Greek cuisine Greek cuisine Greek cuisine (, "Elliniki kouzina") is a Mediterranean cuisine. Contemporary Greek cookery makes wide use of vegetables, olive oil, grains, fish, wine (white and red), and meat (including lamb, poultry, veal, beef, rabbit and pork). Other important ingredients include olives, pasta (especially hyllopites, a kind of pasta similar to tagliatelle), cheese, lemon juice, herbs, bread and yoghurt. The most commonly used grain is wheat; barley is also used. Common dessert ingredients include nuts, honey, fruits, and filo pastry. It is strongly influenced by Ottoman cuisine and thus, especially cuisine of anatolian Greeks shares foods such as baklava, tzatziki,
Baklava is not well documented, its current form was probably developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the ". There are three proposals for the pre-Ottoman roots of baklava: the Roman placenta cake, as developed through Byzantine cuisine, The oldest (2nd century BCE) recipe that resembles a similar dessert is the honey covered baked layered-dough dessert ' of Roman times, which Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava: "The Greeks and the Turks still argue