Traditional Cuisine of Kalymnos - Kalymniki Cuisine

Η Kalymnos lives by the sea and for the sea. Whatever the sponges stopped nowadays to maintain the island. The seamanship was not lost and today the fishing fleet of Kalymnos is the largest in the N. Aegean with over 400 boats, many of which are large and are engaged in the fishing of swordfish, the so-called "Swordfish(Kalymnos produces 70% of the nationwide production of swordfish).

Oh, yeah fresh fishes of the boats of Kalymnos feed all the fish markets of the Aegean, while the Ypapantis Women's Cooperative prepares a series of extremely salty products.

Apart from the honey that is famous, in Kalymnos and especially in the small plain of the picturesque cove-fjord in Vathi, citrus fruits are cultivated and at some point the variety of Chian mandarins made a splash in the markets.

The main feature of the cuisine of Kalymnos is not only that it has special flavors, but also special and unique dish names. The typical cuisine of Kalymnos includes, among others: «Ant, sprig, leaves, tissue, mulberry, spinial and others».

Mulberry is in Kalymnos, what Lampriatis in Astypalia, that is, the traditional food of Easter, an important custom and at the same time a ritual. It is made with goat (tissue) and with an elaborate filling with rice and liver. The goat, after being sewn, is placed in the shape of an embryo on vines in a clay pot, the mulberry is hermetically covered with the lid after it is sealed with dough and enters the wood oven to be baked all the night of Holy Saturday.

 

 

Spinial is a technique of preserving the bubble in seawater, myrmizeli is the typical salad of Kalymnos and whistlers or shooters are the donuts of the island.

In Kalymnos one will eat the most delicious octopus meatballs of the Aegean, with the strong taste of octopus in your mouth and of course there are the chickpeas coarsely chopped to be heard in the taste, with onions and with the addition of mint and flour they become excellent chickpea meatballs!