People are often surprised when they find out that pork is used more often in Greek cooking than lamb.
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I was surprised myself, and Iâm Greek-American. In this country we didnât see much pork, but in Greece the default souvlakia (cubed chunks of meat on wooden skewers) are made from pork.
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Yup, that was my experience as well. I always associate(d) Greek & Turkish food with lamb as their primary meat, yet pork and chicken (Greece) and beef (Turkey) are far more prevalent.
I had The Best Pork Souvlakia (small wooden skewers, tender, flavorful chunks of meat - all it needed was a squeeze of lemon) at a small kiosk in Patras eons ago. I swear I can still taste it, and itâs been my âstandardâ ever since.
in the 1970âs we spent some week wandering through Greece.
big, little, urban, rural . . . .
back then you had your choice: lamb, or lamb.
no beef dishes, no pork dishes.
olives and lambâŚ
Interesting. I spent countless summers from the mid 70s to the early 90s all over the country - mainland, Peloponnes, isles north and south. Pork everywhere.
In fact, lamb dishes were so rare I still remember an entire lamb being grilled on the beach in Santorini. I can still smell the luscious lamb fat.
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well, as they say on TV , , , ymmv.
itâs like any other country/culture/history - there are no absolute rulesâŚ
well, Judaism and pork exceptedâŚ
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I certainly wouldnât have complained about finding lamb everywhere. Olives, OTOH⌠meh.
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I used to get a wonderful pork souvlaki sandwich when I lived in Astoria, Queens (heavily Greek neighborhood). Iâd only ever had lamb before.
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Very much depends on the region in Greece. In my experience, Peloponnesians eat a lot more pork than people who live on the islands. I was shocked to see how much pork my friends from Arcadia ate when I visited Greece.
Most people running restaurants in Torontoâs Greektown are Peloponnesians, and this is reflected with most souvlaki and most stacked gyros (not the chopped and formed type of gyro) being pork or chicken. My family had immigrated from Greece to California close to a hundred years ago, and all our Greek American family and friends, whose relatives immigrated around that time, use lamb or beef for their souvlaki at family functions. Most of the families had roots on Greek Islands, Northern Greece or present-day Turkey.
I didnât eat pork on previous visits to Greece. Most of the meals when I visited family in the northeast Aegean were seafood or vegetarian , and occasionally lamb, chicken or beef.
Iâd say my friendâs family in the Western part of the Peloponnesus subsist mostly on pork, gyros and rooster 
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My Greek American family is based in California and they also mostly eat lamb.
My Greek relatives who live in the Northeast Aegean still eat more lamb than pork.
I saw a lot of pork in the Peloponnesus.
It makes sense that the Northeast Aegean, Cyprus, Thrace, Greeks from what is present day Turkey and the Black Sea Greeks would eat more lamb than pork, considering the control and influence the Ottoman Empire had over these regions.
Much of the current population in Thessaloniki and other parts of northern Greece are descendants of people who were displaced from Turkey to Greece during the population exchange, so there probably is more of an Ottoman influence in the cooking and ingredients found in Thessaloniki and northern provinces.
I hadnât thought about it before. My relatives in Greece live 10 miles from Turkey. Theyâre not going to be as into pork as someone in Kalamata.
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That type of small pork souvlaki in Patras and in other parts of the Peloponnesus is often called kalamaki.
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Itâs bomb.
