the hecatombs from the Odyssey.

Eating as a social affair

But the dishes from “Kalí Órexi” are also very pleasant to offer to the gods: delicacies like eggplant braised in tomato sauce or “Spanakopita” cake or lighter mezze variations, different which can be put on the table. Karapanagiotidis mother and son’s meal is also one in which many dishes end up on the table and everyone can help themselves. So the book is very much in line with the culture of viewing food as a social issue.

Kali Orexi. Greek family recipes vegetarian & vegan. By Kon and Sia Karapanagiotidis, ars vivendi publisher, 304 pages, 32 euros.Verlag art of living

Many of the recipes in the book are surprisingly simple and down-to-earth – in keeping with the idea of ​​presenting cuisine from the Greek working class. In most cases, the ingredients are quite easy to obtain. It’s best that the dishes are not over-hyped or over-hyped with over-the-top delicacies. The photos that show Karapanagiotidis and his mother in the kitchen are also surprisingly down-to-earth and appear carefree – as if they were taken spontaneously at home. And the fact that Deborah Kaloper’s food style and Sarah Pannell’s photos avoid using Greek clichés is good for the book – the only thing they can’t resist is the occasional blue and white color. Photos of Karapanagiotidis in the kitchen, in the kitchen or in the garden, pictures of the table, full of wine and delicious food, lit by the dangerous Australian sun – all this makes ” Kali Órexi” looks amazing and irreverent.

Despite the clearly established political right, the book focuses on two things in particular: hospitality and joy – in cooking and eating. As you scroll through it, you almost want to call it to Karapanagiotidis himself. But because – let’s be honest – that is impossible, there is one thing that helps: cook yourself and invite friends.