Laconia, culinary culture based on olive oil

The gastronomy of Laconia is a huge and great capital, with contrasts excitingly succeeding one another. Where else can you find the richness of the fertile valley of Evrotas and at the same time the completely simple but magnificent Maniac cuisine?

The laconic cuisine is based on the precious olive fruit, olive oil, and can boast of 4 PDO or PGI certified olive oils, all of them among the best in Greece. The oil is the basis for a multitude of her dishes.

The leaves in the laconic pies are fermented with plenty of olive oil and become incredibly tasty and bready. The maniac salad with olives, oranges and plenty of olive oil is in itself a masterpiece of simple yet supreme deliciousness and wisdom.

Its famous laderas are cooked exclusivelyin olive oil without adding a drop of water, and give lessons in haute cuisine in the authentic sense of "confis". The prosfai with sourdough bread and olive oil is still considered a great meal for the Laconians and an excellent example of a healthy Mediterranean diet.

Poor, as rural cooking always is, and with an emphasis on Sunday and holiday dishes, Laconian cuisine will bring to the good table goat with marathi and artichokes, braised capama, pork fricassee with celery.

In its deep, crystal clear waters with its rocky shores, fish abound and in the fish taverns that decorate its coastal villages, fresh fish, simply prepared but with an exciting taste, is never missing, winter or summer.

Laconia can also boast of the production of citrus fruits of all kinds:

Oranges of all varieties, juicy and completely sweet, fragrant mandarins, bergamot with its exquisite aroma flooding its plains, equally fragrant lemons and limes with a zest of exciting fragrance that transforms even the most indifferent dish.

Although agriculture is much more developed in Laconia than animal husbandry, its cheese products are among the best in the country, such as feta PDO and especially Sfela PDO, an extra spicy and salty white cheese, ideal for wine aperitifs , while her yellow goat cheeses are also delicious. Special importance should be given to Maniac cooking.

It is admirable how a place so arid, poor and barren has managed to develop a wonderful gastronomy, utilizing few but fine raw materials.

Without pastures for animal husbandry, the only living thing that could withstand the harsh conditions of the maniac land was and still is the pig. Domestic pork is used to make the delicious orange sausages, the sage-infused synglino and preserved all year round in pork fat, as well as chiuropaspalas, a simple but delicious flour-based batter, cooked with crispy pieces of pork and fat.

The quails that were once caught by the Maniates with great effort are marinated in this fat and become a treat and meze during the holidays, but the main export product for centuries, but they were also included in a unique pie in Greece, the kozouna!

Her pulled water and flour pies and pan-fried onion pies stuffed with local wild onions are appetizers that stand comfortably today at a hearty brunch.

As for the sweets of Laconia, they need no special recommendations and those in the know will not leave Laconia without having enjoyed the festive lalangia, twisted cords of artisan dough fried in olive oil, but also the thin and crispy, honeyed diples. And with them the amazing Monemvasit almonds that smell of musk, the samosas and the melitini.

Rare flavors of a unique place

We stroll around the stone alleys of the castle town of Monemvasia and apart from its unique architecture and fascinating history we also admire its rich gastronomic tradition.

Fine products, laborious producers and rare flavors bring Monemvasia to the top of the Greek gastronomic destinations. Fine products, laborious producers and rare flavors