The smell of the Greek rural

In this chapter I research the writings and recipes in seminal Greek cookery books from the 1920s until the mid-2010s. Bringing in conversations with elder Athenians, I describe the emergence of Greek cuisine over the last century, and the positive and negative associations rurality evokes, especially in the context of the Greek crisis. Here, I also identify and distil some of the key values surrounding food and food discourse in Greece, and the influence of larger ideas such as the search for modernity and the process of Europeanisation, all within a more general framework for understanding national identity, tradition and the role of the past in Greek society.