[Melodic piano music] DIANE KOCHILAS: To eat a plant-based diet in ancient Greece was the norm rather than the exception.

Whole schools of philosophy evolved, espousing the virtues of a simple diet as the way to keep mind and body in balance.

In this episode, I speak with renowned British classicist John Wilkins.

Join me on My Greek Table as I cook up a feast of plant-based dishes inspired by ancient Greece, including a greens pancake, a spiced chickpea dish, and a delicious carrot salad with walnuts.

♪♪ ANNOUNCER: My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... [Lyrical Greek inspired guitar music] DIANE: Plant-based cooking and eating are far from modern ideas.

Their roots extend back into ancient times.

The name Pythagoras may conjure up memories of math class, but this philosopher and mathematician is also the father of vegetarianism.

Pythagoras and his followers believed in the kinship of all living beings.

Abstaining from meat was not only a matter of health, but also of ethics and spiritual harmony.

Philosophers like Plato echoed these values, arguing that compassion for animals and respect for life were essential virtues.

Pythagorean philosophy gave rise to the term the Pythagorean diet, a forerunner of today's plant-based movement.

The ancient Greek table was filled with foods from what is now called the Mediterranean Triad: grains such as barley and wheat, olives and olive oil, and all the gifts of the grapevine.

But the ancient Greek diet was also rich in a wide variety of foods that promote health and longevity, something that the ancients understood intuitively, and something we should embrace today, not only to nurture our bodies and spirit, but the planet too.

I'm very excited to be talking to um, one of my academic heroes, Professor John Wilkins.

John is Professor Emeritus of Ancient Greek Culture at the University of Exeter, and he is the author of Food in the Ancient World .

PROF.

JOHN WILKINS: Well, thank you for your welcome.

DIANE: What do we actually know about the prevalence of vegetarianism in ancient Greece?

PROF.

WILKINS: We mostly know about it because it appealed to philosophers, famous philosophers like Pythagoras of Samos, and people thought it was really weird.

Uh, the reason they thought it was weird was that the philosophers wanted to live a purer life, and as part of this they thought that eating animals was something they shouldn't do, and that would lead to purification of the soul.

They were body and soul people, they weren't just pleasure-seeking people.

Um, but the big problem was that all the Greek cities depended on sacrificing animals to keep the gods on their side.

Um, the harvest wouldn't ripen without the gods, the wars wouldn't be won without the gods, and the gods want blood sacrifice.

So to be vegetarian was a bit way out, that's the broad picture.

DIANE: Chickpeas were one of the legumes that were very popular and common in ancient Greece.

I'm starting by chopping my fennel, maratho in Greek.

This is actually cultivated fennel.

Mostly we have wild fennel in the Greek kitchen.

[Chopping] The chickpeas that are sitting in the bowl right here are actually dried chickpeas.

I don't mind going through the trouble of soaking and then boiling them, but if you don't have time to do that, don't worry about it.

You can always find good quality canned chickpeas.

Just look for low sodium, that's all.

Olive oil has been part of the Greek landscape since time immemorial.

The onions go in next.

[Scraping] And while that's cooking, I'll chop the garlic.

It has not only a place in cuisine, but it also has a place in folklore.

We say ftou skórdo, which is sort of a wish that no harm comes to somebody.

Let me add a touch of salt.

The garlic is going in.

Stir this all up.

The next thing that goes in here are the chickpeas.

[Patter of chickpeas] Chickpeas are in that long list of healthy Mediterranean ingredients.

Um pretty much indigenous to this part of the world, cultivated since Neolithic times.

So, you know tested, time-tested as being something really good for you.

I have some other ingredients here that I want to talk about.

Bay leaf, definitely part of the ancient Greek kitchen.

Bay trees grow even in the middle of Athens.

So it's kind of fun to see that if you ever walk around the city.

I have ginger here, which you may not necessarily associate with Greek cuisine, although we have known it for a long time.

It was used mostly for medicinal purposes in ancient Greece.

It's known in Greek as piperoriza, or pepper root, because it's spicy.

[Tapping] The next spice that goes in here, we call it kourkouma in Greek.

It's turmeric root, and I have it in powder form right here.

I'm going to mix everything together, and I want to do that before I add liquid to this so that the flavors of the turmeric have a little bit of time uh to develop.

It has a lovely, almost a smoky flavor to my palate, and of course it imparts this beautiful golden color.

Two ingredients that were often paired together in ancient Greece: vinegar and honey.

There was actually something called oxymelo, which was a sweetened vinegar, a honey sweetened vinegar.

This sort of sweet and sour combination is something that the ancient Greeks loved.

I'm getting this beautiful bouquet here that's a combination of spices, the herbal quality of the bay leaf as it heats up.

The vegetable stock goes in next.

You could just as easily use water in this.

Stock is a little bit more flavorful, and we don't want to make this into a soup.

We want to add just enough to barely cover the chickpeas.

I think it's time to cover this and let it cook until the chickpeas are really tender for about 45 minutes to an hour.

[Lid clanking] I'm going to show you what it should look like when it's finished.

Succulent, but not soupy.

I'm going to taste some of this.

This is a very, very hardy meal.

The color of the turmeric is just making this look like gold in a pot.

I'm going to add a little liquid gold, as well over the top.

Time to taste this.

I can tell already that I'm going to like it.

Mmm.

This dish is literally a bowl of harmony.

The chickpeas are the perfect consistency.

They're soft, but they're not mushy.

It's a little bit of a bite to them, which makes you feel like you're eating something substantial.

You're going to be full and sated after having this delicious meal.

There's kind of this underlying pepperiness to the dish because of the ginger.

The onions and the fennel have kind of melted into everything and provide almost a sweetness, but of course the honey does that too.

But what I love in this dish the most is the turmeric.

It's so rich and earthy.

Here's the proof that the flavors of longevity in Greece started a very long time ago.

PROF.

WILKINS: The Greeks were very unhappy about killing animals.

It's quite different from the modern world.

They thought really it was really an awful thing to do and they all shared the guilt in it.

But the gods said I demand the blood of this animal.

Um, and they took on the guilt and sacrificed and then the god with a bit of luck would support the city, Athens or Corinth or whatever it is.

The other side of the picture is if you lived in a poorer city uh and if you were 95 percent of the population, you- you- you didn't eat any meat except at the special occasion.

So meat was only for special occasions.

It wasn't something you did every day or every week.

I'm making a very tasty carrot salad that is inspired by ancient Greek cuisine and has all these amazing ingredients that have been in use in the Greek kitchen literally for thousands of years.

I'm starting with the walnuts.

I just want to toast them a little bit.

So this is going to take a few minutes.

It's on a very low flame.

You want to be careful not to burn them.

It's a dry skillet.

You don't need any oil in here.

And I want you to notice what I'm using.

I'm using an entire carrot with a carrot top.

This is a really great example of nose-to-tail cooking, even when it comes to vegetarian traditions.

I learned to love carrot tops by spending spring time in my village, in Ikaria, where carrot tops are something that people pick.

We have a lot of wild carrots on the island, too, and use either in pies, in cooked dishes, but also in salads.

They're very, very tasty.

Very... they're very refreshing and almost acidic.

They're very nice.

So I'm just going to get a rough chop on these, and I'm actually going to use them in a very unusual pesto.

[Chopping] I think the walnuts are ready to come off.

I want to get everything ready for the pesto part of this.

On the mint, I don't want the tough stems.

I really just want the leaves.

Everything is going into the food processor.

If I wanted to be an absolute purist, I would make the pesto in a mortar with a pestle, which is actually the first meaning of that.

It means to be pounded, something that's pesto is pounded.

I'll chop a little bit of ginger.

The first thing in are the toasted walnuts.

[Walnuts scattering and whirring of processor] I'll get the ginger and garlic in here next.

And most of the garlic I'm going to save some for the dressing.

[Whirring of food processor] Our carrot tops.

I'll do this in increments since the bowl of this particular food processor is small.

[More whirring] Getting the mint in here, some olive oil, a touch of this honey vinegar, oxymelo, and a little bit of salt, which will also help break down the ingredients a bit.

[Whirring] And this is our beautiful aromatic carrot top mint walnut pesto.

Good [laughs].

Now I'm going to work the carrots.

Basically I just want ribbons, thin strips of carrot.

You can do this on a mandolin, you can do it on a spiralizer.

It's a very, very delicate salad.

You can do this with other vegetables too.

I love to do it with zucchini in the summer, especially when they're fresh right out of the garden and really tender.

Try to go around the carrot so that you get kind of an even, spread.

I usually work right down to the center.

[Slicing] Okay, I think we have enough carrot for the salad.

There are some ancient spices in this recipe, cumin seed, fennel seed, and caraway.

And the first thing I want to do is toast the seeds to get more flavor out of them.

All of their essential oils are released when we toast them.

For all its simplicity, the seasoning and the palate in ancient Greek cooking was actually rather sophisticated.

I want to be a little careful with the seeds.

We don't want to burn them.

And I am going to grind these.

I'm going to use an ancient cooking tool, a mortar and pestle.

You actually get better flavor out of the seeds when you grind them with a mortar and pestle.

You're not just pulverizing them with you know, speed and violence.

And there's an element of joy in this because I'm getting this incredible, feast of aromas.

Getting to the dressing next.

And I want to get the spices in here, these beautiful aromatic seeds.

A little bit of garlic.

A little sea salt.

The honey vinegar, also known as oxymelo, a very, very old ingredient in Greece that's still in use today, and extra virgin Greek olive oil and I'm just going to start whisking this, to make an emulsification.

[Tapping of whisk] I think we're good here.

I'm going to dress the salad.

[Tapping] Add a dollop or two of the pesto.

This is also obviously great over pasta.

And let's mix this all together.

[Clanking of bowl] Time to serve the salad.

Looks good.

Smells good.

Mmmmm.

There's a lot of complexity in this salad.

I get that lovely toasted walnut flavor, which seems to be underlying everything, but I'm also getting a lot of mint.

The carrot tops have an almost grassy flavor, a little bit astringent, but very refreshing.

What I love is the sweetness of the oxymelo and those spices are coming through loud and clear.

So in this simple salad, made pretty much with everyday ingredients, there's a lot of ancient Greek wisdom.

DIANE: Are there any techniques that the ancient Greek vegetarian philosophers embraced that might be applicable to say, a longevity diet?

PROF.

WILKINS: We could sort of divide this into two halves.

The um, the main line- the main line philosophers like Plato and Aristotle, they wanted people to live a simple plant-based diet.

As soon as you have something highly spiced or very rich food, you're in danger of leading a dissipated life.

That's the sort of thing that tyrants do.

Um, then the other side is the doctors like Galen, who's a very philosophical person.

And ancient medicine, as everybody will understand, is much less interventionist than modern medicine.

And so they had to keep people alive in a different way.

And that was to encourage people to lead a healthy life.

Um, and you do this by eating a balanced diet, uh by breathing good air, and then you eat non-luxurious foods.

You exercise in moderation.

You sleep in moderation.

They should- [chuckles] they should go to bed at a sensible time and get up early in the morning and sleep properly.

DIANE: One of the most unique aspects of Greek cooking is this sense of continuity from ancient times all the way to the present.

I'm making something that definitely harkens back to antiquity, which is a kind of flatbread or pancake filled with greens.

And this is a native recipe from Ikaria.

I'm adding a little bit of yeast to the flour.

For the dough, I'm using very, very fine semolina flour.

It actually goes by the name here, zymoto, which means to knead.

So I'm just mixing the dry yeast into this.

I'm gonna get a little salt in here next.

I have a little bit of warm water here measured out.

[Water trickles in] And of course, a little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil.

Now you can do this in a mixer with a dough hook, but it's a small quantity, so I'm just gonna do it by hand.

This is a great recipe.

It harkens back to one in particular, called plakoundas, which was sort of like a batter cake made on a hot stone or a hot piece of metal.

I'm gonna add a little bit of flour to this.

We want the dough to be soft, but not so sticky.

We don't want it to stick to our hands.

[Scraping] Okay, I'm gonna knead this on the counter.

I can feel this coming together.

It's already getting nice and smooth.

And I like to knead with this part of my palm.

I just find it easier.

Everyone has their own method.

Some people do the punching method.

I find this works for me.

This is exactly what we want.

It's beautiful and you can see the surface is nice and silky.

I can run my fingers over it without them sticking.

What I want to do next is divide this into four even balls.

[Slicing] I have to let this rise a little bit.

And that's going to happen while I make the filling.

Make sure you have the pan oiled because you don't want the dough to stick to the surface.

[Rubbing] So I'm just gonna let this rest for about a half hour until it puffs up a little bit.

I have to get the greens filling ready now, a little bit of extra virgin Greek olive oil, and a whole bunch of different greens are in these bowls here.

I want to get the chopped fennel and the onion in here first.

[Sizzling] And let me add a little bit of salt to the mixture.

I'm going to start getting the greens in here.

I have spinach and chard.

Use as many or as few greens and herbs as you like in this.

I have some oregano growing back here.

That's a very traditional flavor in Ikaria, especially in greens pie fillings.

Let me check on the greens here.

Yep.

Time to add everything else to this.

What I have here is something that we find in the farmers markets in Athens.

And they basically sell this heap of greens and they simply call it mixed wild greens.

I have some sweet dandelion in here.

I have something called mironia.

The closest thing in English is chervil.

So the idea is variety.

The more variety, the richer in nutrients.

The more minerals and vitamins you get in a filling like this.

[Tapping of spoon] Just a little bit of salt.

And some black pepper.

I'm going to add a little bit of olive oil to this.

[Tapping] You always want to use sweet greens in a filling like this.

You don't want something like arugula, which turns very bitter when it's cooked.

I'm going to let that cook down a little bit until it's at the consistency that we need it to be for filling the pancakes.

Nice and cooked down.

Let me just get the oregano in here.

[Chopping] I've got some chopped fresh mint.

And the filling is pretty much ready.

I just want to let this drain out a little bit to avoid a filling that's so wet it might make the dough soggy.

Okay, let's see what's under here.

[Gasps] Perfect.

You see how much bigger they are now?

So I want to get a little flour on my surface here.

Keep that covered, so that it doesn't dry out and start rolling this out.

[Rolling pin knocking the surface] I don't want to make these too big because remember I want to be able to handle them in the frying pan.

So I'm just going to set it aside while I get the next one ready.

And this is pretty sturdy.

It's nice and smooth.

The trick is to get it even, so you want to roll it out in all directions.

Sometimes I do that from the center out.

Whatever works for you, so long as you get a fairly even circle.

I'm going to fill this, but first brush it with a little bit of olive oil.

We don't want to overstuff this, that's also really important.

And just kind of flatten that out.

You want to let the greens cool before you do this.

Now we want to cover this, shake off some of the excess flour.

[Patting] You can see how easy it is to work with.

It's a pretty flexible, easy dough, very pliant.

I want to dampen the rim a little bit just to make sure that this is going to stick together.

And now we want to turn that in.

The whole point is just to make sure this holds together.

A little bit of olive oil.

You want to be careful.

You don't want the pan to be too hot so that the bottom burns without the dough actually cooking.

So medium heat, a good non-stick pan or cast iron pan is perfect for this.

I just want to slide this in here.

[Pan hitting plate] Get a little more olive oil in there.

Carefully flip it... And slide it back in.

This is going to cook on the other side for a few more minutes, and then we'll cut it open and enjoy it together.

This looks very rustic.

That's exactly what it's supposed to look like.

I'm just going to cut through it.

Give myself a little piece.

So that's our thin, greens-filled pancake.

It's warm.

Not hot, warm.

Mmmm.

Wow, it really got a grilled flavor.

And I taste, what I taste most right now is the mint.

I'm getting the oregano too.

All the other greens in here are kind of this very subtle but complex mixture, and the smokiness of the dough that holds everything together makes this a recipe that not only transports me personally back into my aunt's traditional kitchen on Ikaria, but will transport you as well into a style of cooking that's meant to be healthy, easy, and most important of all, soul satisfying.

DIANE: For recipe links and information about My Greek Table , visit my website, DianeKochilas.com.

ANNOUNCER: Diane's cookbooks, "The Ikaria Way" and "Athens: Food, Stories, Love" are available to purchase online at DianeKochilas.com or call the phone number on the screen.

My Greek Table with Diane Kochilas is made possible in part by... The Fillo Factory.

Grecian Delight Kronos, A family committed to better eating.

The National Hellenic Society.

And by the following... ♪♪