GREECE – HARRY KALOGEROPOULOS
Harry
Journalist. Food lover. Focus on the creative aspect of cooking, yet exploring the basics of gastronomic taste. He loves Indian, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. The meeting took place at a cozy Asian restaurant in Athens, which he picked. That was an early indication of his culinary preferences.
Through his mother, Harry draws his ancestry from Izmir, a place well known for its culinary tradition. “I began to cook myself, when my mother was no longer able to cook, because she got sick. I was thirty, by then.” Ever since, cooking is of major interest for him, in terms of practicing cooking, as well as exploring the materials, either from international cuisines or with regard to the Greek nature. Harry speaks of herbs of the Greek land, which are minimally used, yet they have extraordinary gastronomic potential.
Harry sees in cooking a means of communication. He often invites friends over for dinner and cooking sets the tone of communication. “At times, I invited people and the topic was the food, itself. We were getting so absorbed that we started talking about the culinary concept of the next dinner we were to have together.”
His favorite cuisines are all from the East, namely Indian, Chinese and Japanese. Though he refers to Asian cuisines, Harry mentions different reasons for his preferences. “I have never been to India” he says. “Though, I love Indian music, I love Indian food… It’s as if I’ve been there. Indian cuisine is an explosion of flavors. If it were painting and flavors were colors, it would be Gauguin or Matisse.” By contrast, he focuses one a specific feature of the Chinese cuisine, namely the sweet taste, which is not so familiar in Greek cuisine. Whereas he sees Japanese cuisine as a “philosophical cuisine”! “It’s Zen. It’s as if you meditate.”
Shopping habits
Naturally, he has explored the ethnic little stores where he buys spices and all necessary material and foodstuffs, each time he has to cook something from the East. “It’s quite an experience” he says “because you get to those stores and often you go by the ear. It’s not easy to know all those things you can find there, the packages are not always very helpful and the people who work there cannot help you, sometimes. In the end, you find your way.”
That much for exotic material, though. Most of his shopping is done in one super-market, in his neighborhood. There are items, though, which he picks from small specialized stores, either because they are hard to find or because of a better variety he may find in those stores.
Perception of quality
Harry made it clear that he does not follow specific “trendy” directions, when it comes to nutrition. “I’m a bit skeptical with all this nutrition discourse. The experts’ opinions change quite often. I’d rather go with quite about everything, yet in moderation.” As he explains, there are almost no forbidden materials, in spite of certain norms which are in fashion, at a time. In this sense, the dilemma taste vs. health is a non issue for Harry. Taste is important, though it does not militate against health, as long as nutrition is balanced. After all, “the human body needs it all.”
Harry referred to the discourse on Mediterranean cooking and what he sees as a set of widespread misconceptions. “All of a sudden, there is a tendency to use olive oil in everything. Olive oil is great, I love it, I use it a lot myself, but it cannot replace butter, for instance. Once you need to use butter and you go with olive oil, you produce a different dish.”
He actually uses both, yet it is clear that he sees a place for each. “Traditional Greek dishes with vegetables, cooked in a pan are very well made with olive oil. You don’t need to change that. Creamy sauces, though, or roasted meats usually need butter. Not much necessarily, but it must be there.”
Harry only goes for packaged butter. Interestingly, in spite of his pursuit of variety in cooking he ended up using almost exclusively Lurpak. “I used to like the Corfu butter. I think its peppery taste is good (as a spread) in a traditional Greek breakfast. Lurpak, though, has an unprecedented finesse. I’d use it on all occasions that I use butter.”
He would use it in small portions to come up with the fine taste he is after, as well as the thickness of sauces he prepares. “Moderation is the key” he mentioned.
Or alternatively, he would mix both olive oil and butter, each time he wants to cook meat with a vegetable garnish. Harry is a great fan of wild herbs of the Greek land, which he usually picks himself. “For instance, I love kafkalithra (Tordylium apulum), a herb very few people know and even less use in cooking. I pick it myself, of course. The result may be miraculous, if you garnish meat. I’d use butter to cook the meat and olive oil to prepare the garnish.”
Harry
Journalist. Food lover. Focus on the creative aspect of cooking, yet exploring the basics of gastronomic taste. He loves Indian, Chinese and Japanese cuisine. The meeting took place at a cozy Asian restaurant in Athens, which he picked. That was an early indication of his culinary preferences.
Through his mother, Harry draws his ancestry from Izmir, a place well known for its culinary tradition. “I began to cook myself, when my mother was no longer able to cook, because she got sick. I was thirty, by then.” Ever since, cooking is of major interest for him, in terms of practicing cooking, as well as exploring the materials, either from international cuisines or with regard to the Greek nature. Harry speaks of herbs of the Greek land, which are minimally used, yet they have extraordinary gastronomic potential.
Harry sees in cooking a means of communication. He often invites friends over for dinner and cooking sets the tone of communication. “At times, I invited people and the topic was the food, itself. We were getting so absorbed that we started talking about the culinary concept of the next dinner we were to have together.”
His favorite cuisines are all from the East, namely Indian, Chinese and Japanese. Though he refers to Asian cuisines, Harry mentions different reasons for his preferences. “I have never been to India” he says. “Though, I love Indian music, I love Indian food… It’s as if I’ve been there. Indian cuisine is an explosion of flavors. If it were painting and flavors were colors, it would be Gauguin or Matisse.” By contrast, he focuses one a specific feature of the Chinese cuisine, namely the sweet taste, which is not so familiar in Greek cuisine. Whereas he sees Japanese cuisine as a “philosophical cuisine”! “It’s Zen. It’s as if you meditate.”
Shopping habits
Naturally, he has explored the ethnic little stores where he buys spices and all necessary material and foodstuffs, each time he has to cook something from the East. “It’s quite an experience” he says “because you get to those stores and often you go by the ear. It’s not easy to know all those things you can find there, the packages are not always very helpful and the people who work there cannot help you, sometimes. In the end, you find your way.”
That much for exotic material, though. Most of his shopping is done in one super-market, in his neighborhood. There are items, though, which he picks from small specialized stores, either because they are hard to find or because of a better variety he may find in those stores.
Perception of quality
Harry made it clear that he does not follow specific “trendy” directions, when it comes to nutrition. “I’m a bit skeptical with all this nutrition discourse. The experts’ opinions change quite often. I’d rather go with quite about everything, yet in moderation.” As he explains, there are almost no forbidden materials, in spite of certain norms which are in fashion, at a time. In this sense, the dilemma taste vs. health is a non issue for Harry. Taste is important, though it does not militate against health, as long as nutrition is balanced. After all, “the human body needs it all.”
Harry referred to the discourse on Mediterranean cooking and what he sees as a set of widespread misconceptions. “All of a sudden, there is a tendency to use olive oil in everything. Olive oil is great, I love it, I use it a lot myself, but it cannot replace butter, for instance. Once you need to use butter and you go with olive oil, you produce a different dish.”
He actually uses both, yet it is clear that he sees a place for each. “Traditional Greek dishes with vegetables, cooked in a pan are very well made with olive oil. You don’t need to change that. Creamy sauces, though, or roasted meats usually need butter. Not much necessarily, but it must be there.”
Harry only goes for packaged butter. Interestingly, in spite of his pursuit of variety in cooking he ended up using almost exclusively Lurpak. “I used to like the Corfu butter. I think its peppery taste is good (as a spread) in a traditional Greek breakfast. Lurpak, though, has an unprecedented finesse. I’d use it on all occasions that I use butter.”
He would use it in small portions to come up with the fine taste he is after, as well as the thickness of sauces he prepares. “Moderation is the key” he mentioned.
Or alternatively, he would mix both olive oil and butter, each time he wants to cook meat with a vegetable garnish. Harry is a great fan of wild herbs of the Greek land, which he usually picks himself. “For instance, I love kafkalithra (Tordylium apulum), a herb very few people know and even less use in cooking. I pick it myself, of course. The result may be miraculous, if you garnish meat. I’d use butter to cook the meat and olive oil to prepare the garnish.”
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