European foodie adventures | thefidgetyfoodie

Kythera… my island home

Posted on August 13, 2023 by thefidgetyfoodie

Santorini, Mykonos, Crete, Paros.

Bet you’ve been there, strolled past the white-washed houses, tasted the moussaka and drunk the ouzo.

Yamas!

These are all gorgeous, albeit very-touristy islands. And rightly so. They ooze the essence of Greek island life with their bougainvillea-lined cobblestone laneways and evocative taverna lifestyle. Who doesn’t dream of living a Greek island lifestyle?

Except that the Greek island lifestyle wasn’t always so picturesque.

If it was, my papouthes and yiayathes would not have fled in the 1930s and 1940s respectively to start new lives in Australia.

Their Greek island was especially exposed. Its strategic location in the Ionian Sea had made it a red hot target through history and any conqueror worth their sea salt made their way there; Venetians, Turks, French, English, Nazis…… when my Thea Marika once pointed to the second-story of the family home dating to the 1500s and told me they used to hurl hot oil through the window to scare the pirates below – she wasn’t kidding.

That island is Kythera.

Where you ask?

Exactly.

With the pirates now less of an issue, Kythera is the under-the-radar Greek island that you’ve never heard about and with any luck it will stay that way. Its strategic location, marooned between the Peloponnese and Crete, was a drawcard for those pirates but doesn’t suit modern-day travellers. You can’t ferry hop easily the way you can between the Cycladic islands. There’s only one flight a day in summer in a plane that fits 20 people. Traverse the island’s perilous roads in a bus at your peril. Mass tourism is literally not possible.

Which means that the only non-locals you encounter when you visit are the other Kytherian-Aussies who visit in droves in the summer months. Locating my extended family is as easy as strolling along Kapsali beach on my way to have a frappe.

It feels indulgent to have 100% lineage from one single island. To have visited the houses where my grandparents grew up and walked through villages bearing their name, e.g. Kastrissianika which is named after my Papou Con’s family. (Side note: where is the village of Megaloconomosanika?).

Being in Kythera reawakens part of my culinary soul. Of course I was eating the delicious food that originated from Kythera from the moment I started on solids. And many traditions followed my family across the sea to their new homes in Australia. But being in my homeland connects me to those traditions like configuring pieces of a puzzle.

Dad points out Papou’s hut through the horafia

Olives – the bedrock of Greek culture – are a good place to start. The foliage makes up crowns, the fruit is delicious to eat and the oil is essential in rituals (and deters those pesky pirates). I’ve always maintained that the secret to Greek cooking is 50% love and 50% olive oil. But that never feels as prescient as it does when I am standing in the olive groves that have been part of my family’s subsistence for over 100 years. While one olive tree looks the same as the next (at least to me), what sets this grove apart is the hut at the back that my Papou Peter built when he was a teenager so he would have somewhere to sleep when spending long days tending to the trees.

The other main source of subsistence was horta, or wild greens, which I have written about before in an effort to explain why Greeks love weeds. Not a single meal on my recent trip passed without a bowl of vlita on the table with lemon and olive oil.

“Give me horta and horiatiki (Greek salad) and I’m happy” declared mum.

It’s hard to find the exact same greens in Australia. There were murmurs of smuggling in seeds from Kythera so we could recreate the exact breeds here. I’m fairly sure the older generations did exactly that.

While vlita is in season during summer it switches to rathikia a few months later. Eating in season is the only way Greeks eat and it’s a revelation. You want figs in July? Go home and come back in August because that’s when they’re in season and that’s when you’ll get them. Not a moment before or after.

That’s the reason why kolokythi, zucchini, was in every second dish while we were in Kythera. It was in season, it tasted great, so the entire island got involved. The idea of bringing in produce from elsewhere so it’s always available is never a consideration. We ended one meal with fresh karpouzi or watermelon. Our host noted that watermelon wasn’t grown on the island and it had come from the Peloponnese, in a tone of regret that implied the Peloponnese was a far-flung foreign country versus being the Greek mainland.

That was a particularly memorable lunch. It started at 3.30pm, which seems ridiculous until you consider that dinner is usually eaten around 10pm. Once you acclimatise to Greek time you never look back.

The cocky foodie in me thought I had Greek sweets down pat. I’ve been known to eat galaktoboureko for breakfast and will move heaven and earth to track down the best bougatsa in town. I didn’t expect to unearth a new (for me) sweet and was delighted when I did. It was mum who put portokalopita on my radar and we ate our way through copious amounts while on the island. It’s made from phyllo drenched in orange syrup and I am now officially obsessed. No Greek cake shop in Sydney seems to make it (why, why?!!) so I will have to turn my hand to it instead.

It would be remiss of me to talk about Kythera without talking about the sea. The waters around the island are special, but don’t take my word for it. The ancient poet Hesiod recounts in his epic Theogony that Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was born in the foam of the sea of Kythera. As far as I’m concerned we’re distant cousins and I’ve forgiven her for defecting to Cyprus.

The influence of the sea is strong in my family. Both of my papous were in the Greek navy. By the time they came to Australia their maritime roots ran deep and profoundly influenced their lives. My Papou Peter was a deep-sea fisherman and also the seafood chef at the Royal Automobile Club. My dad was the lucky kid at school with lobster sandwiches in his lunchbox.

My Papou Con ran the most buzzing fish shop in Sydney in the 1950s and 1960s – Wynyard Fish Supplies – with his brothers. It was the go-to place for city workers to pick up their seafood essentials, especially on a Friday.

Greek food is never just about the food. It’s the vessel that brings loved ones together to share, laugh and live life. Holidays in Kythera revolve around your morning frappe, which taverna to meet at for lunch (Pierros in Livadi or Lemonokipos in Karavas?), and where to reconvene in the evening. On Sundays, the bulk of the 4,000 strong island gravitates to Potamos for the Sunday market and the chance to reunite with friends, complain over coffee and peruse the local gliko (spoon sweets) or ladi (oil). If the entire island didn’t already know you were in Kythera, they do now.

The beauty of Kythera is not just Aphrodite’s legacy. It’s not only the sand, sea and sweet smell of golden grass and olive wood (so intoxicating that French luxury brand Hermès has bottled it into a fragrance – Un Jardin a Cythere). Kythera is the origin story for this fidgety foodie and a place that will always feel like home.

Pondering Palermo

Posted on October 11, 2020 by thefidgetyfoodie

Ballaro Market, Palermo

I feel exceptionally fortunate to have a head (plus several hard drives and 20+ travel diaries) full of extraordinary travel memories. If my home was on fire they’re the first things I’d grab. Along with my Smeg fridge (as I fully expect adrenalin would kick in and make light work of lifting my 85kg beauty).

Those memories are particularly sweet in a time when travel is nigh on impossible. It’s a cracker of a first world problem when so many are in strife but I can’t help but feel sad about unlived adventures. Which is even more reason to relish the happy experiences I’ve banked up.

Exactly two years ago I was in Sicily with two dear friends and it was one of the best experiences of my life. Sicily is positively intoxicating. And while I would go back to Taormina in a heartbeat for those exquisite gelato brioche buns and Syracuse for piled-high paninis, it was Palermo that especially grabbed me because of its effortless cool.

My partner in culinary crime agrees that Palermo’s charisma would pull us both back in a heartbeat. The food was exceptional, as it is in all corners of Sicily, but the edgy vibe and tangle of laneways left us craving more. It’s the perfect city for the flâneur (and flâneuse) to wander with abandon.

When I go back this is what I’ll want to relive.

Cool laneway bars

Palermo makes Melbourne’s laneway bar scene look tame and that’s saying something. Bars were nestled in all sorts of random nooks and crannies, often slightly crumbling like most of the city.

Always dimly lit and a bit dingy, it did not seem a stretch of the imagination to assume there were Mafioso-type deals going on around us. Slick cocktails with aperitivo thrown in (free snacks to whet the appetite) meant we were in heaven.

Ricardo kept us entertained with his gold accessories and quick tongue

Comical market stall holders

The street markets of Palermo are magical, each snaking languidly through the narrow streets. The colours and character were such a delight and every stall held something exciting; from glimmering produce to stacks of fresh fish and crustaceans. The most endearing part to me though were the entertaining stall holders, seemingly professional comedians who just happened to use a stall in place of a stage. They’d capture your attention and hold it – through compliments, jokes and gentle teasing. I never needed a heavy duty sales pitch because I was always eager beaver to try their wares but it was fun watching them dial their charm up to the highest rating.

Gelato anywhere, any time, all the time

I expected to see gelato everywhere but I did not expect to be eating it for breakfast. But who am I to argue with a well-worn tradition? Having come from Taormina where granita and brioche was the standard breakfast combination, gelato and brioche seemed completely normal. The gelato was always creamy, intense and popping with flavour. After experiencing the pistachio festival in Bronte just days before I only had eyes for the pastel green hues of my new favourite nut.

Arancini

These babies are really worth a post of their own. Could any other single food be so perfect in every way? Maybe scotch eggs. Arancini in Sicily are as ubiquitous as hot dogs in New York but much more creative. I already thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I experienced pistachio and porchetta arancini in Bronte, stuffed with mozzarella, crumbed and fried. Swoon. But Palermo had its own riff on classics, like roasted pork, sweet ‘n’ sour onion and smoked scamorza cheese or Nebrodi black pig ragout. The best part was watching the world go by while we ate them.

The produce

It’s actually a shame we didn’t make a concerted effort to do some cooking (impossible because we were too busy eating every type of street food we could find) because the produce was unbelievable. Zucchinis that were a metre long. Vegetables in shades I didn’t think possible!

I was so taken by the violet aubergine (yes aubergine is already ‘purple’ but really it’s black. This was purple!) that I was trying to work out how I could get a bag back to Sydney without being arrested (I couldn’t so I didn’t).

Flash fried sardines with lemon – street food at its best

The seafood

I was born to love seafood; it’s in my genes thanks to Greek island lineage and grandfathers who worked in fish shops and restaurants when they moved to Australia. Nothing excites me more than fresh seafood and it’s everywhere you look in the markets. Sardines caught that morning would be flash fried and served with lashings of fresh lemon juice. Fantastic.

Then there were the ostriches (yes confused me at first too) which came with free wine. Free wine! The ostriches were oysters shucked on the spot and full of salty briny goodness. The wine wasn’t half bad either.

Perfectly grilled cow intestine by our friend Ricardo

Offal

It’s contentious to admit but I love offal. Greeks and Italians are similar here – we eat the whole animal because for a long time we couldn’t have survived otherwise. I find most people have a mental block about eating the innards of an animal but the flavour always belies the mind. Intestines, tripe and the like are as common as any other cut in Sicily and every stall we came across had long lines of hungry customers. I was particularly enamoured with cow intestine; grilled to perfection with salt and lemon by one of our favourite ‘comedians’.

This spleen sandwich was a culinary highlight

Then there’s Palermo’s spleen sandwich, one of its most iconic street foods. Pani ca’ Meusa is made from boiled cow spleen, lung and trachea which are then fried in pig lard right before eating. It’s piled on a bun and sprinkled with ricotta and caciocavallo cheese. It’s rich but oh so tasty, especially as the oil soaks into the bread nicely.

Rainbow colours

I love colour. One in particular for anyone who knows me (PURPLE!) but actually I don’t discriminate. My eye is always drawn to the brightest colour in the room, on the street or on the plate.

Palermo itself is all shades of grey and shadows but layered on top are pops of colour everywhere – from the produce I’ve already waxed lyrical about to the intense marzipan fruits (far too pretty to eat) that could have been art. I can’t wait until I’m surrounded by Palermo’s palette once again.

Pistachio festival in Bronte, Sicily

Posted on January 13, 2019 by thefidgetyfoodie

Me in my pistachio element

Food festivals are my thing. Especially when they are built around an esoteric food item in an obscure place. Like the kurtoshkalacs festival in Budapest. Or the Kytherian wine festival in Mitata. Bring it on.

The famous pistachio pasta

Pistachios are not exactly rare but to me they’ve always sat at the more exotic end of the nut scale. I’ve always associated pistachios with my Sicilian bestie Katia who uses them in a pasta recipe handed down from her nonna. Crushed pistachios envelop pancetta and cream to create a dish that makes grown men weep with pleasure. I’ve actually seen it happen.

Warm faces welcome you to the Expo del Pistacchio

One of my foodie dreams came true last year when I had the opportunity to travel through Sicily with Katia during its iconic pistachio festival, Expo del Pistacchio. I was beyond excited.

Imposing Mt Etna

Pistachios are a big deal in Bronte because they are arguably the best in the world. Why? Because Bronte (which incidentally means ‘thunder’) sits at the base of Mt Etna and the pistachio trees grow out of the volcanic lava rock. The minerals in the lava soil are absorbed by the plants to create a distinctive nut which is sweet and fragrant.

Salame pistacchio

So distinctive in fact that in 2009 they were granted the coveted DOP marque (Protected Designation of Origin), which guarantees locally grown and harvested produce using traditional methods. In the case of Bronte pistachios that means only picking, hulling and drying the pistachios by hand every two years to protect the trees and quality.

2018 was not a harvest year but you’d scarcely have known. Supplies are held back in the year of harvest to ensure there’s enough for the following year, especially for the famous festival.

Ahh the festival. For two weekends in October at the end of harvest, the entire town shuts down to pay homage to this revered nut. Everyone from chubby cheeked babies to nonnas clutching walking frames are littered across the length of the main drag. This is passeggiata (the Italian ritual of strolling through town each evening) on steroids.

Pistachio gelato topped with ground pistachios

How many pistachio flavoured things have you eaten in your life? Pistachio gelato, maybe pistachio amaretti? You’ve basically just been warming up. The Sicilians have mastered the preparation of this deep green and purple nut to perfection. Read More

8 things you probably didn’t know about Champagne

Posted on December 28, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

There’s one thing I’ve always known about Champagne – I love it. It’s not just the taste. It’s the sense of occasion that comes with the popping of the cork, the bubbles and the instant joie de vivre. Plus I’ve long admired it from a marketing perspective. I can’t think of another category where the branding, merchandising and general fervor created is as slick. Well maybe jewellery (would you like some metal with that Tiffany blue box?).

I knew I’d eventually make my way to the region in question and when I did I was almost more interested in the provenance of the stuff than drinking it. Almost. I learnt a few things that surprised me – and may just surprise you.

8 things you may not know about Champagne

Christian Lacuisse from Champagne Lacuisse Freres demonstrates a stage of the méthode champenoise

1. Bubbles in wine were originally a fault (and definitely not a selling point)

Before ‘Champagne’ came along, the Champagne region produced only still wines and nondescript versions at that. Wine with bubbles was the result of an accidental second fermentation in the bottle and more often than not the bottle would explode as a result of the pressure. Even if the bottle didn’t explode, the wine was likely to be undrinkable. At a time when winemakers didn’t understand the science behind fermentation, the sparkling stuff was a liability and certainly not a tempting proposition to drink or sell.

8 things you probably didn't know about Champagne

Pinot noir grapes growing in Sermiers, a town in the Champagne region

2. Champagne is made from three grapes

Think of the iconic wines tethered to a single terroir and often they are a single variety such as Burgundy (100% Pinot Noir grapes), White Burgundy (100% Chardonnay grapes) and Chablis (also 100% Chardonnay grapes). So it may come as a surprise that Champagne is almost always a blend of three grapes – Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay. Yes – two red grapes and one white. So why isn’t Champagne a red wine? Because the grapes are pressed gently during production and there’s no skin contact during fermentation which is what generally gives wine its colour.

Champagne bottles are stored in the underground caves of the Taittinger Cellars in Reims

3. Dom Perignon was NOT the granddaddy of Champagne

Not only did the Dom not invent Champagne, it’s highly unlikely he ever even made sparkling Champagne. Dom Perignon was the cellarmaster of his abbey from 1668 to 1715 when fizzy wines were widely considered faulty – it’s more likely that he spent his time trying to prevent his wines from sparkling. This is in stark contrast to the more modern persona built up around him which romanticises his role in the creation of Champagne. Certainly his still wines were highly regarded at the time, but he did not exclaim to his fellow monks to “come quickly, I am tasting the stars!”. This was in fact exclaimed in a print ad almost two hundred years after his death. But why let the truth get in the way of a compelling brand story?

The Pommery sommeliers take their jobs very seriously

4. The region didn’t initially want to produce wine with bubbles

Champagne was always a still wine region but in the first half of the 18^th century the still wines of the region were not selling due to competition from other French wine regions. The locals were desperate for an edge and had noticed an international interest in sweetened wine with bubbles so begrudgingly and out of economic desperation started to produce more of the sparkling stuff. Read More

Memoirs of Russia

Posted on June 11, 2018 by thefidgetyfoodie

Would you like a menu with that?

With the World Cup starting in three days (thanks to work I’ve been counting down for a year) I thought it highly apt to dig back into my Russia files. I’ve raved about the Georgian food in Russia and a brilliant cooking class in Moscow, but what else did I take away from visiting the world’s largest (and often most provocative) country? Well mainly food of course…

A snapshot of Russian history told through vodka.

Vodka
And vodka obviously. Vodka is drunk like water in Russia. So it’s no surprise when you learn that the name stems from the Russian word for water, ‘voda’. It’s everywhere, and I was warned not to buy the dodgy cheap stuff, i.e. 1/2 litre for anything less than 200 Rubles (or about AUD$4.50!). That stuff can actually kill you. The ‘good stuff’ is still a quarter of the price you pay in Australia so what the Russians regard as expensive was still a bargain for me.

And even more vodka…

Naturally I had to check out the Vodka Museum which was a shrine to the stuff and told of its history and the role it has played in society and history. Take the tour and you get a complimentary shot of vodka (for research purposes only of course).

Choose your poison and your fridge.

And it wasn’t uncommon to find a vodka fridge next to a soft drink fridge. Even the Russians need to stay hydrated.

Picking pickles leaves me pickled pink

Pickles
I do love myself a pickle. I took great joy in fishing out pickles from salty brine while in Estonia and was happy to see a similar attitude to pickles in Russia, i.e. bring them out for every meal and feel free to snack on them in between. The pickles always hit the right balance of tartness and sweetness with me, and I even enjoyed the rogue dill fronds that would inevitable be wrapped around each one.

My favourite cranky Russian stall holder and her pickles.

There were entire pickle counters at the food markets where I managed to extract a couple of samples from a perpetually cross looking matron. Then of course there were plenty of tubs filled with homemade pickles lining the streets in smaller towns. I loved how it was entirely acceptable to buy a couple of pickles and eat them as you went about your day. Read More

6 crazy (but delicious) things to eat in Sweden

Posted on March 26, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

The table is set in a typical Northern Swedish household

Salmon. Check
Meatballs. Check
Cinammon buns. Check.

If you’ve come this far then you’ve certaintly sampled the obvious highlights of Swedish food.

But this cuisine gets so much better, and more creative, the more you delve.

On my last trip to Sweden I veered north and stumbled across some particularly unique delicacies which were most entertaining.

Freshly opened surströmming – strategically opened outside on the grass.

Surströmming – fermented herring

My adopted Swedish mother Ing-mari made me feel like her third child the moment I stepped through her door and had a suite of Northern Swedish delicacies lined up for me to try, starting with the extremely polarising surströmming. Now some say this fermented Baltic Sea herring is the smelliest food in the world but I know that isn’t true because that honour goes to Icelandic fermented shark which I can guarantee you will have you retching from 50m away.

Ing-mari shows me how it’s done

The Baltic herring used in surströmming is fermented for six months then stuffed in a tin to give the salty fish a sharp sour flavour. The smell is so pungent that there’s an unwritten law that a can must only be opened outdoors and far away from neighbours. When I arrived in Hemmanet outside of Sundsvall the said can was already ‘resting’ on the grass in preparation for our meal.

The combination of flavours and textures on this rye bread make the surströmming sing!

Ing-Mari served the surströmming on crisp rye bread with butter, slices of boiled potatoes, sliced red onion, caviar and sour cream. I found it delicious! And not just because it caved under the weight of the accoutrements – I tried some solo and really relished the tangy taste washed down with aquavit.

The curious creature that is the smörgåstårta

Smörgåstårta – sandwich cake

When I see something edible for the first time my eyes go wide, I get really excited and MUST TRY IT IMMEDIATELY. No one knows this better than my dear Swedish friend Joakim who has patiently indulged my foodie obsessions over many Swedish road trips.

It was on the latest that I spotted a strange construction in a supermarket. It was embellished like a cake but appeared to be made of savoury ingredients.

‘Oh yes’ said Joakim casually. ‘That’s a sandwich cake. They were very big in the 80s, my mum used to buy them’. Read More

From a Russian cooking class with love

Posted on January 19, 2017 by thefidgetyfoodie

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Carefully hand making each and every pelmeni – a Russian staple

I did lots of cool things when I went to Russia last year – like staring in awe from the front row of the Bolshoi ballet and being battered (in a good way) with birch leaves during a traditional banya.

But my favourite experience was the Taste of Russia cooking class I took in Moscow. Not just because I got to cook (which I love) and eat (which I love even more), but because I spent the day with real Muscovites who let me drill them about their lives, their diets, their family and their future.

The day didn’t start well. Ever tried to take the Moscow subway? It’s ridiculously intense. I’m no stranger to large rail systems – I can navigate the tube with my eyes closed and have never had any issues in cities like New York and Paris (except when my sister and I went through two at a time and were almost arrested by French police but that’s another story).

Moscow is a different beast. The subway is HUGE and there isn’t a single direction in English, nor did anyone I ask for help speak English. I can read a decent amount of Cyrillic thanks to its likeness to the Greek alphabet but on my first full day in Russia, pre-coffee, I struggled. I’m not usually one to give up but I did and left the metro thinking a cab had to be an easier option.

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Flipping syrniki – Russian cottage cheese pancakes

Wrong. The traffic in Moscow is a disaster. It’s all one way so the layout forces cars to go in unnecessary directions. Plus I couldn’t see a cab rank or a single cab for that matter and I had no wifi to book an uber. So it was a deep breath and back down to the metro for me, where I finally worked out where to go and made it to the cooking class meeting point with just a minute to spare. Phew!

I arrived to find I was the only person there. Was everyone else late too?

No, it transpired that I was the only person in the class. That was music to my ears. A private market tour and cooking class to myself, what a score!

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My foodie dream team of Nadia, Milena and Zhukova

Firstly I was escorted to the Dorogomilovo market, one of Moscow’s largest, with ‘the chief’ Zhukova, her daughter Milena and daughter-in-law Nadia. A family affair!

The market was so fabulous it deserves a post of its own but essentially we picked up all the ingredients for lunch and I got to try tastings of whatever I pointed to. Which was a lot. Quite often I’d point to something and request identification; if Milena, whose English was excellent, didn’t know the word in English she’d whip out her iphone and google translate it for me.

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Zhukova ‘the chief’ runs the kitchen

From the market we drove 20 minutes away to the kitchen, a modest size room filled with a big table and cooking accoutrements. Our menu for the day included Siberian pelmeni (dumplings with a beef filling), borsch and syrniki (cottage cheese pancakes) with apricot ‘jam’. Zhukova put me straight to work – chopping onions, working dough and stewing apricots while I quizzed her on the provenance of the dishes and life in Russia.

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Zhukova shows me how the dough for pelmeni is rolled out

I learnt that pelmeni are the backbone of Russian home cooking and women are scrutinised on their pelmeni style and output. There’s the proper way to make them and the shortcut route but I got the impression that serious Russian cooks knew exactly which path they should follow. Read More

9 more reasons to love cloudberries

Posted on August 20, 2016 by thefidgetyfoodie

Fresh cloudberries in the flesh

It’s been almost two years since I announced to the world that cloudberries are my crack. Since then my dependency has grown worse, exacerbated by a recent trip to the northern hemisphere where I had more access to the goods than I could handle. I’m literally on a cloudberry high as I write this.

I’ve waxed lyrical about these babies before. Their rarity. Their delicacy. Their sweet, sweet, but tart taste that has my eyes lolling in my head. My habit started with cloudberry jam in London and peaked with fresh berries in Helsinki. I’m too far gone to stop now.

But this year I took it to a whole new level. Cloudberry yoghurt? Yep. Cloudberries and fried cheese? All over it. Cloudberry soap? Absolutely (but only topically mind you – even I have limits). Cloudberries found their way into my world no less than nine times this July.

the fidgety foodie_ 9 more reasons to love cloudberries(15)

Delicious yoghurt flavoured with Swedish cloudberries

Cloudberry yoghurt

Clouberries are called hjortron in Sweden, pronounced ‘you-tron’. I don’t even have to hint to my Swedish friends anymore, they know how much I love them. On my first morning in the northern Swedish city of Sundsvall, I was greeted with a delicious breakfast spread by my adopted Swedish mother, Ing-Mari. Amongst the crisp rye bread and västerbotten cheese was a carton of hjortron fjäll – a thin rich yoghurt flavoured with my favourite berries. What a way to start the day!

the fidgety foodie_ 9 more reasons to love cloudberries(17)

Cloudberry jam is where my addiction started

Cloudberry Jam

This is how is all began for me and is probably the most well known and well travelled cloudberry product. If you’re lucky you can even find it at IKEA (if you live in Sydney don’t even bother trying the Tempe store, I generally clean them out). It’s ubiquitous in Sweden and I had to start restricting my purchases as it’s not very practical to transport around the world.

the fidgety foodie_9 more reasons to love cloudberries

The unbelievably tasty combo of fried camembert and cloudberry jam

Cloudberry jam… with cheese!

Cheese and jam is a winning combination, nothing makes me go weak at the knees like a hunk of blue cheese stacked with quince jam. That was until the day I discovered fried camembert with cloudberry jam at a street market in Skelleftea, up in Swedish Lapland. The fried cheese had a crispy exterior, gooey cheesy interior, and worked delightfully with the heady sweetness of cloudberries.

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Cloudberries are a cornerstone of Swedish dessert menus

Cloudberry dessert

It’s not uncommon to see cloudberry jam or sauce featured on Swedish dessert menus. The ante was upped, however, on a dining experience in Umeå, where I came across rullrån with mascarpone and cloudberries. Crispy cigar wafers were filled with mascarpone and served on a bed of macerated cloudberries and it was a sensational combination. Can’t wait to recreate this one at home. Read More

7 reasons why you need to know about Georgian food

Posted on August 3, 2016 by thefidgetyfoodie

Georgian food stand at the Dorogomilovskiy market

How much do you know about Georgia?

The country nestled under Russia in the Caucasus that is, not the US state.

In all truth I previously knew only one thing about Georgia. In 2007 a little Georgian lass came fourth in Junior Eurovision (for under 15s), and on her return to Georgia she was welcomed like royalty. The Prime Minister even came to meet her at the airport, such was the enormity of this occasion.

Any country that treats its fourth place Eurovision winner like a god is solid in my book.

the fidgety foodie_ 7 reasons why you need to know about Georgian food

Pelamushi is a typical Georgian dessert

At this point I have to fess up and make it clear that I haven’t been to Georgia. BUT, I have just spent two weeks in Russia, in which Georgian food takes a starring role.

There seems to be a few reasons for the proliferation of Georgian cuisine. Firstly, it’s damn good. The benefit of sitting smack in the middle of the ancient East-West trade routes was being able to take your pick at the best of what was passing by, be it pillowy Turkish-style bread or Mediterranean salads. I’d argue that the cuisine is far more sophisticated than Russian food, which is hearty but more rudimentary in its approach to flavours.

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Making Georgian khinkali is serious business

There’s also the Stalin factor. His influence can still be felt across the country, despite the momentous changes since his death in 1953. Just visit the Moscow metro which he designed as an interconnected web of museums ‘for the people’, which features his face at every opportunity. Stalin was from Georgia, so this undoubtedly influenced this prevalence of Georgian restaurants throughout the 20^th century.

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Perfectly folded Georgian soup dumplings known as khinkali

Therefore it’s not at all hard to find a Georgian restaurant in the main Russian cities and you’d be wise to seek one out at least once. I did just this on my first night in Moscow and subsequent nights in Saint Petersburg. It’s possible that I ate at more Georgian restaurants than Russian restaurants. Don’t tell Putin okay?

I narrowed down my favourite dishes to seven – and to be honest I didn’t even really go to town on some of the meat dishes the cuisine offers. And have I mentioned how much I liked the wine? There’s no question that I need a trip to the source to explore this delicious cuisine even further.

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Khachapuri made with sulguni cheese and butter

Khachapuri

My first thought when this molten cacophony of bread and cheese was presented was its likeness to Turkish pide. This version was topped with the crumbly brined Georgian cheese called sulguni, along with chunks of another cheese.

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LOTS of butter

But wait a minute. I gulped and soon realised that the giant yellowy chunks weren’t cheese, they were butter. Meant for swirling through the cheese, just in case you weren’t already in the throes of a dairy overload. Butter, cheese and carbs – does it get any better? Read More

Marvellous Market #3: Great Market Hall, Budapest

Posted on October 6, 2015 by thefidgetyfoodie

The Great Market Hall in Budapest

You know a city is serious about food when it builds a giant, purpose built market smack in the middle of the city (Sydney are you listening? Take note please).

The market’s beautiful interior, looking down on the ground floor

That’s what the Hungarians did in the late 19^th century when they built the Great Market Hall. Despite some knocks during the World Wars, a renovation has kept it looking sharp as one of the most beautiful buildings in the city.

Rows of immaculately displayed local products adorn the food stalls

But it’s what’s inside that is really exciting. While the first floor features local handicrafts including traditional Magyar dress and collectables, the ground floor and basement are dedicated to food. Rows and rows of glistening fresh produce, endless stands of paprika and chilli and plenty of local delicacies are enjoyed by locals and tourists.

Paprika and pepper in every possible form

The paprika stands are works of art – sachets, tubs and tubes of the stuff (spicy or sweet) are carefully arranged in colourful rows along with strings of dried peppers and garlic.

How can you not smile at the Smiley Shop?

Owls, ghosts, cats, mushrooms and other random pickle shapes

One thing Hungarians LOVE are pickles. Pickles and sauerkraut. They have their own dedicated area – ‘pickle alley’ in the basement floor. What I especially love is the creativity involved, with jars displaying cute messages and smiley faces made from the pickles, plus a massive array of sauerkraut-stuffed pickled vegetables.

Sauerkraut is measured by the pitchfork