ROUSES_MarApr2019_Magazine-R

GREEK LASAGNA

Greek-American volunteers. Among the dishes served to hungry revel- ers each year are orzo and pastitsio — two essential Greek pastas. Orzo (pronounced awr-zoh) is a type of short-cut, dried Italian pasta shaped like a large grain of rice or unprocessed piece of barley. In Greece, orzo is called kritharáki (“little barley”) and, in traditional recipes, is used in salads and soups or as a replacement for rice in pilafs. Pastitsio is a style of baked pasta often dubbed “Greek lasagna” thanks to its layered, casserole-like appearance. The much-lauded dish is the invention of Nikólaos Tselementés, a French-trained Greek chef from the island of Sifnos who is widely considered one of the most influential culinary writers of modern Greece. And though pastitsio can be made with a varying medley of ingredients, the classic version includes medium-sized tubular pasta like bucatini or penne, ground meat (beef, veal or lamb), a cinnamon-scented tomato sauce and a rich, thick, white béchamel sauce. Tselementés also authored Greece’s most popular cookbook of all time, Greek Cookery , which was first published in 1950. So if orzo and pastitsio are piquing your interest, the next step towards exploring the Greek pasta pantheon (and trying to eat 30 pounds of pasta a year — Greek-style) is a trip to the library to check this book out. For recipes visit www.rouses.com

by Sarah Baird Pop quiz, kids! Question: What country consumes an average of 30 pounds of pasta, per person, annually? Answer: While we might naturally think “Italian” when heavy-duty pasta consumption springs to mind, this time, the pasta lovers scarfing down noodles by the plateful are the Greeks — who happen to be the fifth-largest consumers of pasta in the world. One of the first waves of Greek immigrants arrived in the United States in the 1760s, settling in New Smyrna Beach along Florida's Central Atlantic Coast. It was nearly a century before the next major influx arrived — this time making their home in New Orleans. The city quickly became one of the first major Greek communities in the United States, with Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral (established in 1864) noted as the oldest Eastern Orthodox church in the Western Hemi- sphere. And while the church moved several times throughout the centuries — finally relocating to its current space overlooking scenic Bayou St. John in 1976 — its red brick Hellenic Cultural Center is now home to the annual Greek Festival, which is run by hundreds of New Orleans’

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