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“Thick, rich and addictive,
it is just as appealing
plain as it is paired with honey, fruits or spoon sweets. A healthy
choice for breakfast,
lunch, dinner or dessert”
I remember when yogurt first made its mass-market assault in the United States, breaking out of the lonely refrigerated cases at the back of health food stores and elbowing its way into a prominent place in the dairy department of the supermarkets. One day I accepted a free sample of a gooey, overly sweet, yet somewhat sour tasting concoction from a uniformed lady at a
stand by the milk and eggs. I almost spit it out, disgusted by its sickly sweet flavor and slimy texture. After that, I avoided yogurt at all costs. It seemed unpalatable to me in all its forms. I made no secret of my dislike of yogurt.
So when I tried, in the interests of journalistic integrity as part of a press trip, a bowl of Greek yogurt and honey one morning in Crete, I thought Zeus had struck me with a lightning bolt and rearranged my taste buds. "Is that yogurt?" someone nearby asked me, thinking the thick fluffy stuff was decadent ice cream for breakfast.
"I don’t think so," I responded, unable to believe what I was eating. It could not be even distantly related to that horrid, runny, sickly concoction that was supposed to be so good for everyone. Boldly, I aimed my spoon to avoid the honey and filled my mouth with just the thick white substance. The texture was ever so silky smooth, the temperature slightly cool, and the flavor like the best, lightest cream cheese. Even plain, I wanted more.
"What is this?" I finally asked, much to the amusement of the Hotel Zafiria’s manager. He told me it was yogurt and tried to keep from laughing at this silly American tourist. I stared at the white mound festooned with golden threads of honey. It...could...not...be...yogurt. Yet it was. But this was yogurt with a difference. And just what is its secret? I became determined to discover for myself just what makes Greek yogurt so ambrosial.
A survey of friends, both lovers of yogurt in general and Greeks in particular, provided me with plenty of answers about why Greek yogurt is just so good.
A (Baker’s) Dozen Reasons
Why Greek Yogurt is So Good
1. In its purest form, true Greek yogurt is made
from ewe’s milk, often with a small amount
of goat's milk added for additional flavor. 2. The milk it's made from comes from sheep grazing on the richly fragrant hillsides of Greece. 3. Those same sheep are drinking fresh Greek spring water and basking in the clear Greek sunshine.
You are almost eating Greece itself in every mouthful. 4. It's the special Greek varieties of bacteria
(more on this later). 5. (Precede with shrug) Greeks just know
how to make it better. 6. It's not that Greek yogurt is so special,
it's just that it hasn't been over-
processed
and stripped of everything natural and tasty. 7. It's extraordinarily high in fat, and anything
with that much fat tastes good. 8. It's a secret ingredient which cannot be revealed to me because I’m not Greek enough. 9. Aged Greek yia-yias (grandmothers) have
a special chant they use to make it curdle properly. 10. The ancient Thracians, in Northern Greece, were among the first to
discover yogurt, so the Greeks have had about 3500 years to get it right. 11. Yogurt isn't that expensive to make,
so what's the point in trying to scrimp
on the ingredients by using cow's milk? 12. Greeks make good yogurt because that's
the only yogurt Greeks will buy.
(Alas, with the advent of modern marketing of the sweet commercial
varieties, this is beginning to change.) 13. Greek yogurt doesn't just taste good,
it is good for you. Along with other live-bacteria yogurts, Greek yogurt bestows a vast array of health benefits which are becoming increasingly important to savvy consumers. Yogurt allows lactose-
intolerant people to benefit from dairy products,
since the bacteria deactivates the lactose and helps break down the milk. In addition, the live bacteria
in yogurt can help rebuild healthy intestinal flora, which are looking to be more and more important
in maintaining a healthy immune system.
Further, ulcers are now known to be caused
by "bad" bacteria. The centuries-old custom
of eating yogurt to heal them may
have actually worked by reintroducing "good" bacteria into the digestive system.
