The first cookbook ever written was written by a Greek. Food is important in this culture. A history of conquest has influenced the traditional foods of Greece.
The first cookbook ever written was by an ancient Greek food gourmet, Archestratos, in 350 BC. Obviously, cooking has always been important in Greek society. Over the centuries, Greek cooking has been influenced by many other cultures, although some dishes can be traced back to ancient Greece: trahanas, skordalia, lentil soup, retsina, pasteli.
When Alexander the Great extended the Greek Empire's reach from Europe to India, northern and eastern ingredients and cooking techniques began to be absorbed into the Greek cuisine.
A history of conquest can be traced through changing foods. In 146 B.C., Greece fell to the Romans. Blending of Roman influence into Greek cooking began.
The Byzantine Empire was founded in 330 AD, which, fell to the Turks in 1453 and remained part of the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years. With each invasion came culinary influences and many Greek foods have names with origins in those cultures, especially from the Ottoman Empire. Hummus, a chick pea/tahini spread comes from the Arabic word for chickpea. And dolmades comes from the Turkish word, dolma.
Either can be found in kitchens from Armenia to Egypt, or in Greek cooking, although the recipes have changed a little, adapting to local tastes over hundreds of years.
Many traditional recipes have names that reveal Ottoman roots... remembering that Ottoman tradition stemmed from ancient Arab and Persian cuisines. Some are mousaka, baklava, tzatziki, yuvarlakia, and keftedhes. It is difficult to know when these dishes became Greek. It may very well have been during the Ottoman reign, but remember, there was much early contact between the Greeks and the Persians and the Arabs.
Foods changed again after the discovery of the Americas. Many ingredients used in modern Greek cooking were unknown in Europe before then. The new foods included potatoes, tomatoes, spinach, bananas, and others all of which came to Greece from the Americas.
Today, Greek food is simple and colourful, with a distinctive style which has changed little over the years. It is typically Mediterranean, using olive oil, grains, fish, and lamb. Greek cuisine has a long tradition and many Greek dishes remain undiscovered by the tourists.

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