Athens Children's Museum

The Athens Children's Museum looked to be just a place to keep Ellie enterntained for a morning.  It was the usual:  a market, a sciency water/bubble area, a climbing area, and a couple of other exhibits.  But when Ellie got excited about the grocery story, I sat there awhile and realized it wasn't the usual.  Grocery store, yes.  But this one had a pharmacy. 



Ellie prescribing some medication for Alex

Each drawer was filled with empty medication boxes.

Here is a close-up of the REAL medication boxes.

And a Kreaopoleio (Butcher shop) complete with meat grinder and posters of cuts of meat.

There was also a Fourno (literally, oven, but means bakery).  The bakery was sometimes the only oven in town, and so was semi-public:  the baker would bake your stuff for you!

The Fourno area had not only lots of bread, but a bread dough mixer and an oven with big wooden spatulas for inserting and removing the bread from the oven, like some pizza places have.

Ellie is mixing bread dough here. How many American adults would recognize what this is?

Provisions in the fridge (the red outline) and xartika (dry goods?) on the shelves.

 There was also a manavis (greengrocer) for fruits/veggies, and an ixthoupoleio for fish.  Each one was its own separate place, all separate from the area that said "provisions" and "dry goods" that were over by the cashier. 

I LOVE that in Greece they still care enough about their food that shopping is mostly done in specialty shops staffed by professionals who know their stuff.  I love my favorite butcher, who speaks no English but works with me to figure out what I am making, what cut of meat I need and how he should prepare it.  We made pastitsio (a ground beef cassarole) and he whacked off a slice of beef and then ground it for me while I watched.  The next day, I asked for  pork chops, and he used a very sharp knife to cut through the top of the meat, and then whacked it with his cleaver to get through the bone, all on an enormous round piece of tree trunk that is the butcher block.  The next day, I explained I wanted to make lamb stew.  He said they had no lamb, but gave me beef, again a big cut that he chopped into small chunks for me before wrapping and weighing.  I also love the man at the deli who suggested "MONO Feta" for my cheese pies (I'd usually made them with two cheeses).  There are several "fruitopoleios" nearby, but I usually shop at the weekly market, so I've not developed a relationship with anyone at any of those places.  But I have found my favorite stalls at the market... I love that even procuring food requires a relationship -- it isn't just food.  That is so important to me as a foodie.  I also love that I can ask for advice because these are not bored teenagers at a Publix, but adults who know their stuff.  And have I mentioned enough that food TASTES GOOD here?  I mean really -- it all does, not just the fruit, but the french fries and the chicken.  Somehow Americans have given up on taste for the sake of cost and replaced by visual appeal (enormous strawberries that are white inside, anyone?), but not here.   I think of the locavore movement in the US (of which I am an active member) and think how sad it is that our "cutting edge" country that exports so much of its culture is going BACK (in some circles, mostly elite ones) to what Greece never lost and has available for every strata of society.

Butcher shop right smack dab in the middle of Plaka, the tourist area.  There really is at least one in EVERY neighborhood!