In a recent New Yorker profile of Turkish entrepreneur Hamdi Ulukaya, founder of Chobani, a wildly successful company that makes Greek-style yogurt in the U.S., we read with great interest about the trip writer Rebecca Mead made to Argos, in the Peloponnese, where renowned cookbook author Diane Kochilas had told Mead she’d had “the best yogurt she had ever tasted.”

We’ve talked before about Greek coffee, and it’s true that going out for coffee is one of Athenians’ favorite pastimes, but there are plenty of Greeks who prefer tea or infusions. And in fact, the practice of gathering wild herbs has a history that stretches all the way back into antiquity. References to Mediterranean flora are found everywhere in history, from Egypt to Asia Minor and from Homer to the ancient Greek philosophers’ texts. Take, for instance, Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine, who focused on the healing properties of plants and actually recorded about 400 species of herbs and their known uses in the 5th century BCE. That era saw a heavy trade in herbs between the Mediterranean and the East.

For too long retsina has been thought of as a cheap, oxidized, overly pungent bad wine made from mediocre grapes, its poor quality disguised by an overdose of resin and exacerbated by being stored in questionable conditions in the backyards of seaside tavernas. To say the wine has an image problem is an understatement – but that may be changing. Regardless of its reputation, retsina is a true Greek original. It dates back to the Ancient Greeks, who would coat the interiors of their otherwise porous earthenware amphorae with resin to make their wine storage airtight. Wine drinkers grew to like the taste, and winemakers consequently began adding pine resin to grape must during fermentation.

Editor's note: We're sorry to report that ENOA has closed. Situated by the sea in the marina of Agios Kosmas, ENOA is part of a truly strange neighborhood. There are a couple of nightclubs, some cottages and the enormous, badly lit rowing and sailing buildings that have been left to molder after the 2004 Olympics – but mostly the feeling is of an abandoned wasteland by the sea. The entrance to ENOA, an area club, is equally unimpressive: a number of trophies cramped behind a glass display followed by a cavernous dining room that, with its harsh, unflattering neon lights, resembles a hotel from 1960s rural Greece.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I’ve noticed that a dish called “moustalevria” pops up in shops all over Athens in the autumn months. What is it, and where can I get it?

Dimitris Kotsaris was more proselytizer than baker. Rather than a flour-dusted apron, this mild-mannered gentleman would wear elegant suits to meet with journalists, bearing two or three kilos of his famous whole-wheat bread as a gift. He was an ardent believer in the medicinal qualities of bread and preached widely that good bread promoted good health, once even taking his case to Harvard, where he delivered a talk about the role of well-made loaves in healthy diets. In 1981 Kotsaris opened Pnyka, the pulpit from which he spread his yeasty gospel, and gave the bakery the Greek name for the hill downtown where, in the golden years of Ancient Greece, Athenians gathered for the general assemblies that played such a formative part in the creation of democracy. It is quite fitting then that the first Pnyka shop opened in Syntagma (“Constitution”) Square. The bakery has since added two more shops in the city, in Exarchia and in Pagrati, the headquarters of the operation, and its following is such that last year a third was established in Vienna. Kotsaris passed away last year but his vision lives on through his son George, who has taken over the business.

It’s a long drive from Athens to Perama, the westernmost terminal of the port town of Piraeus, and the payoff is, at first sight, minimal. To the left is the port’s industrial zone – a forest of blue and orange cranes that tower over the sea. To the right is a stretch of industrial wasteland: old electricity plants, derelict factories, walls with enormous graffiti celebrating Piraeus’s very successful team, Olympiacos, and then a jumble of recently built high-rise buildings on a rocky hill. First populated in the 1920s by immigrants from Asia Minor, Istanbul and the Pontus (Black Sea) region, this suburb of Piraeus now has about 25,000 residents, most of whose livelihoods depend on the dockyards that have been here since the 1930s. Perama remains a proud, working-class neighborhood, and it is no accident that the early Greek hip-hop of the ’90s and the so-called Low Bap hip-hop genre and movement started here.

Piraeus holds the distinction of being Greece’s biggest port, as well as the largest passenger port in Europe. Although it is a mere 20-minute train ride from downtown Athens, most Athenians think of Piraeus with a reverence reserved for a foreign country. There is just something almost mythic about this ancient port, which has been in existence since the 5th century B.C. – the famous opening line of Plato’s Republic is, after all, “I went down to the Piraeus yesterday.” In the modern period, the greater Piraeus area – home to a population of about half a million in Piraeus proper, along with a number of suburbs – has witnessed dizzying highs and lows, especially over the past century. The area has been a major destination for immigrants from elsewhere in Greece, including the islands and the Peloponnese. One of the biggest population expansions came after 1922, when vast numbers of Greek refugees fleeing Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) migrated to the area and established new working-class neighborhoods, including Nikaia, Keratsini, Drapetsona and Korydallos.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I keep hearing about the wonders of Cretan cuisine, but is it really any different from regular Greek cooking? And is there anywhere nice to try it in Athens?

Editor’s note: This is the second piece in our series featuring the hidden gems in some of Athens’ most touristy neighborhoods. We previously explored Psyri; it is now time to take on the holy grail of Athenian tourism: Plaka. There’s a reason why this area of old Athens, just below the Acropolis, is the city’s most touristy neighborhood: it has a history of more than 6,000 years.

Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in our street food series this week, featuring dispatches on the best streetside eating in all the cities Culinary Backstreets covers. Before we get down to the business of discussing the best of Athens’ street food, a disclaimer: Athens is at a disadvantage when it comes to streetside eats. For one thing, a lot of venues – souvlaki joints, pizza parlors and even offal soup places – are open all night or even 24/7; they are just not serving on the street, though.

Forget about Christmas. In Greece, Easter is the main event, one where food, naturally, plays a starring role. It is also very much a holiday celebrated in the countryside: most Athenians go back to their villages during the holiday to be with their extended family and enjoy the Easter-related culinary delights of their home region.

The idea behind the “Migrant Kitchen” lunch series, first organized in Istanbul this fall by Istanbul Eats and Culinary Backstreets, is simple: get locals to sample the food of some of the immigrant communities living in their city and, through that experience, to learn more about those often invisible communities. In Istanbul, the series gave locals a taste of some fantastic Cameroonian, Liberian and Ethiopian delicacies.

Dear Culinary Backstreets, I heard from some friends that everyone smokes in restaurants in Athens, despite the fact that it is not officially permitted. What is the situation, and is there anywhere we can dine without being exposed to smoke?