Cellar Tastings

One of the healthiest Greek recipes, Dolmas are fresh and delicious. While they can be made with lamb and even beef, this recipe for Greek “Dolmades” is vegetarian, using pine nuts, fresh herbs, and raisins, along with the rice. In Greece, this recipe originated millennia ago, using the edible grape vine leaves. “Dolmades” are eaten everywhere in Greece, but even abroad you can find the tinned version of Dolmas (quite nice, actually). They are also served with Easter Sunday Lamb in Greece. Apart from Greece, the Syrians, Armenians, Turks and Israelis also feature Dolmas in their local cuisine. These are tasty, easy to make, and perfect for a “Greek Dinner party”.

Ingredients

• 225 grams preserved vine leaves
• 115 grams “”Arborio” style rice (short grain)
• 1 medium sized white onion
• 175 ml olive oil
• 1 Garlic Clove, mashed
• 3 Shallots, diced
• Chopped Parsley, handfu
• l Chopped Mint, handful
• Chopped Dill (fresh), handful
• Salt and Pepper to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 70 grams of Pine Nuts
• 75 grams of Raisins (Greek of Californian)
• Juice of one large Lemon

Preparation

Place the Vine leave in a large pot and fill to the brim with boiling water, leave stand for 20 minutes or so. Then, place in a bowel of cold water for another 20 minutes, rinse again and drain in a colander. Separately, cook the rice until tender, for about 15 minutes (with water and a pinch of salt). Leave the cooked rice on the side. In a frying pan, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil, adding in the onion (chopped finely). Sauté the onion gently for about 5 minutes. Slowly add in the rice, the pine nuts, the raisins, the shallots, the fresh herbs, salt to taste and plenty of black pepper. Mix well and let simmer on low heat for 5 more minutes.

Place the vine leaves on a flat surface and start filling each one with a dollop of the rice mix. Roll into cigar shapes, and place the Dolmas into a pan, only one layer deep. When all of the stuffed vine leaves are shaped and placed in the pan, pour over the olive oil and lemon juice over the top. Bring to a boil, then let simmer for 45 minutes on very low heat. When fully cooked, allow the Dolmas to chill slightly. Drain the Dolmas and arrange on a presentation dish. Garnish with lemon wedges, and pita bread. Greek Tzatziki dip goes perfectly with the Dolmas.

Try this dish with: Amethystos dry white wine, Constantin Lazaridis

From the wine region of Drama, located in Greece’s mountainous beautiful Macedonia wine producing area, in the community of Adriani, lies one of our favorite wineries in Greece- Constantin Lazaridis. Leaders in top Greek wine production and also in wine tourism in Greece, Lazaridis makes a range of wines from the Amethystos brand, to Chateau Julia, the flagship range. They also have an interesting distillery where they produce Eau-de-Vie.

The white Amethystos wine is made with principally Sauvignon Blanc, in an ultra dry, very zippy style. It tastes quite similar to how you would imagine a Bordeaux “Entre-deux-Mers”, as indeed it is blended with Semillon blanc and also the Greek varietal, Aegean Assyrtiko. The color is pale straw with hints of green and the bouquet is pure peaches! The flavours and aromas are intense and there is a lovely, long finish. Highly recommended.

The Slow Food Movement, was created in Italy in 1986, with the aim of protecting and preserving the traditional cooking and farming methods throughout the world. It’s founders were against the way in which food was becoming homegenous, not reflecting the rich regional and international variations. Slow Food was an angry response to the first McDonalds, established in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. It is a resistance movement to the new fast food era that seems to be spreading all over the world through globalization and ‘westernization.’ The resistance movement began in Italy, when a gentleman named Carlo Petrini began protesting ‘the fast food nation.’ Petrini wanted to preserve organic farming, artisan cheesemaking, protect the small, interesting wineries.

The movement today has expanded into over 100 countries, including offices in Switzerland in 1995, Germany in 1998, the US in 2000, France in 2003, and most recently to Japan in 2004. It claims over 80,000 members worldwide. It has been callerd an ecology movement and is fittingly known as the culinary wing of the ‘anti-globalization’ movement. 2004 brought a new fuel to this fight when a University of Food was opened in Piedmont, Italy. The goal is to spread the cause and promote awarness of good food and nutrition through tradition, sometimes with an innovative twist.

The official symbol of Slow Food is the snail. The Slow Food Snail now graces the cover of their many food and wine publications. The first publication was a huge success when they created Italy’s best guide to wine, restaurants, and food stores. A major change came in the mid 1990s, when a new ‘eco-gastronomy’ platform was developed to extend the attention of protection from wild animals such as the panda and tiger to domesticated plants and animals. According to Carlo Petrini, "A hundred years ago, people ate between one hundred and a hundred and twenty different species of food. Now our diet is made up of at most ten or twelve species."

The Slow Food movement advocate and create programs and lobbies to help preserve native varieties of fruits and vegetables, as well as promote local and traditional cuisine and the passing down of culinary and farming knowledge. Traditional processing of animals etc, is even protected and carried out on small scale levels. Promotion and marketing departments create local and regional festivities and celebrations of traditional cuisine. Other programs are based on education of consumers and citizens about the risks associated with the tecnological movements in the industry, such as risk of fast food consumption, risks associated with agribusiness and factory farms, and even the risks of relying onso few varieties of animal and plantlife. With the common agriculture policy (CAP) of the European Union, a key issue for the Slow Food movement has been the protection of traditional small family farms. The CAP program, works more off efficiency and modernization, rather than tradition. The CAP program as well as other legisation in other areas of the world have incited a lobbying effort by the group agianst genetic modification and pesticide use while supporting organic movements.

Critics of the movement have been Slow Food “elitists” and blamed them for discouraging of advancements. The Slow Food movement claims to be working toward better farming practices, reling less on transportation, energy, chemicals, and expensive technological methods. The Slow Food movement falls in line with other organizations fighting for ‘green’ ideas, such as Greenpeace and other green parties, but it relies on the subtle and peaceful fight through education and awareness.

The movement continues to gain strength as their fight has helped calm the lingering panic over mad cow disease, the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease, and the debate over genetically modified food. The Slow Food organization has since rapidly acquired a political importance and popularity that wasn’t even expected by its founders. In 1995 the Slow Food began to take off as expanded its platform to defend endangered foods, expanded its membership another 20,000 to 65,000 members a and into forty-two countries. With the expansion and importance of the European Union toward this movement, the Slow Food movement opened offices in Brussels, where they lobby for agriculture and trade policy. Another office was opened in New York to organize trade fairs in the US as well as finding markets for traditional food producers.

Apart from serious lobbying, Slow Food sponsor many fabulous, international food and wine fairs, like the Salone del Gusto in Turin, Italy, and the Festivale di Franciacorta in Erbusco, Italy. In order to join the USA chapter of Slow Food, check out their official website at www.slowfoodusa.org. To become involved, it only costs $60 a year for singles and $75 for couples. You can become involved in the local groups and participate in all programs and events. The magazine ‘slow’ and the newsletter ‘snail’ are both complementary with membership. There are even discounts on other publications and merchandise associated with the Slow Food movement. All membership fees and donations are tax deductible.