in Greece, eat meat

in Greece, eat meat

[ Sept.2017 ] After being moved by the view of the famous Shipwreck Beach in Zakynthos in Greece, it was the time for lunch.

I was hungry and concentrating on eating, so I forgot to write down the name of the restaurant or the name of the place unfortunately, but on the way here, we saw an old olive tree which was too old for anyone to guess exactly how old, so the restaurant was near there.

This tree was in the village of Exo Chora and some people say it is more than 2000 years old but it still bears fruits.

We saw something similar in Portugal this year.

You many think it is a leap in logic, but anytime when I see something like this, I wish I would live long healthily like it.

Well, the restaurant was on a cliff where we could see the dazzling sea.

The colour of the sea here was greenish like emerald or Chrysocolla, which was very beautiful, too.

We ate sausages as the starter and then I chose stewed beef with tomato called “Ragu”.

My husband chose stewed rabbit.

They were simple but tasty, like home cooking.

I could imagine that local people here eat these kind of foods at home.

Greece is deeply connected with the sea, so it is easy to think that their local foods are seafood, but in fact, they eat more meat than fish.

On our arrival, we asked the hotel receptionist to recommend a good local fish restaurant and she looked a bit in difficulty and pointed out one restaurant on a map, but to be honest, it was not so good.

Some time ago, when we were in Naxos, I remember that the guide said “People here eat meat which they can grow inland rather than seafood which they have to take a risk to get it”.

Here we sat together with our tour mates, a mother and a daughter from Israel, so I leaned a bit about their country.

In Israel they all have to do the military services and usually it comes after graduating high school.

Women have to do it for two years and men for three years.

After the duty, they usually go travelling to the world for about a half year, then go to university.

So many countries, so many customs.

After eating we just went back to the town.

On the way back, we saw an area where they had had a forest fire.

According to Katerina, our guide, this year it was worse than usual.

And apparently in Peloponnesus where she was from, they had a very bad fire ten years ago and dozens of people died.

Her own uncle was injured badly and had to stay in the hospital for three months.

This kind of forest fire is usually started not naturally but on purpose by someone and locally people know who are responsible, but there is unwritten rules not to make the matter public.

I heard a very similar story in Italy, too.

About this Katerina, I thought at first she was not particularly friendly, but gradually we got closer.

When we parted, she gave us a postcard with her message and we hugged to say good-bye.