GAEA
Georgia Katsikarou - Marketing Department

How would you define Mezes?
I would say that Mezes is a "sociable food" – it goes with talking loudly and the clinking of glasses. Partaking and sharing in the trinity of food, drink and dialogue is part of being Greek.

Why do you believe Mezes are popular in Greece?
Greece is famous for the great hospitality of its inhabitants -- and the essence of hospitality is sharing your culture. Our culture is totally connected with food. This is the main characteristic of Greece and that’s why Mezes is a way of life for all of us.

Do you believe that the concept of sharing Mezes plates, as it is common other lands?
Greek meze is already popular outside Greece mainly because Meze is one of the Mediterranean’s best-kept secrets: the secret of a well-balanced and healthy diet.
Foreign populations have started to realize that eating authentic Greek Mezes helps create healthy lifestyles.

How do your traditional dishes compare with those made at home?
Gaea is a company whose main values are to produce top quality, totally natural, authentic, Greek-Mediterranean traditional products. All of our products smell and taste like they were home-cooked. All the processes involved, from the supply to the final production and packaging, are totally committed to the above mentioned values.

If you were to have a party and wished to serve a selection of mezes, which combination of your company's products would you serve?
My selection of offerings would include all the tapenade range, spread on bruschettas. I’d also serve our stuffed olives – natural pimento, garlic, almond, Feta cheese – followed by dolmades and giant beans.

Does your company invent new Mezes dishes, as opposed to those that are traditional and, if so, how do you develop such recipes?
There are so many traditional dishes of Greece! Gaea values authenticity, by still believes in innovation. Adapting traditional dishes to modern production techniques is challenging, which is why we cooperate with award-winning chefs to create our recipes. A strong example is Gaea’s range of pasta sauces – Santorini sauce, Mykonos sauce, Corfu sauce and Cretan sauce – these are all unusual sauces, but they are still traditional.

Did your mother and/or grandmother cook and if so what was your favorite dish? Does your company make such a dish? If so, which one is better? (We won’t tell Grandma)
My grandmother’s an amazing cook! She used to prepare lunch every Sunday. My whole family came, and we spent the afternoon laughing and sharing food. She used to make this smoked eggplant spread. We loved to dip our bread in it. It was delicious; far better than the one my mother made (sorry, mom). As a trueborn Peloponnesian woman, extra virgin olive oil was the star ingredient in all my grandmother’s dishes. She used to say, "The best way to use olive oil is "raw" on top of the food". When I first came to Gaea, I noticed that Smoked Eggplant Tapenade was one of the company’s products and I couldn’t wait to taste it. I didn’t expect to like it more than I liked my grandmother’s, but I did (sorry Grandma). And you know what? Gaea has the same philosophy as my grandmother. They place the raw, uncooked olive oil on top of cooked dishes so that the oil retains both its taste and its nutritional value. So now I always use Gaea’s Smoked Aubergine Tapenade, especially when preparing dinner for my friends. e