Traditional Cuisine of Kos

Η Kos from ancient times it was famous for the richness of its nature and was characterized as "Island of the blessed" either as "Floating garden", because her land has always been rich in quantity and quality. From that time ships loaded with agricultural products, mainly grapes, watermelons, melons, but also amphorae with its famous wines traveled to the Mediterranean while the island had more than 120.000 inhabitants, six times more than today.

In the 12th AD century the archbishop of Thessaloniki Efstathos with "if he nourishes Kos, he's not Egypt" confirmed with some dose of exaggeration that the fertile land of the island was equal to the valley of the Nile.

Five centuries later the Flemish traveler Vincent de Stochove seems impressed by the island's orchards and "Most beautiful fruits in the world".

At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, there were 20.000 goats and sheep on the island, while huge quantities of lemons, table grapes and watermelons were produced, most of which were exported.

After the Second World War the population of the island decreased, in 1960 90% were farmers, while from the 1980s, when the development of Tourism began, crops were drastically reduced and people turned to the tourism professions.

But even today one will see traveling inland fertile pergolas, olive groves that produce oil, and vineyards that give their grapes to wineries, two of which are visitable. All these products are consumed on the island by locals and foreign visitors to the island.

Oh, yeah emblematic products of Kos is the tomato, the cheese of drinking, its honey, olive oil and wines, while favorite foods from the cuisine of Kos are the pitaridia (lasagna boiled in meat broth), the katimeria, the Pasha macaroni, the stuffed zucchini flowers, the pork cooked with coarse (oatmeal), the dolmadas in vine leaves, the barbara.