h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I share in your joy at the food revolution.

When I was a kid in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, we ate what you'd call ethnic food. But we didn't have much pasta - we got spaghetti in the school cafeteria. It was baked with cheese over it.

My grandmother thought zucchini was 'a' EYE-tal-ian cucumber', and my mom deep-fat fried it, because we were, er, ethnic.

Here's how to get your Thanksgiving turkey in Greece:

1. Buy a turkey in the open-air market. Have the butcher sear off the the pinfeathers with a small propane blow-torch while you watch. Hold your nose and take it home.

2. Prepare your turkey in a roassting pan. If you want American traditional, use stuffing and sage, if you can find it. If you want it Greek style, baste it with garlic, olive oil, aby leaf, and about a tablespoon of ketchup (really).

3. Take the turkey to the corner bakery, called a 'fournos' (it means 'oven'). Pay them 50 drachmas. When the bread is finished baking, they will put your turkey in the charcoal oven for a few hours. You can pick it up about lunchtime. (This is also how to get your Sunday dinner cooked.)

Chicken and turkey roasted in a charcoal oven cannot be improved upon. Microwave is not best, nor is deep-fat frying your turkey.

Er, yes, people here DO deep-fat fry turkeys. This must be done outdoors and is dangerous, according to the insurance companies...

Here I am, reading about this lovely food, with my snack supplies gone or meager.

Don't they have roach wagons in Boston? Out into the cold - junk food foray, quick!

There's a donut shop about a quarter mile away. The refrigerator is closer, though. In a little while I will eat a piece of the chocolate carrot cake I made last night.

You have many talents, I see - being able to make your own comfort food is a good one.

I don't think of my cakes as snack materials, though. I usually have boxes of crackers or jars of salted peanuts next to my computer. I've run out of both, so the cake will have to do.

You're right. Cake is real food.

Unless you have coeliac as I do, then they are very attractive .

re posting 31:

i visited the very very beautiful greek island of corfu/kerkyra back in 1979 (i think) and while i was there one sunday was very special to the people there (saint spyridon's day, if that means anything to you?)

i was in a bakery some time around noon or early afternoon and many greek women brought trays with delicious food and paid the baker good money to cook it for them in his big oven

it was obvious to me that they had put much effort in the way their food looked. none of them wanted their cooking skills to look bad in the eyes of their neighbours

You must be psychic, Pierce. Post 31 has no yet been made.

21, I think.

That's true. Your neighbours see your dishes this way... You want to look good.

St Spyridion is a big deal on Kerkyra, I think. We lived on the Aegean and then in Athens, and only visited Patras once.

If you read Gerald Durrell's delightful 'My Family and Other Animals', there's a great story about St Spyridion in there. His sister Margot......no, I won't spoil the surprise, in case you haven't read it.

Here it is, finally, post 31, which will be about



















nothing much.

great scott, paul h, it appears you are right!

It's okay, Pierce.

re 30:

i will put durells on my to-do-list, dmitri (along with at least 20 others by now )

it sounds intriguing

maybe later i will tell you about my meeting with mr. spyridon. it was most amusing

Please do tell us.

We had a vice president named for that saint - Spiro Agnew, remember him? 'Effete corps of impudent snobs?' Funny guy.

Saint Spiridon was probably dull compared to Spiro Agnew.

He was - I just looked him up.

Dull as ditchwater. Patron saint of potters. He even died of old age - not common amongst saints of his antiquity.

As the patron saint of potters, was he expected to protect Harry Potter?

Nobody should protect Hawwy Pottah.

Dear Dimitri,

I shall have my virtual turKeycooked in the virtual baker's oven, and think of you my dear friend. !! thank you for the wonderful receipe.It sounds delicious.

I loved the EYE-tailian veggies. !!

Go well,

Christiane AR80

24/11/09 17.40 GMT