THE WORLD DOT ATOMICO Posts

οίνος / OY-nos / wine
κρασί / kra-SEE / wine

Seemed appropriate to do something romantic for Valentine’s Day so I was thinking about last year when we here and got a jug of oinomelo gifted to us by the taverna we had spent three hours in. I went to Google Translate to ask it how to spell the Greek word for wine and it said …

KRASI

Both are technically the Greek word for wine. Oinos is the ancient Greek word for wine, and while it is still used, it mostly just turns up as parts of words, like oinomelo (honeyed wine) and oinopoios (winemaker). It’s also the root word of both the Latin vin / vino and the English word wine. Meanwhile, krasi is the modern word for wine, and it has its roots in an old Greek word that meant “mixed” because it was common for Greeks to mix their wine with water to dilute it.

Anyways, it’s Friday, gonna put my head on my pillow and dream about the krasì I’m gonna consume this weekend. (The non-diluted kind.)

μαστίχα / mass-TEEK-uh / mastic liqueur

It’s almost the weekend and I woke up this morning thinking of the smashed crispy potatoes we had LAST weekend at this little taverna near the northern edge of Plaka.

(I blame Russ, because late last night while I was trying to entertain myself with Youtube videos, I saw a Brian Lagerstrom video about potato techniques that foremostly featured pavé, so I of course had to watch it, and then later in the video he boiled some little Yukon gold baby potatoes and then smashed them and panfried them, and that was pretty close to the potatoes from last weekend, oh god I’m just gonna go get them now.)

ANYWAYS.

We had found this taverna early on this year but had just kinda wandered through it in our first weekend walking through Plaka, and decided to try it out when we were looking for a late dinner last Saturday. We got bekri meze and some grilled pork … part? (I don’t know what it was, the English menu said “pancetta” I think? and it could have been? whatever pancetta is made from? pork belly? oh yeah it could have been pork belly) and obviously some wine and we ate and laughed and got more wine and at the end of the night, the waiter brought out a couple of pieces of cake and a couple of shot glasses of a clear liquid which I expected was going to be ouzo but ended up being mastika.

Mastika is another of these traditional Greek digestive liqueurs, very VERY sweet, with an almost floral underlying flavor. Definitely not licorice-y like ouzo or sambuca, which makes it more enjoyable for me at least!

Greeks are about as serious about their coffee as the Italians are. It’s a culture with a weird combination of Turkish / Balkan coffee and espresso, and third-wave coffee roasters and coffee shops are right around the corner from old-school coffee roasters with giant vats set up right out on the sidewalk.

We figured out freddo espresso last year when I saw someone order one in a shop of Lefkada (and then watched the barista make it). Basically what happens is the barista pulls a shot of espresso into a cup with a little sugar, adds a couple ice cubes, then puts the cup onto a milkshake blender. The blender froths up the espresso, the ice cubes melt and dilute it a little bit, and then the result is poured over more ice.

Definitely a delicious milk-free coffee option, especially in cafes or coffee chains that don’t always have cold brew available, especially in the winter.

(and the best part is, it usually only costs about two bucks)

συγνώμη / sig-NO-mee / excuse me

I learned this one out of necessity. Greek pedestrians have two nasty habits: One, if you are walking towards them head-on, they will move to their left to try and walk around you, so when you move to your right, you end up bumping into them. Two, if there is a choice between a wide open space on one side of you and the tiniest gap between you and a wall on the other side, they will prefer to squeeze awkwardly through that gap. (Greeks love a good gap.) Signomi is the “excuse me for bumping into you” kind of excuse me.

It also works if you want to get someone’s attention, like the waiter at the taverna.

Also I had to check the spelling on that five times. I gotta do a block about Η vs Ε and Υ vs Ι and Ο vs Ω because I am not sure if there are differences / what situations those differences arise in!

γεία σας / YAH-sahs / hello, goodbye, cheers

Ah yes, the Greek aloha! Yassas starts every conversation in a shop or restaurant, is the greeting you hear between people in the streets, what you say to start drinking, it probably also is a derogatory football term and what you say at a bar mitzvah for all I know. It’s the buenas dias, the bonjour, the ohayoo …

… the aloha.