Vegin' out in Greece -- Vegan Traditional Greek Dishes
- Han Han
- Nov 20, 2018
- 5 min read
I was blessed enough to spend a summer in Greece working as a tour guide. The job was brilliant and very, very rewarding but being vegan in a country where, if you ask for a meat and dairy free sandwich they suggest Ham and Cheese is rough as guts.
This is an accurate representation of my life in ruins, I mean...Greece 😜😜
Also getting body shamed on the daily for having pale skin, "Why you so white? Go to the beach!" Yeah, thanks random guy in the street for that lovely, uplifting advice... But they do mean well, they're like a really filterless grandma. They want you to eat meat and cheese because they still believe that you have to in order to be healthy. They want you to have a tan because.......well maybe they see being pale as a sign that you're sick or staying inside too much idk. But the real tragedy her is that *sigh* I did have a tan......😭😭😭 #paleproblems
Now getting back to my main point, it was tough being vegan there but all things considered it wasn't as impossible as the clip above made me feel it would be.
Greece still has a ways to go before ideas like banning single use plastic, taxing cigarettes or heck even stocking organic suncream become normal and wide spread. For instance, there were A LOT of bar crawls involved in my job and every time I ordered a drink the bartender would go to give me a straw and before he put it in my drink I'd be like "No, no, no, really, thank you, but I don't want a straw." and then, without fail, they'd all react the same way, look confused, shrug and then instead of putting it back in the container, throw it away. What's worse is that most of them would use two straws at a time, so bam, thats 2 turtles choking on plastic 😭😭😭 Yeah, it was really hard living there sometimes.
BUT there is a small and thriving vegan and vego community that is filled with educated and passionate people who are doing so much to raise awareness about environmental issues and also show people, tourists and locals alike, how easy it is to be vegan and of course vegetarian.
I was so blessed to meet some of these people and enjoy they're amazing food whenever I could! So this is by no means an exhaustive list because I was working most of the time so I generally stuck with what I knew and what I liked *cough, cough* Vegan Nation *cough*, however 6 months and 5 destinations has given me a pretty great list!
Eating Vegan in Greece
I figured a good way to start off this series of posts would be to tell you about the options you can enjoy anywhere in the country because they are traditional dishes, tradish, if you will 😜 First up is: Gemista,
Pronounced: "Yem-ist-ah"
Yeah, Mister! That's right, I present a delicious af, healthy and homemade tradish. You can get this is in, I want to say any Greek restaurant but I haven't eaten in all of them so I don't know, but its EVERYWHERE! 🙏🙏🙏🍅🍅🍅🤤🤤🤤 Essentially, its a hollowed out tomato and capsicum that is then stuffed with rice and herbs and its tasty af. Now, I never encountered this issue but I've been told it can happen, so, always check with the waiter what they use to stuff the veggies because sometimes they can make Gemista with meat in the stuffing, but like I said I never saw this.
Pro Tip: Click the pic for a cheeky recipe 😜
Staying on the theme of stuffing......Dolmades!
Pronounced: "Dol-mah-des"
More like, Dolma-YES!! Am I right?! Ugh, these little guys are absolutely perfect for a snack when you're out and about and like Gemista, because they're tradish, you can find them EVERYWHERE!
They are very similar to Gemista actually as they are stuffed with rice and herbs but obviously they aren't capsicums and tomatoes, those my friends, are grape leaves!
One great thing about Dolmades is that you can get them in tins so if you know you're going out with some friends maybe on a hike or to the beach and you're worried about starving because the majority of Greek cafes and restaurants will offer you a tuna salad sandwich with mayo when you try to explain vegan to them. OR and this ACTUALLY HAPPENED to me, you could order a very clearly marked VEGAN BURGER and get it with cheese. Cows cheese. Yup. So anyway, you're worried about starving, pack a can of dolmades because they are cheap, easy to chuck in your handbag and actually a pretty satisfying feed!
Which brings us to, BRIAM!
Pronounced: "Bree-um" I think you mean Bri-yum!! This is basically a plate of all the best veggies, (tomatoes, eggplants and zucchinis) the way I always saw it in restaurants was fried eggplants smothered in a tasty af tomato and herb sauce, however according to Google this is what tradish Briam looks like. Where would be without Google? Because this is such a traditional dish like Gemista and Dolmades you can find this in most restaurants as well, so its really easy to find it when you're going out for dinner or lunch.
And last but DEFINITELY NOT LEAST........ Giant Beans,
(As always you can click the pic for a cheeky recipe 🤤🤤😜) Oh hot damn my love for these babies goes so deep.
Aside from the delicious joy this tradish will bring to your taste buds with every bite, another great point about them is that they can also be bought in cans like dolmades!
So if you happen to be a lucky son of a gun staying somewhere with a kitchen like a nice hostel or an Airbnb then load up on these darlings right now!! UGH THEY ARE SO GOOD!
As you can see they are giant beans, I think they are ussually butter beans, drowned in a rich and soupy, herbed tomato sauce. My personal go to whenever I was home from a tour was pasta topped with these guys and a whole lot of soy cheese 🤤🤤🤤 For example;
I must have run out of soy cheese when this was taken but yes, this is my idea of flirting....#sendfoods
Something to bear in mind with any of these dishes is always to double check with your waiter that they prepare it without meat, cheese, milk or butter. Generally in Greece, they use olive oil for everything instead of butter but ALWAYS check.
Now enough with the preliminaries and on to the main event!
See you guys in the next post 😜
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