Wednesday 29 October 2014

Crete, has it succumbed to some British tourists expectations of food.........

Don't get me wrong, you can still get great food, fresh vegetables, fish that were probably still swimming locally a few hours ago, and meat that looks and tastes like meat.  Not a white, insipid piece of plumped up pork in sight!

However..............

Back in the day, after a great meal, you would traditionally be served some fresh fruit, maybe with honey, and some Greek yoghurt, to accompany the slug of Raki of course!  This holiday it appears it's all change.   Gone are the fresh figs, or pomegranates, grapes or apples, it is now chocolate cakes and waffles drowned in Nutella, in huge portions, to which my kids of course fell in love with. Problem is, they would previously have devoured the fruit and yoghurt just as eagerly............

what would you chose?

Portion size, in some tavernas, also seems to have gone into the humongous regions.  We ate in one of these recently and it made me feel sick at the sight of it - I was brought up having to eat everything "because there are starving children" somewhere.  Last night I saw some children being served food on huge platters, with mounds of chips, the size even my dear old dad would have struggled with.



Yes, I know, you can leave food, and we all did, it just seems such a waste.  The amount we left probably would have fed us for the week!  We may not be going back to that taverna for a while!

Luckily, our favourite place hasn't succumbed to this war over bigger the better!  It's about quality, not quantity, however they have given into the chocolate cakes for dessert.

Whether it's what the tourists demand, or what the Cretans think we expect, I'm not sure, but either way it's a sad, sad thing..............And it's evident that some of the local ex-pats have markedly put on huge amounts of weight too.   Wonder why, hmmmmmmmmmmm

Rant over, now back to the sunshine, which thankfully no-one can mess about with (not going there ha)!

UPDATE:  Since writing this post I have discovered that you can still get the fruit and honey option if you ask for it, but the chances are the waiters will try to upsell you to some cake or waffles etc. Last night we had the fruit and honey, and without the option of anything else, the kids loved it.

Annie x