Thessaloniki Rick Stein's Long Weekends

"A change is as good as a rest," they say.

So, a long weekend, not too far away,

and not obvious like Paris or Rome.

A place where I can take in some local history, a bit of culture,

but, of course, it's the food that will always be the key.

So, if you like groves of sun-ripened peaches,

freshly-grilled squid straight from the sea,

and a Roman arch or two,

well, this could be for you.

# Hey, Rick

# Where are we going this weekend? #

Thessaloniki.

# Are we flying a few hours away?

# For some delicious food, they say?

# So, Rick, make the booking

# And let's get cooking

# And get those taste buds going this weekend. #

I've been to Thessaloniki before,

and what I remember most about it was the excellence of the cooking -

great Greek cuisine.

The other thing - and this really matters to me - is it's by the sea.

So, half of what you see in Thessaloniki is the sea,

and that gives it a great, sort of, breezy informality about the city.

And I know this is a bit of an overworked expression,

but it's where East meets West.

Just like Istanbul, there's so many different cultures that have

crossed through Thessaloniki.

There is so much antiquity, just everywhere.

And, lastly, it's the second-biggest city in Greece,

but it doesn't feel like that.

The centre of it is really quite small,

and you sort of feel that if you lived there for a year or two,

you'd end up knowing virtually everybody.

I really like it.

I'm very conscious this time, visiting Thessaloniki,

that the Greeks have gone through some pretty tough times -

jobs lost, pensions decimated,

and loads of bright young people with no real picture of

a bright, clear future for them.

But, hang on, I've just got off the plane,

and I'm in the French Riviera!

Well, this hotel looks pretty posh.

I hope there's not a dress code here.

I didn't bring a jacket - far too hot.

It looks nice.

A nice, classy, old-fashioned look about it.

The sort of place you could imagine Mrs Simpson

and the Prince of Wales staying at.

No, but maybe upstairs, I'd think.

Oh, this is good.

Oh, look at that.

I mean, that is just splendid.

Thessaloniki, the city by the sea.

Travelling the world as I do,

I've noticed a great difference in mime artists.

Once upon a time, they were superb.

They didn't move a muscle -

not a blink of an eye -

and they didn't wear masks.

As far as I could tell, they were indeed statues.

But now, and maybe it's got something to do with the economy,

they're total rubbish.

One piece of gold cloth doth not a mime artist make, in my book.

I've been coming to Greece for years.

I started in the '60s in the Greek islands,

but, maybe as I get older, I find Thessaloniki very agreeable.

The food's good, and you're rubbing shoulders with history.

I think it's a place you simply grow into.

It's a very old city, with a very young population,

so many students,

and I really didn't expect to see this -

packed bars, all of them right along a seafront, are teeming.

Quite uplifting on my first evening.

All I need now is a very cold beer

and an hour or so to watch the world go by.

An early start and a strong Greek coffee -

not to everyone's liking, I know, but I love it.

None of your macchiatos or lattes this weekend, thank you very much.

I must say, I do love a cup of Greek coffee,

especially served in tiny little cups like this.

Sadly, everyone's going the way of espresso, but there's

something really reassuring about Greek coffee, because it's so thick.

It's got the grounds in it, and every time I taste it, I think,

"Yes, it's great to be back in Greece."

And I love the way they always serve a glass of ice-cold water, too.

I just love sitting in somewhere like this old market

and just watching the world go by,

because it's sort of a litmus test, I think,

of what's going on in a city.

And what I'm looking for is the signs of young people

coming through here, and there lots of them,

because I think if you've got a sense of esprit about

the food of your city, you need to go to the market.

MAN YELLS IN OWN LANGUAGE

It goes without saying that I think that when you come away

for a long weekend, you should find the local market.

Obviously, you're generally going to be staying in a hotel,

so you're not going to take a whole load of red mullet back

and cook them, are you?

But it just gives you an idea of what is available.

It also gives you an idea of what to order in restaurants.

But, above all, I think it just gives you

a feeling of how important the cuisine is to wherever you are.

This is a...what we know as a gurnard.

I always love these big gurnards cos they have such beautiful fins.

This is called kaponi.

If I was looking down here, if I was going to choose one fish to

buy here, it'd be this, cos I have never seen such a large gurnard,

and it's got lovely firm flesh.

And I think because it's such a celebratory size,

I'd probably bake it whole, just stuff it with not very much.

Maybe a bit of garlic, olive oil, some parsley, maybe,

a bit of lemon juice...

But really it would be about the presentation of it -

take it to the table and virtually carve it.

I get such joy seeing these lovely vegetables,

and look at this lettuce,

with a hint of dust on the leaves from the fields.

And these peppers - I'd love those in a salad,

maybe with grilled sardines.

I've had these before. They're called vlita.

You just boil them in salted water and then sprinkle olive oil

and a bit of lemon juice over them.

You normally have them cold.

It's, sort of, something we don't really do back in the UK,

but boiled vegetables served cold with a bit of olive oil,

a bit of lemon juice, is just like a salad.

It's as nice as that.

I love these sausages. They're called loukaniko.

They're made with pork, lamb, and sometimes both,

and often with wine,

but always with a zest of an orange or lemon,

and very often with fennel.

The recipe goes back to the days of the ancients.

What I'm really enjoying about Thessaloniki is that you keep

coming across these monuments, and it's almost like they're

squeezed in amongst the modern buildings

and it, sort of, makes you want to find out what they're all about.

This is called the Arch of Galerius -

a triumphal arch, erected by the Emperor Galerius.

And what I've discovered is that here we've got Persians,

and over here we've got Romans, and what you quite quickly see

is that the Persians are a little bit smaller than the Romans,

and the Romans have got bigger biceps, and they're

generally beefier, because it's all about Roman power.

This, the Rotunda, is, they say,

one of the oldest Christian churches in the world.

It's also been a mosque in its time.

It was going to be a mausoleum for the Emperor Galerius,

but he was buried elsewhere,

and so, after a while, the city of Thessaloniki became

a shining light in the Byzantine Empire.

That's when the eastern part of the Roman Empire, now Christian,

embraced the colours and richness of the Middle East.

I love the way they used gold leaf in their mosaics.

I always think that because it's so precious, it's almost like the

way us cooks use saffron for that exotic, expensive look and flavour.

In its heyday, these mosaics would have been fabulous,

but only fragments now survive.

I'm fascinated by the way the Byzantine craftsmen

used food in their decoration -

pomegranates, baskets of quinces, figs and poultry.

I was wondering if the Rotunda was surrounded by orchards

and farms when all of this intricate work was done.

They've let me pick one plum from the Rotunda garden.

A holy plum. Has a plum ever tasted so good?

It's a bit hard, Dave.

It's not bad.

Something sour, something sweet, and now it's time for elevenses.

This bakery, Elenidis, specialises in a very tasty local morsel

invented in the '60s - the trigona.

It's a little triangle of filo pastry,

filled with a creamy custard sauce.

Practically everyone I met here has one for elevenses

with their coffee, to the envy of Greeks living outside Thessaloniki.

Watching those trigonas being made,

I can see why they are the most popular pastry in Thessaloniki.

And I was just thinking, as you do it in an idle moment, in there,

of Eddie Cochran's Three Steps To Heaven, but in this case it's five.

OK? Step one...

MUSIC: Three Steps To Heaven by Eddie Cochran

Take a sheet of filo pastry and brush with butter.

Fold in half.

More butter.

Keep filling and brushing with butter until you form a triangle.

Step two, you bake in a very hot oven so it's hard and crisp.

Like an ice cream cone, a lovely, crispy brown.

Step three, you hollow out the centre,

and then you dip it in syrup to make it nice and sweet.

Step four, you stuff with custard -

lots of custard.

And step five, you eat...

and that sure seems like heaven to me.

I do think it's worth making the effort to get up here.

Apart from the astonishingly wonderful view,

it's also an opportunity to get a feeling of how Thessaloniki worked,

particularly in the 15th, 16th centuries,

when the Ottomans were in charge.

Down there, near the port, the Jews were,

over in that direction, the Greeks were,

and up here were the Ottomans,

and I think it's all those hundreds of years of political stability

that's really created this fantastic cuisine.

It's that sort of mixture of, obviously,

masses of Greek cooking, but Turkish very important too,

Jewish important too, and the Balkan cooking.

It just creates this, sort of, wonderful mixture of great cooking

and makes it memorable.

I can't think of any dish I'd rather cook that

sums up Thessaloniki better.

It's Greek but has more than a touch of the Middle East about it.

It's called Kozani chicken.

It would have to be in my top three dishes from the whole series.

It's chicken with saffron, paprika and prunes,

and it's a true taste of where East meets West.

I've long heard about the excellence of Kozani saffron,

and this dish, Kozani chicken,

just seems to bring that saffron out at its very best.

Funnily enough, Kozani's a region just over an hour from Thessaloniki,

but the main town in Kozani is called Krokos.

Well, I don't know if that's a coincidence or not,

because, of course, saffron comes from the crocus.

I just love the way that saffron gradually reveals its colour.

You put the saffron in and you think, "That's not enough,"

and it just gets yellower and yellower and yellower.

And also the smell -

it's got this wonderful, sweet, warm smell,

but it's not particularly obvious.

But when you walk into a room and somebody's cooking the saffron,

you can smell it.

It has this sort of amazingly understated pungence about it.

I'm just going to add some paprika now.

This is just slightly hot Greek paprika.

It's just so nice doing dishes like this,

because the smell is so important.

And I was, sort of, thinking of some of those sort of

very, very laboured dishes where you get little bits of this and that

put on a plate.

That's actually not cooking to me - this is cooking.

The chicken is partly cooked in the saffron water,

and now I'm transferring it to the frying pan.

This is so easy.

Now for the prunes, the perfect accompaniment,

and the saffron-flavoured water.

Well, look at that.

You've got the paprika and the prunes in there

and that lovely golden liquid with the saffron

and now it'll be well-flavoured with chicken.

It doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination

to realise this is a very Middle Eastern sort of dish.

You could imagine it in somewhere like the Lebanon.

In fact, you'd probably find a very similar dish there.

But that's what Thessaloniki and this part of northern Greece

is all about - it's a sort of meeting of different cultures.

Now that will simmer away for about 25 minutes until it's reduced.

I think this will remain one of the best dishes from these travels.

Now, what really goes with this is a pilaf with parsley,

pine nuts and raisins.

If you like curry or cassoulet or tagines,

then you'll love this.

THEY SING IN GREEK

'I'm getting quite good, thanks to my long weekends,

'at selecting really rather moving buskers

'and sometimes street artists, but not too many of those.'

'I'm slightly ashamed but I've got no idea

'what these guys are singing about

'but I'm hoping it's not about the financial recession.

'I'm looking for words like "lost love" and "nights of passion",

'not "catastrophe" and "bankruptcy".

Anyway, I'm on my way to a restaurant where on a previous trip,

I had one of the best dishes I've tasted

in my whole time in Thessaloniki.

It goes by the rather prosaic title of stuffed onions

or in Greek, sougania.

So, step one is to hollow out the onions.

Now, cut one side to the middle,

which makes peeling easier later on,

and then simmer.

Now for the filling.

They're frying chopped onions in oil until soft and yielding,

then adding minced veal, it looks about 500g.

Now they add chicken stock and next,

allspice and nutmeg and pine nuts.

They let it simmer until it cooks

and then they let it cool down.

Now, each individual skin is pliable,

they fill it with a bit of the cooked stuffing

and bake in the oven for 12 minutes at 220 degrees.

THEY SING IN GREEK

'Yes, it was in fact a love song and very good.'

As good as these onions and the spicy meat filling,

finished with a well reduced veal stock.

They were lovely.

My visit to Thessaloniki seems to have stirred up

a bit of interest here

and it just so happens the deputy mayor turned up

in the same restaurant while we were filming

and so it seemed only polite to invite him to supper.

-Thank you.

-I've been in Thessaloniki before

and I really liked these stuffed shallots.

-Yes.

-We didn't arrange to meet here but, I...

You know, we take time off for lunch and for dinner here in Thessaloniki,

that's what we do so...

-Please taste and tell me.

-Well, I mean, I...

-What do you think about that?

-I love it.

I just think it... What I'm beginning to feel about the food

in Thessaloniki, Spiros, is it's sort of, erm,

it's Greek food as we know it

but just a little bit more sophistication...

What would you, why would you think that was?

That's true. It's a very strong local cuisine.

It's something that you don't meet in other places

and other Greek places like Santorini, Mykonos or even Athens.

It's a cuisine that has many influences, historical influence.

We have the Jewish heritage, we have the Ottoman Empire heritage,

we have the Balkan region here.

So the cuisine and the tastes are heavier and stronger somehow.

They're more passionate in my opinion.

But it's sort of like, you know, there's lots of things

that I've eaten already which I know from other trips to Greece,

but you sort of get this feeling that whatever you eat here,

-it's just going to be good, you know?

-Yes.

I think that Thessaloniki is the capital of food in Greece

and people are enjoying the local cuisine,

they don't like so much exotic food or exotic tastes but the

local cuisine is so strong that it is something that you can see

and experience wherever you go when you stroll around, you see there are

so many restaurants around which is, I believe, an asset for the city.

Cheers.

Strawberries, raspberries, little hint of red currants.

-It's nice rose.

-Lovely.

Newcastle has its Angel of the North,

Brazil and Lisbon have Christ writ large,

Paris, the famous tower

and Thessaloniki has these umbrellas.

They're thinking of making them the emblem of the city.

Someone from the film crew told me they're a tribute to Mary Poppins

which I nearly believed!

Well, you might well ask why I'm ironing my shirt.

I'm sure people like, you know, Michael Portillo or Michael Palin,

I'm sure they've got people that do their shirts,

they always seem to have so many lovely pristine shirts

wherever they are - Brazil or Mexico or Spain.

I've just got, I've got a few other shirts

but the problem is that the director keeps cutting bits of me

walking down one street with bits of me walking through a palace

and they've got to match up.

So, basically, he just wants me to use the same shirt all the time.

The other shirts have got blinkin' shirt makers' logos on it

and the BBC don't like it, so I've just got the pink one!

Now it's time for my usual morning trip

of going round the mulberry bush - the hotel buffet breakfast,

where I never seem able to find the butter or the teaspoons.

So, out of this thing that reminds me from my school days

of a gobstopper machine, some cornflakes.

Well, it's a warm, sunny, optimistic morning

so keep it light, just a drop of milk.

And keep it Greek, too...

..a dollop of yoghurt and where there's yoghurt, there's honey.

Perfect!

Now, that looks to me like a lovely Anglo Greek breakfast

and that's why buffets are sometimes a great idea.

Design your own food, that's what I say.

Now, the orange juice,

always a good litmus test for a decent hotel breakfast.

You can tell a great deal about the quality of a hotel

from its orange juice

which was perfect, local, Greek orange juice

and I don't know if you could call a view optimistic

but this surely is an optimistic view.

And I just know I'm going to have a very good time.

I've known Thessaloniki for some time now,

since the days when package deal holidays were quite a new thing.

You either liked them or you didn't.

Well, I preferred to get a group of like-minded friends together

and set off, a bit like Sir Cliff on his Summer Holiday.

Yes, our ideal was the beach, red mullet, char-grilled octopus,

Greek salad, Greek chips, I still love them,

and retsina, in that order.

This White Tower means quite a lot to me cos in the 1970s,

I was in Greece with about 20 other people.

We were on various different islands and towards the end of September,

we started to make our way back to the UK

and we all met just here and then drove back through Yugoslavia.

Our cars and vans were beaten up old wrecks but, boy, was it fun!

Yes, I remember, "We'll see you at the White Tower, late September."

'Now, this has never happened to me before.'

Morning.

'Every day I was here,

the television companies from all over Greece

'wanted to talk to ME about my experience here.'

Which one am I talking to?

-To the lady...

-OK.

'Well, I think they must be pretty desperate to want me

'on their news but who knows?

'Maybe they think I'll inspire people to come here.'

Your first impressions?

Well, we're having a lovely time in Thessaloniki.

We love the food, it's really, really great Greek cooking.

There is so much influence from the Balkans, from the Middle East,

from Turkey, from the rest of Greece,

some from the rest of Europe, it's just a melting pot.

I've been here a couple of times before

and I just think it's a beautiful city.

The restaurants are brilliant, they're all full,

the cafes, the bars.

You just think, well, if there are hard times,

the people of Thessaloniki are doing their very best

to put them behind them.

I'm on my way to meet Vefa Alexiadou

and she's a bit like, I suppose, the Delia Smith of Greek cooking

and she's held in that esteem

and I came across her book about four years ago

and I suppose that before that,

I had just been used to buying those little paperback Greek cookery books

you get in places like Rhodes,

you know, and the very, very poor illustrations and all that.

And it just completely blew my mind

because I had no idea how diverse Greek cooking was

over such an area and how different a lot of the recipes were.

So ever since then, I've been an ardent follower of her

so I'm a bit nervous but I'm really looking forward to meeting her.

-Hello.

-So happy.

-Very nice to meet you.

-It's an honour for me.

-Oh, same for me. Gosh.

Thank you very, very much.

-It's the best day of my life...

-Oh, you're nice.

..to meet you, Rick.

-Let's go to the kitchen.

-OK. After you.

-OK.

-Lovely house.

'Crikey! I wasn't expecting her to know me.

'I mean, she's TV chef royalty and so famous here.

'And looking at this,

'she's obviously done very well for herself.

'Slightly bigger than my Padstow cottage, I'd say?'

-What a house! Gosh. Wow.

-How do like?

I love it.

-I've been living here 26 years.

-Gosh.

Come, come to the garden. Come to see the sea.

Vefa had prepared lunch, thank goodness. I was so hungry.

It was a dish from Thessaloniki, moshari kokkinisto me melitzanes,

that's stewed veal and aubergines in a tomato sauce.

Vefa was on the screen for an hour every weekday morning for 17 years.

In that time, she became more than a TV chef,

she became everyone's mum.

So, Vefa, as you know, I'm a great fan.

But would you have had any idea how successful your writings

and your TV appearances would've been?

Why do you think you are so successful?

Is it because of the recipes or...?

It's because of the recipes, of course.

The right way I cooked the recipes

but people loved me more because I love them.

Every time I was cooking,

I was giving it to them with smiling, with...

with big love.

I'm a person that loves the other people around me.

I never walked on the street with a hat or big glasses

in order to be inside and no-one recognise me.

I wanted people to talk to me, to hug me, to touch me,

to kiss me and I'm so happy.

-So happy.

-Oh, that's so nice.

-I adore it.

But would you have had any idea how popular your work would be,

not only books but your TV work?

I mean, and why do you think it was like this?

Sometimes I was inspired of the mandarins or the oranges.

They're hanging on the trees outside and I cut them,

went to the channel, everything was ready there,

the casseroles, the fire, everything was ready

and I changed my programme.

I said, "Today, we are going to make orange jam

"because the oranges are perfect and I cut it from my yard."

And the people enjoyed this.

It has a story, you understand me?

It's not just the recipe.

I explain it from where it was, anything I was cooking.

That's it, that's why I like your books so much.

It's not just all the recipes, it's cos you're in every recipe.

Yes.

This is, this is the most important. Thank you.

Thank you very, very much, Rick. I'm so happy you're here.

I loved meeting Vefa and this is her very easy to make to stew.

It's lamb with aubergines and red peppers,

so simple, and when I made it at a dinner party recently,

they said it's better than moussaka!

The first thing you do is to salt the aubergines

to make them a bit drier and get rid of all that excess water.

I've also sliced up a couple of red peppers ready for frying,

in olive oil, of course!

I really like Vefa cos she was so Greek.

She was...

clearly just a very ordinary cook when she first got on television

but she took to the limelight like crazy.

And when I asked her, you know, what made her so special,

I loved it when she said, "people love me,"

because that's what I like about the Greeks, there's no messing about.

What they think, they say.

So into the pot now goes some cubes of lamb

and I'm just adding a little bit more olive oil here

but not bothering to clean the pan out

cos that's got all the nice caramelised bits from the aubergine

and the red peppers.

And I'm going to cook those for about eight minutes

till they're really nice and lightly brown in colour.

So just add a tiny bit more salt, not a lot

because I have got salt in those aubergines and red peppers already,

and a lot of pepper.

That's about 18 turns of the pepper grinder

and a large onion chopped, like so.

And garlic, at least three cloves.

Nah, make it four!

Always put a little bit more in. You can't go wrong.

And now for some tomato.

I'm just using tinned tomatoes here, it's fine,

we're talking family supper here.

There we go.

Now a hefty squeeze of tomato puree and sugar

because you need a tad of sweetness, but not too much, though.

So that's looking really nice.

Now, about 500ml of water, just to stop it drying out

during the long, slow stewing process.

Now, just going to chop up some parsley now,

what I love to call a small handful of parsley.

Stir that in and just going to leave that to simmer away

for about one and a half to two hours.

That long?

Yeah, of course that long!

This is in real-time, Dave, we're not cutting corners here.

So, after a couple of hours, real hours,

not like "I've got one already made,"

I put the aubergines and peppers on top of the stew

for the final countdown.

So I'm just going to finish this off in the oven

to brown the top a bit for about 20 minutes at 200.

So here it is - a very good example of Greek home cooking.

And if money's short, which it is over there,

then use more vegetables - sweet potatoes, okra, courgettes.

-What's it taste like?

-Lovely!

I mean, it's, I'd say "honest" is the word that comes to mind,

it's just a lovely honest stew.

The sort of thing you'd want to make for your kids.

I'm trying to squeeze a lot into my long weekend

but I couldn't turn down the offer of a mussel fishing trip

in the Axios Delta.

It's about half an hour away from Thessaloniki.

It's a nature reserve, really,

but they also grow fabulous mussels on ropes.

This massive delta produces mussels, rice and salt, perfect!

Actually, the main reason I wanted to come here is because

of a restaurant that specialises in a mussels and rice dish.

The very thought of it makes my mouth water.

But that comes a bit later.

Not too much later, I hope.

Really good quality.

I love mussels straight out of the shell like that.

They're so sweet but they have a slight bitterness

and it's the only time, for me, that I really want shallot vinegar

to go with raw shellfish, is with mussels.

The combination is perfection.

But, out on here, on this boat, lovely!

THEY LAUGH

So, the mussels are ready to be harvested

when the drums are pretty well underwater.

That's the weight of the shellfish pulling them down.

Watching this, I was just thinking I was born and brought up

on a farm and we had a thing called a winnowing machine

which was just for separating the wheat from the chaff.

It's exactly the same process

but this is a mussel winnowing machine.

They're keeping the large mussels

which they're going to sell to market

and getting rid of all the small ones and all the parasites

but it's pretty impressive, I must say.

It takes nine months for them to grow and because they're on ropes,

you don't get that grittiness you sometimes find

from those that come from the seabed.

This is Doukas restaurant, in the village of Chalastra,

where lots of fishermen go to eat - so it's got to be good!

Vaso cooks the mussels until they just open

so the meat's firm but not overcooked.

She fries up chopped spring onions and ordinary onions in olive oil.

A splash of white wine and now the rice, long grain rice.

This takes about 10-12 minutes to cook.

You couldn't find a better dish for lunch.

And then the cooking liquor -

loads of salty flavour from the cooked mussels.

And saffron, which has had some hot water added

so it blends evenly with the rice.

Parsley and dill, that's the most important herb on the delta,

so lots of chopped dill.

Now the mussels go in and as you can see, they're just cooked

and after a bit more cooking in the rice, they'll be perfect.

A few more mussels on top, largely for decoration,

and just let it steam for a minute, and then serve.

'I always say the most important thing you can bring to a restaurant

'is an appetite, and I've certainly got one of those today!'

Erm, I don't always like eating on my own.

Some of the people...

in the crew call me Ricky No Mates

but I am rather hungry

and so I'm not too bothered about eating on my own.

In fact, I'm very hungry and I've been dreaming about

this mussel and rice dish.

And it's lovely.

The Greek have a really good way with rice, it's not like risotto,

it's not like paella and it's really moist.

The rice is a little bit al dente but only a little bit

and it's just luscious, I'd say.

And what I really like in these rice dishes is dill,

lots and lots of dill.

It's lovely.

And I have to say what a pleasure it is to have this

with probably the most famous dish

in the whole of the Greek culinary lexicon.

Horiatiki - that's the ubiquitous Greek salad.

If you go on a relatively short car journey here out in the sticks,

you'll see quite a bit of discarded building projects

all over the place.

Empty buildings or half-finished ones.

It's a tangible sign of the well-known financial collapse.

Otherwise, I hadn't really noticed too much hardship anywhere else.

Yorgos is our fixer. Before the collapse,

he was a senior TV producer on the state-run channel.

Yorgos, we've all heard about the hard financial times in Greece

but I've been in Thessaloniki for a couple of days now,

there's no sign of it, really.

Well, you know, well, actually,

we, the Greeks, and Thessalonians also,

we don't like to show you things like those.

I mean, you're coming here in Greece for holidays.

We are a tourist destination, the whole country,

and the city is also becoming a tourist destination

so we don't want you,

to disturb you with those images, etc, etc, etc.

We don't want to let you have this experience of Greece.

And second is that we don't really like to let you see it

-because we are ashamed of this.

-Oh.

-OK? That's it.

Greeks, they lost their dignity

and then they don't really want to show you this.

-That's it, that's all.

-That's terrible.

But now, we are back to the basics. We want to survive.

I lost 50% of my income

so what I care about is to have a good basic life.

It's what we care about, all the Greeks,

and I think that this is a good thing.

Now, just a few yards away from the western city walls

is a fine restaurant, quite new, called Sebrico.

It's Greek food given a bit of a modern twist.

I really liked it because not all of these so-called modern twists work.

I know that from having a "modern" paella in Spain,

but enough of that.

Here, it seems to work perfectly.

Certainly good enough for a crew lunch.

Well, yet again, I'm not always on my own eating.

This is another crew lunch

and there's no better country in the world to have a crew lunch

than Greece, because we just asked Ilyas to just bring stuff on.

And he's brought on the most wonderful stuff.

I mean, we've got sardines char-grilled in vine leaves

-which we last saw in Turkey, you remember?

-Mm.

And here we've got samphire.

I've never seen rock samphire,

samphire salad, not the marsh samphire, rock salad.

Here we've got fava bean puree, fava Santorini,

it's like a yellow split pea.

Fabulous!

And over here, we've got some halloumi cheese

but it's a nice spinach salad.

I mean, I love Greek salads, the standard Greek salads

but it's really nice to get something different.

And mussels...

Fabulous! Really, really enjoying it. And the rest of you?

-Fab!

-It's very nice.

-Very nice.

This restaurant was born out of hard times.

The owners, ex-students, had little money at the time

so they pooled their resources while the rents were low

and so they all became restaurateurs.

Ilyas is the man in charge.

APPLAUSE

Do you think the sort of problems in Greece,

do you think something like this has come out of it?

Yes. I had a lot of pressure. I started as a chemical engineer...

-Really?

-..and now I'm a restaurateur.

-Gosh.

So I study another science.

I don't say it's the solution but I say it helps.

It's a good way...to move.

To start this. You know, have another way.

Maybe there's a lesson for other countries.

-Perhaps maybe new ideas could spread too?

-Yes, quite.

-As an answer to crisis.

-Quite encouraging, really.

It's not only, "I say you make." We can make together.

I think cooperation brings the best.

The risk is not big and it's fun. That's good.

I recommend this.

Breakfast on my last day.

A handy hint and tip of the breakfast buffet -

be alert when the man bearing newly fried eggs arrives.

He is the egg man. It's definitely worth the wait.

If I asked anyone from Thessaloniki

what their favourite breakfast would be,

it wouldn't be bacon and eggs.

It'd be this - the bougatsa.

It reminds me a bit of a Cornish pasty

but I can't see the Cornish ever using filo.

IN CORNISH ACCENT: "Filo, what's that, boy?"

It's filled with kima,

a minced meat dish sweet with lots and lots of red onion,

oregano and pepper and, of course, paprika.

It's really nice.

This place opens for business at five in the morning,

just in time for those coming back from the bars and the clubs.

Those were the days. Not any more, sadly.

Now, you can do this at home in your own kitchen

but do try to miss the cat and the clock on the shelf!

Every throw, it doubles in size.

I'm just always thinking, when I'm watching something like this,

that he makes it look so easy.

You think, "Oh, I could just pick that up and fling it

"and it will go like that," but, of course, it wouldn't.

It would just...

It'd probably go all over the room.

Philippos, what's so special about your bougatsa

as opposed to the ones down in the centre of town?

About my bougatsa?

Erm, it's the ingredients that are good,

-very good and expensive for others.

-Yeah.

And the love that I put in my pastry.

This recipe was brought here into Thessaloniki

from my grandfather, from Minor Asia.

-Ah, from Turkey?

-From Turkey, yes, yes, yes.

And I make it with love.

I love these things.

I love... I have grown up with these things. I love it.

That's all it, nothing else.

The first thing Philippos does is to prepare the meat filling.

It's either pork or beef.

I suppose it depends whether you're Christian or a Muslim,

but these things do matter here.

Anyway, lots of paprika which I personally love, hot and sweet.

Pepper, more than most of us would use in a week, I suspect!

And oregano.

If it's the right time of year,

I always take a bag of freshly picked oregano

back with me from Greece.

It's the best, especially from the mountains of the Mani.

Indian food lovers like me have all heard of kima,

mince spiced meat,

but interestingly, it's probably a Greek word.

Now, he wraps it in buttered sheets of the filo

until it's the right size for his baking tin

and in the oven it goes for 20 minutes or so.

THEY SPEAK IN GREEK

Always very, very hungry for a bougatsa.

But that is the most wonderful Greek pie

I think I've ever eaten.

It's crisp, it's so light and it's so deliciously savoury.

No wonder everybody locally goes mad about them.

It's probably the most famous dish in Thessaloniki.

Actually, it comes from further Turkey way

but it's so much part of Greece now.

But I think it indicates about Thessaloniki,

about how it's this sort of melting pot of cultures

but particularly from the east

and I think that's what makes it so special in all of Greece.

The bougatsa, like the Cornish pasty, was a tad filling

and I'm about to tackle another local favourite

that's equally challenging.

What I love about Thessaloniki

is that it's still full of family-run restaurants.

This place is a must.

Something very close to our national bosom -

fish and chips.

But not as we know it.

This restaurant, Tou Aristou, can't sell enough of them.

They make it with salt cod which is washed over and over again

with cold water, constantly changed until it softens,

then they cut it into portions.

The sign above says it was first established in 1940.

Well, I wouldn't mind betting this is something to do with

our own British squaddies or sailors based here

at the start of the last war.

Well, it's only a guess!

I suppose if you were expecting our fish and chips,

you'd be a bit surprised because obviously this is bakaliaro,

it's salt cod.

But it's so...it's so Greek.

It's so nice in the batter. It's very moist.

And what I'm loving is this sauce, which is secret

but I think it's skordalia or "skordhalia", as they call it,

which is like garlic and breadcrumbs and lots of olive oil

and a bit of lemon juice or vinegar.

But it is...

a celebration cos we all love fish and chips.

And I think when you've sat down to eat here

and you've made that little shift from, you know, fresh cod

and mushy peas and our chips to this, you'd get it.

You'd see just how wonderful and how celebratory it was.

And if you came here in the winter, you would not get a seat.

You'd be waiting for hours in a queue.

So a little tip - if you want to get into this place easily,

come to Thessaloniki in the summer

cos all the locals are out away on holiday.

Right outside my hotel

there's a bronze statue of the philosopher and teacher Aristotle.

It's not surprising, really,

because the whole place is called Aristotle Square

and further down the road is a brilliant statue of Alexander,

the greatest warrior and general that ever lived.

And so my next culinary foray is based on the one thing

that connects the two of them, and that is the humble peach.

It's just so lovely here. I mean, the family,

they're all picking the peaches and preparing a bit of lunch.

It's so beautiful - the green of the leaves and the luscious fruit.

I've never been in a peach orchard like this.

It's just that I feel so relaxed.

And I'm just reminded that we're very close

to Aristotle's school and, of course,

his most famous pupil was Alexander the Great.

And in gratitude for all that Aristotle taught him,

Alexander gave him a peach tree which was known at the time

as the rose of China, but probably came from Persia.

And, of course, he planted it and the story goes that

all these beautiful orchards came from that one tree

and probably, I like to think, Aristotle's most famous quote,

"The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet."

Just a couple miles away,

there indeed lies the classroom of Aristotle.

It's an area that looks a bit like a quarry.

'There are holes in the cliff wall

'where I suppose beams were inserted to make shelter.'

'It was very much Aristotle's view that Alexander

'should be a fine leader and a total despot to the barbarians,

'and to look after the Greek people like friends and relatives and to

'deal with the barbarian hordes like you would beasts or invasive plants.

'And it was here that the seed of that philosophy was sown.'

'The peach tree - a thank-you present to Aristotle -

'might well have been accompanied by Alexander's famous saying

'about his former teacher.'

'He said, "I'm indebted to my father for living,

'but to my teacher for living well."'

'Well, it didn't do him much good.

'He popped his clogs at the tender age of 32.'

INDISTINCT CHATTER AND LAUGHTER

CAMERA CLICKS

HE SPEAKS GREEK

-Thank you so much.

-Right.

Now, then, they've just done this wonderful spread for me

and I don't know how to do justice to it but I'm just going to try...

This is everything peach, so we are starting off...

I just need to try a bit of this, which is

a bit of filo pastry with some curd cheese and peach jam.

Oh.

Wonderful combination of curd cheese and the peach jam.

That's, I think, a breakfast dish and again, this is a breakfast dish.

This is peach pie.

Oh, I love your peach pie.

And this is a peach omelette,

with a local cheese called... What's the cheese?

-ALL:

-Batzos.

-Batzos.

Is there peach in there? Oh, yeah, a little bit of sweetness there,

that's really good. Really nice.

Again, breakfast.

But this one, I suspect, is for your dinner.

It's actually... What I'm really interested in is this peach glaze

which goes with this grilled chicken.

Mmm, fabulous. Nice salty sweetness.

Popular in loads of restaurants around here. Lovely.

A profusion of peach dishes and I think I only need to, erm,

offer you a toast.

-Yasu...? ALL:

-Yassas.

Yassas. Always getting that wrong.

Peach juice, of course.

'Out of all the peachy delights I'd tasted that morning, the peach pie

'was the best, and one of the women gave me the recipe, as you do.

'And it's dead easy.'

'About ten peaches, sliced and cut up really roughly.

'No need to peel them either.

'And then into a pan,

'to soften with a couple of strips of vanilla pod and then honey.

'Lots of honey. If you like honey, use even more.

'That will take about ten minutes to get the right juicy consistency.'

'Now, the pie.

'I'm using ready-made filo, otherwise I'd be here all morning.

'And I use melted butter to coat generously.

'Four of these buttery sheets of filo make the base,

'leaving one for the top.'

'Now, fill generously with the honeyed peaches.'

'Top with the filo and it is done. It's a superb pie.

'And if the cost of fresh peaches puts you off,

'then tinned ones are really good, too.'

'35 minutes in a medium to hot oven.'

'A sprinkling of icing sugar,

'a dollop of Greek yoghurt and thank you,

'or as they say in Greece - "Efharisto".'

It's just yummy.

Oh, so good with yoghurt, too, the Greek yoghurt.

Mmm.

'Yassas. Kalispera Thessaloniki.

'Time, nearly, to go to the airport, but not quite.'

'Just enough time left for a swim.'

'I've always associated Greece with tavernas

'and they've always got to be blue.

'And they've got to be next to the sea, just a few steps away.

'Now don't get me wrong, I really love those old buildings

'and walls and arches and frescoes

'and great stories from the Ancients.'

'But the lure of the blue taverna further along the coast

'calls me like the Sirens did to Odysseus.

'A call I can't resist.'

'With it comes the smell of grilled fish.

'There'll be octopus drying on lines and mackerel.'

'It is a fitting end to a long weekend.'

Gosh, I've had a wonderful time in Thessaloniki.

I mean, it's just been such a friendly city.

The food's been fabulous, as I expected.

But it's just the people.

They're going through really hard times,

although they try to hide it from us tourists.

But I think it brings out the best in them.

I've had some fantastic conversations with people and

it is such a beautiful city to visit.

The antiquities, everywhere, popping up out of the ground

and the general gastronomic delight of the place.

But, all through the couple of days I've been there,

I've been dreaming of somewhere like this.

I just had to get out to the beach and we are only

about 30, 40 minutes out of the city centre.

There is something about great tavernas on the beach

that nobody does as well.

I don't know whether it is the lovely pale awnings or the

blue everywhere or the fact that everything is sort of cooked

so ruggedly. When you're on the beach, that's what you like.

You like a bit of sun-dried octopus,

or some dried mackerel or a beautiful bass like this.

And after, a swim.

# Hey Rick

# Where we going next weekend?

# Are we flying a few hours away?

# For some delicious food They say

# We can try dishes in Roma

# Or Barcelona

# For some thing more exotic though the spices of Morocco

# Yes you can take your pick

# And even break the ice in Reykjavik

# So Rick make the booking

# Let's get cooking

# And get those taste buds going

# Next weekend. #