Greek cuisine

Greek cuisine (Greek: Ελληνική κουζίνα, romanized: 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 pastries. It is strongly influenced by Ottoman cuisine and thus, especially cuisine of Anatolian Greeks shares foods such as baklava, tzatziki, gyro, moussaka, dolmades, yuvarlakia, and keftethes with the neighboring countries. To an even greater extent it is influenced by Italian cuisine and cuisines from other neighboring south European countries, and thus, especially in southern regions and the islands it includes several kinds of pasta, like hyllopites, gogkes and tziolia.