Cuisine

Greek and Southern Italian cuisine do share many similarities. Primarily, this is due to the fact that they are two areas of the Mediterranean situated very near each other, sharing similar climates and soils...as a result they use and grow similar products, e.g. olives and olive oil, aubergines, courgettes, peppers, garlic and tomatoes. This in turn results in similar dishes and recipes.

There is also however Greek influence in some Southern Italian cuisine and vice versa, due also to historical factors; Greek occupation in Southern Italy, and Roman occupation in Greece. For example, when the Romans occupied Greece, many Greek tutors were employed by rich Roman families for their children as well as Greek chefs for their kitchens...

There are also Italian inspired dishes to be found in Greece, such as pastitsio (original Italian dish is called pasticcio), a baked pasta dish from Corfu. and sofrito , a dish of fried steaks cooked in a thick, richly flavoured wine sauce.

Other dishes to be compared, are the Neapolitan dish Parmigiana  (see photo left) to the Greeks' Moussaka , (both dishes include layering similar ingredients such as aubergines, tomato sauce and cheese), Pepperonata  from Campania with the Greeks' salata me psites piperies , (a charred pepper salad with olives), and Campania's melanzane a scarpetta (also know as melanzane a barchetta) to the Greeks' melitzanes papoutsakia  (stuffed aubergine halves- the Italian scarpetta and Greek papoutsakia mean 'shoes' referring to how they look ).

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