By Rachel Hergett EBS COLUMNIST
I’m ever curious about how cuisines morph across time and space. How, for example, does a dish that originates from one culture or country differ when served outside of these initial parameters?
Once upon a time, some 20 years ago, I visited a Mexican restaurant in Poland—Warsaw, if memory serves. Dinner arrived with generous sides of rice and beans, but at the time I did not recognize the nearly white rice with corn and carrots and peas as a Mexican dish. Mexican rice, in my mind and experience, was a deep red orange, taking on the color of chili peppers that season the grains. This rice seemed very bland in comparison, very Polish. I was almost surprised they didn’t try to sneak in some pickles.
Now, I know that the rice was made with full respect to the restaurant owner’s Mexican culinary roots. It was arroz primavera, or spring rice, and the mixed vegetables are essential to the dish. My perception of Mexican rice was entirely colored by my experience here in the U.S.
Greek cuisine has found a similar box inside my mind. I have been making a simple Greek-inspired salad for decades. This was Greek food to me. Well, until last summer when my mom and stepdad’s closest friends, a couple I simply call my “second parents,” rented a house on Crete for a couple months. When my mom returned from a visit to the Greek island, she naturally came bearing gifts, including an olive wood necklace, olives and olive oil. Are we sensing a theme here? But she also came armed with a “mix for Greek salad” spice packet from Wild Aroma—a company based in the Cretan town of Heraklion—and tales of how the Greeks actually eat salads.
My Romaine-lettuce heavy salad was again Americanized and unlike the salads they were served with every meal on Crete. These salads had a mix of vegetables, but rarely lettuce. And instead of crumbles of feta, it had a choose-your-own-adventure hunk of the sheep’s milk cheese.
My salad included a dressing of sorts, a mix of feta, olive oil, lemon juice and oregano. On Crete, simplicity was key. A spice mix was sprinkled over the vegetables, salt and pepper cracked, and then olive oil and red wine vinegar was drizzled over the whole thing.
Now, the Greek salads I make multiple times a week are somewhere in between the two, mainly because I often have crumbled feta rather than the bricks on hand.
The aforementioned “mix for Greek salad” has been key. I briefly mentioned this seasoning packet in an earlier column about big salads. A serving suggestion on the initial packet is a photo of a Greek salad the way my mom described. It’s a bed of vegetables with a chunk of feta on top. From what I can see, it has cucumbers, tomatoes, red onions, green peppers and fresh parsley leaves.
The “mix for Greek salad” adds the herbaceousness, with just the right amount of depth and bite. I liked the seasoning mix so much we asked for more to be brought back across the pond when my second parents returned from their adventure. They did. It was not enough.
This week, my final packet running dangerously low, I scoured the internet for a supplier. I was not successful. So it was on to Plan B—creating my own spice mix. By the time I started this project, the final teaspoons I reserved for comparison’s sake had somehow disappeared. I relied instead on the powerful memory of taste. But I did find the cardboard packaging with the ingredients list: oregano, thyme, parsley, celery, salt.
After a trip to Town & Country Foods, I secured the base ingredients from Fisher Spice, a Bozeman-based spice merchant started by Stan Fisher and, as of this year, under the guardianship of the owners of Furrow & Fly English Muffins.
Later, when I looked at the Fisher Spice website to find those nuggets of information, I also stumbled on a list of spice blends. One seemed to jump out. “Greek.” I sought it out at a second store later that morning, just to clarify that the Greek mix is not one and the same. It’s not. Fisher Spice’s Greek mix includes spearmint, marjoram, basil, oregano, rosemary, thyme, onion and chili flakes. I have used it before and grabbed a packet, knowing it is delicious on fish and chicken, things that pair exceptionally well with Greek salad.
Back to the custom spice mix. I’ve left out the salt, simply because I like to have ultimate control of salt levels in my food and generally avoid spice mixes with salt included. My first test run started with equal parts of the first three ingredients (oregano, thyme and parsley), and half that of celery seed, taking into account the intensity of their flavor. The celery seed was still overpowering. Part of the problem seemed to be the delivery; Whole celery seeds, though minuscule, pack a punch in a tiny package.
Spice mix Version 2 halved the amount of celery seed, and this time I pulled out my mortar and pestle and ground the seeds into a near powder form before adding them to the mix. It was still too heavy on the celery seed. I halved them again in spice mix Version 3, and also halved the parsley. The second move was mainly because of personal preference—of the four spices, I enjoy parsley the least. Finally, the taste of the dry mix felt familiar on my tongue.
Maybe my salad still isn’t truly Greek, or maybe it’s Crete-specific. It is built from my experience, so I may never know. What I do know is that it remains delicious and with this spice mix, I feel I have unlocked some of its secrets.
Greek salad seasoning mix
1 part oregano
1 part thyme
½ part parsley
⅛ part ground celery seed
To make a Greek salad, sprinkle generously over vegetables and a hunk o’ feta. Top with olive oil and red wine vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Rachel Hergett is a foodie and cook from Montana. She is arts editor emeritus at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle and has written for publications such as Food Network Magazine and Montana Quarterly. Rachel is also the host of the Magic Monday Show on KGLT-FM and teaches at Montana State University.
