Local Products

In the section, the island's recognized local products are recommended to you one after the other. Find the ones you should definitely try and seek them on the shelves and benches of local stores. Take home the aromas and flavors of Limnos.

Limnos kalathaki

This small white brine cheese is one of the most prominent samples of the island’s gastronomy. A single bite will travel your mind to the green meadows of Limnos with their aromatic wild greens, their taste flavored with natural saltiness. Sheep and goat graze freely and give their scented milk, a vital element for the manufacture of one of Greece's finest cheeses.

Classified as a D.O.P (Designation of Origin Product) Limnos kalathaki is produced today in the traditional manner, with sheep's milk for the best quality of cheese, but also includes a mixture of goat's with sheep's milk, in a proportion not exceeding 30%.

The origin of the name kalathaki (which stands for "little basket" in Greek) comes from 'tervolias', which are the basket-like molds made of plaited green rushes or osier wood in older times, and for hygiene purposes are now made of plastic. These molds, used for draining the curd, leave their distinct mark unto the surface of the cheese, and give the characteristic anaglyph shape with stripes.

After being removed from the mold, the cheese is salted and put in containers of brine for it to mature. The manufacturing process usually starts around the end of February, using the tastier spring milk. Manufacturing units on the island, both large and small, faithfully follow the traditional techniques, aided by the most contemporary methods for production and quality control.

As a result, Limnos kalathaki remains as fragrant and delicious as the one that the monks in the monastery dependencies of Mt Athos used to curdle.

Rich and mature, it brings to mind the zest of feta cheese but spicier and tastier.

Taste the fragrant kalathaki with lemnian barley rusks and tomato, an elegant snack that can be eaten any time during the day. You can also try it as an ingredient in pies, such as pumpkin pie, simple cheese pie, and cheese bites.

An excellent appetizer for the local raki along with garlic and green beans, accompanying traditional dishes of kaspakino lamb. Ideally, you will accompany these tastes with some local dry white wine.

Melichloro or Melipasto cheese

A cheese that sums up the summer in Limnos in its taste, Melipasto is traditionally made during the summer period. The Aegean Sea stigmatizes its taste, as the cheese is washed in the sea as a part of its manufacturing process!

Manufacturers choose to produce Melichloro in late spring, from May onwards, since the sheep’s milk is richer and the weather is drier, with low humidity levels. These are the ideal conditions to drain the cheese in a shaded, well-ventilated area. At first, the cheese acquires a texture between fresh and dry (“melichloro” in Greek, hence the name). At that point, it is washed in the sea and left to dry in a clean area.

When the dehydration is completed, the cheese becomes hard and is then ideal for grating on Lemnian homemade pasta, such as flomaria and balanes. Taste melichloro also in sachanaki, or with Lemnian thyme honey and sesame seeds.

Mavragani Bread

 After tasting this Lemnian bread with its unique taste and high nutritional value, it will certainly be difficult to return to the loaves of bread you have been used to!

Being a famous granary since antiquity, Limnos has succeeded in growing a unique variety of wheat and producing a special type of grain.

Mavragani is an old local variety of wheat, the cultivation of which has successfully been reestablished in recent years.

It all started in the 30’s , when Italian archaeologists that were excavating in the areas of Hephaestia and Poliochni , brought with them on the island a seed of wheat from Sicily , which in turn had also been imported to the Italian island from Africa in the early 20th century.

This African/Sicilian variety would subsequently grow with ease in the fertile land of Limnos but in a unique way: The soil of this Aegean Sea Island paints the wheat spikelets black, hence the name mavragani, which means “black mustache”.

This old variety of seed cultivated on the island before the war, was recently accidentally rediscovered inside an old jar at the Karakalou Monastery of Mt Athos, where it was supplied and stored until the 70’s from its dependencies in Limnos.

The strain was return to the island and the cultivation of mavragani gradually started again. It’s hard type wheat that produces yellow flour suitable for semolina, and extremely tasty bread, pies and pasta. You will find bread from mavragani in all local bakeries. Definitely worth seeking out!

Rusks

Lemnian rusks from flour, wheat, barley, whole-grain and “eptazyma” (sevenfold kneaded), come from selected wheat and barleys grown in the fertile plains of Limnos. You can find them in bakeries or packaged in stores, in a large variety of sizes and flavors, from large traditional large barley rusks to crunchy bites.

Back in the day, the kneading of the rusks was on the weekly schedule of Lemnian housewives, along with making the family’s bread. The preparation of “eptazyma” especially, was a daily routine for women during the summer because the heat helped the dough distend faster.

Fluffy and tasty, these big rusks are still made on the island with the traditional style, flavored by the chickpea water that is used for kneading the flour, blended with cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves and anise.

Flomaria

These traditional pasta of Limnos have rightfully earned a place in the “pantheon” of pasta, competing on equal terms with the tagliatelle and linguine of Italian expertise. Excellent gourmet pasta for your table, rooted deeply in the gastronomical nature of Lemnians. A dish of flomaria with melichloro grated cheese on top has always been a quick and affordable option for a fulfilling meal, as well as a side dish for meat, rooster, Sunday’s hunting and festive family meals.

Quick to cook but demanding in their preparation , these pasta posed a challenge to the housewife that had to cut skillfully the sheet in pieces the size of half a pin , using a sharp knife , at a time where there were no machines for cutting pasta.

The women traditionally gathered in each other’s home usually during summer, after the milling of the wheat, in order to dry up the dough sheets in the heat, and knead the local hard flour with sheep’s milk and eggs.

They rolled out the layers on the wooden “sofras”, and whilst chatting about their stories, began the cutting of each layer into very thin strips with a knife. The most skillfully cut ones, called “flomaria of the spindle”, where the ones to show the grace of the Lemnian housewife and illustrate her dexterity.

Nowadays they are created using the same local natural ingredients and are packed in three types: fine, medium and thick, and are available in various flavors, such as tomato, spinach, or whole grain. They can accompany meat or eaten plain with grated melichloro cheese. You will meet them in many of the traditional recipes of the island, such as flomaria with braised rooster in tomato sauce, but also with oil, fresh tomatoes and eggplants, flomaria with braised partridge, wild rabbit or with snails.

Honey

Since ancient times, bee workers harvest from the blossoms on the slopes of the island and give the famous honey of Limnos. Pry open a jar and admire the amber color, the thick and unctuous texture, and above all, the excellent flavor and aromas the honey inherits from the extensive thyme landscapes.

The signature of Limnos landscapes are the traditional beehives called “varadia”, dyed purple from the thyme flowers.

Honey is supplied to the local stores by the many beekeepers of Limnos who keep alive the long tradition of its production.

One of the main products of Lemnian soil, along with wheat and wine, honey crops were a luxury for wealthy families of Limnos. In his description, the 16th century French traveler Pierre Belon describes the meal provided in his honor by the Ottoman Deputy Governor consisting of a thrifty but highly nutritional soup with boiled wheat, honey and bread.

Lemnian honey offers its sweetness and aroma in many traditional desserts of the island, and embellishes the diples, lalagites, fetoudia and traditional donuts, finikia, samsades and honey pie. It also blends marvelously to the local sheep’s yogurt and can be added instead of sugar in the herbal beverages of Limnos.

Sweet preserves

“Could I offer you some sour cherry, bitter orange, fig, plum, pumpkin or maybe a teaspoon of ornos?” was the typical question of a Lemnian housewife to her guests. She would always have about half a dozen of those, of different flavours, homemade by herself to ensure no guest felt unattended.

Fig, eggplant, zucchini, grape, sour cheery, and quince; the variety of sweet preserves that you will find in the local market today is vast and of excellent quality. With respect to tradition, the producers follow the seasoning of each fruit and use household recipes without additives or preservatives.

Depending on the season you visit Limnos, pick up and have a taste of some of the sweet preserves: pear, watermelon, quince with white whole almonds, sour cherry, apricot, tomato, eggplant, bitter orange, plum with syrup, wild fig, pumpkin, zucchini boiled in grape molasses with cinnamon clove or even rose, made from pink rose petals.

Venizelika

Small chocolate bites named from history. In 1912 ,when Eleftherios Venizelos made an official visit to Limnos after the island’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire , the locals offered him these sweet small bonbons that so thrilled the former Greek Prime Minister that they were given his name, hence “Venizelika”.

Have a taste and you will know why: A small bite made of almonds, cocoa, grated chocolate, walnuts and powdered sugar kneaded with brandy and cherry liquor glistened with white vanilla glaze.

Today Venizelika are sold in shops and traditional stores of the island, for you to take some home and maybe treat your guests with luscious and authentic Lemnian dessert.

Tsipouro ouzo

“Does meze make the raki, or does raki make the meze?” is a question that comes to mind since the two drinks, tsipouro and ouzo, are an integral part in the culinary tradition of the island. A bottle of ouzo is always an excuse to chat with friends, relax and have a bite, or even a full blown fest around a “lakario”.

Nothing goes to waste in Limnos after the grapes are pressed and the must is produced. On the contrary, an age old tradition begins that when it's complete, it provides the fragrant and protected by geographical indication ouzo Limnos.

Around the end of October and during November, the distinct fragrance of anise flows in the air of the island’s villages and leads you one to the traditional distillation cauldrons of tsipouro and ouzo, a Dionysian – style ritual, unaltered throughout the centuries.

Mashed grapes are taken out of the jars and pitches on which they were left to rest ,covered with dry seaweed after vintage season, and proceed to the “lakario” or “rakario” where the still completes for the distillation process.

Well-kept secret ... The cocktail of herbs added to the cauldron gives the distillate the aroma and the milky color obtained after mixing it with water is the most closely guarded secret of each producer. Nutmeg, raisins, mastic quinces, arbutus berries, plums and the premium anise of Kaminia -famous for its fragrance- are just some of the ingredients added to the mix.

The start of the boiling in the cauldron and as the alcohol passes as vapor through the pot, signifies the start of the fest among the relatives and friends of the producer, which are gathered for the process. Snacks are offered plentifully and the whole company starts singing and dancing the traditional “kechagiaditiko”. Apart from the household production you may find bottled lemnian ouzo and raki in the market.

Local Tastes

Seasonal products of the "fertile Lemnia Terra ", from the field, the orchard, the vineyard, the beehive and the producer's flock, straight to the kitchen and on your plate. Traditional flavors that combine altogether Aegean Sea’s fish, livestock and herbs.

Dishes with a strong local identity, bring out the uprooting memories from Asia Minor with an original imam bayıldı, as well as the remembrance of a great visitor in Venizelika bonbons.

Lovers of gastronomic tourism will come along on their own thematic itinerary to the fish taverns and the restaurants of the island.

In local stores one may buy local products in order to take away Limnos flavors. However, if you find yourself as a guest in a Lemnian house, you’ll get unforgettable gastronomic experiences as housewives, using milk, flour, cheese and honey, make splendid unique salty and sweet creations, at the spot!

For breakfast

Come to Limnos and start your day with a slice of mavragani bread, spread with thyme honey, hot fylahtoudia with desalted brine, katmeria sprinkled with kalathaki and steaming hot tsorva. Maybe the names do not mean anything to you, but the flavors are outstanding.

All around more hotels and guesthouses on the island recommend, instead of the "classic" English and American breakfast, treats from the Lemnian land that the locals were traditionally having on the breakfast table. In bakeries in Myrina and villages you will find bread and rusks to accompany with fresh cheese and sheep's yogurt, served with thyme honey and seasonal fruit.

Ideal starter for a winter day is tsorbas, a thick soup made with flomaria and trachana, which the Lemnians used to eat during the cold months to warm up and get strength before going to the fields. Taste katmeria or fladotes, lemnian pancakes stuffed with cheese trimmings. Enjoy lalagites, made from tight gruel with flour and water fried in boiling hot oil and served with honey, cinnamon and sesame seeds. Wiped out by the children at breakfast are fetoydia, fried slices of bread soaked in milk and egg.

If you happen to be a guest in a lemnian house, you will have the chance to taste some of the most typical homemade delicacies. Clickia, ie small cheese bread bites in the shape of snail that the old housewives used to bake for the children of the family, with cheese trimmings from kalathaki and leftovers from the bread dough. Also, the traditional psyroyki, a soup made by splattering the flour with water and creating small buttons manually. On Lazaros’ Saturday, you will be treated with lazaroydia, baked bread in the shape of a small child, filled with "s΄kopagides", dried figs.

Pies

Pies are a separate chapter of the island’s gastronomy, ideal for breakfast, as appetizer to the main meal, or snack throughout the day. Don't miss to taste bougatsa, warm from the bakery with fresh cheese, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, the cheese pies and green pies with cheese kalathaki, hummus pies and sesame pies during fasting periods. The famous pumpkin pie, with yellow pumpkin, raisins, cinnamon and homemade layers, wrapped in traditional Greek brioche ie the characteristic volute shape.

"Tyrop'toydia" are fried cheese pies, made from the same crispy layer dough and stuffed with fresh cheese which you’ll taste hot, straight from the pan. On the island they call them f'lachtoydia or mpochtsadelia, because the square shape is reminiscent of the mpochtsa i.e. the white headscarf that Lemnian women farmers used to tie on their head in order to be protected in the fields by the wind and sun.

Snacks

Lemnian tsipouro and ouzo seeks for accompaniment a good meze (snack)!

Seafood - consists of steamed mussels, octopus in vinegar, shellfishes and ark shells from Limnos’ seabed. Special and scarce snack are the baked limpets since they should be gathered one by one from the rocks of the seashore and cleaned thoroughly before getting into the saucepan, pour wine, cook with parsley and tomato in accordance to old fishermen’s recipe.

Pickles – consist of cucumber, aubergine, olives in vinegar and sea fennel collected from Limnos’ shores.

Cured fish  – consist of sardines, mackerel, anchovies and lacerda cured in salt traditionally by the local industries of the island.

Kavourmas – is a lean cut of pork boiled in fat with salt. The selection for meat-eaters. You can eat it plain, but also it is worth tasting it in an omelette with farm eggs.

Cheese-an excellent appetizer for raki is the kalathaki Limnos along with garlic and green beans, also melichloro sachanaki cheese in pan gives a unique taste

Finally, afkos, the local split peas, delicious and aromatic, mashed through millstones, is served with olive oil and chopped onion.   

Ladera and cooked meals

(Dish from the category "ladera", which means vegetables cooked in different ways with the addition of olive oil.)

The usage of "pots" in the Aegean is substantial, and the Lemnian housewives have adapted the casserole and cooked dishes of their kitchen in the cycle of the seasons, were based on materials from the orchard and the field, they incorporated masterfully in their recipes, influences from the refugees of Asia minor and the Lemnian emigrants in Egypt, creating dishes simple but small masterpieces of culinary art with beans, the broad beans or vine leaves. Authentic flavors that you can nowadays taste in the restaurants and the taverns of Limnos.

Try stuffed vine leaves made out of tender vine leaves gathered from the famous vineyards of Limnos, stuffed with rice and herbs. The locals tend to accompany it with sheep’s yogurt, but offering the same pleasure they can be eaten plain. You’ll definitely order a "pseftopet'no"(rooster) ie aubergines, cooked in oil with tomatoes, which are replacing the "pet'no" (rooster) to the known local dish and served with tasty local noodles, the flomaria. In the summer taste okra and green beans cooked in the saucepan with onions and fresh tomato, fresh broad beans in spring and stewed cauliflower in winter.

The cooked dishes with local vegetables in Limnos, influenced by the Asia Minor cuisine, stand out for their taste and the art of preparation: aubergines imam baildi, zucczucchini tourlou or briam stuffed tomatoes and peppers and courgette flowers stuffed with rice and herbs.

Fish and Seafood

Limnos is a great fishing place and local fishermen, craftsmen in net fishing, will bring on your plate fresh fish and seafood. Before dawn, the sea around Limnos is filled with illuminated fishing boats that look like stars in the sky. In days of dead calm the fishing trawlers are going out from the Venetian port of Myrina, directing to Tigani, near Ai-Stratis casting nets for silversides, whitebaits, red mullets, sea bream, swordfish, groupers, whatever the catch of the day would be.

A similar procedure is followed, by the fishermen in Moudros towards several fishing places on the island, with the company of seagulls and dolphins.

If you happen to arrive early in the morning at the port of Myrina, approach the trawlers that have just returned and take a look at the fresh catch.

Fish and seafood, from the fisherman’s nets and scale, will be routed fast to the taverns of Limnos. And from there, in your dish, cooked in many different ways and old fisherman recipes in the pan, into the pot, in the oven or on the grill.

Smaller fish such as anchovy, sardines, silversides, are in a-plenty during the summer and are served mostly fried, but also cooked with tomatoes and onions in the oven. Bigger fish are grilled and served with raw olive oil, lemon and parsley.

Try soups with a sea flavor, the classical fish soup of Limnos with rice and egg-lemon, characterized by the aroma which the mullet and the grouper give, as well as the fish soup with trachana an influence coming from Asia Minor. Definitely try the rice with mussels or shrimp, grilled sardines with lemon and olive oil, quid stuffed with rice, almonds, raisins and cooked in the pot, braised cuttlefish, lobster or crab cooked with mountain herbs or spinach, cod or red porgy in the oven with potatoes, stewed octopus.

Lemnian fish are perfectly accompanied with the excellent white muscat wine. With its fruity fragrance in a floral background, matches with the blackspot seabream, the breams, octopus, and lobsters caught on the island as well as with the exquisite cultivated mussels from New Koutali.

Meat and Hunting

"Pet'nos with Flomaria”, ie free range rooster braised with the local noodles, is a serious reason to make the long journey by boat or plane to get to Limnos, if you are a fan of gastronomic tourism!

Roosters and chicken still free-range today, as foxes do not exist on the island, lambs and goats with their tasty meat from the salty sea and the herbs of the Lemnian land, have always been the raw material of the meat eaters on the island, and moreover pork, that the old householders were feeding in their paddock for slaughtering the day after Christmas.

As the time went by, Limnos’ cuisine gained variety, but the long-established flavors never lost their value. In restaurants and taverns in Limnos taste meat, cooked in a traditional way, along with fresh seasonal vegetable, exquisite pasta and locally produced cheese.

A classic Sunday meal in a Lemnian house, which you must definitely try, is the lamb or goat in the oven with potatoes. The lamb with olive oil, oregano and lemon, with an exquisite aroma, is simmering in the pot with oregano. If you want to make a picnic, leave meatballs aside, and follow the lemnian suggestion for a picnic snack, cold but delicious slices of leg of lamb baked in parchment paper with its juices.

Lamb fricassee is a spring dish that you must not miss if you find yourself at this time of year on the island, where meat boils and gets a unique flavor from aromatic wild herbs and kafkalithres.

At Easter, have in mind kaspak'no, one of the epic dishes of the island along with the rooster with Flomaria. This is the meal of Easter for the residents of Kaspakas, lamb or goat in the oven with rice and a fresh head of cheese melted on top, true deli! In Limnos, the traditional recipe for Easter food is not lamb on the spit but lamb or goat stuffed with chopped haslets, fresh cheese, rice and aromatic herbs, baked in the oven.

If you visit the island during Christmas, forget the stuffed turkey and look for the traditional dish cooked this time of year in most houses, the island's pork selinato, ie local pork with celery egg-lemon.

Limnos is a paradise for hunters as in recent years the population of the wild rabbit in particular has increased significantly.

The wild rabbit stew is a special dish, cooked with onions or tomatoes with various spices, as well as in the oven or fried. It could be accompanied with fries, rice or flomaria. During the hunting period, you might taste woodcock cooked with tomatoes or lemon.

Sweets

Sweet lovers will not know what to choose among the enormous variety of traditional sweets of Limnos, such as bonbons, that Venizelos tasted with enthusiasm, syrup sweets in a cooking sheet or sweet preserves.

Try samsades, sweet of the New Year's Eve, which nowadays can be found in bakeries on the island throughout the year. It is layer from dough wrapped in sesame seeds or threshed almond, blanched with honey.

Sweet preserves have always been traditional to treat, made from all the seasonal fruit of the island, and first of all from sour cherries, quince, grapes and Ornos (wild fig). Nowadays there are small handcraft shops, producing excellent sweet preserves.

Seek for Venizelika, sweets with almond and white vanilla glazing dedicated to Eleftherios Venizelos and taste Lemnian macaroons based on the almond, which in local tradition, were being offered to engagements and weddings.

Keep your mind on, for seasonal sweets, foinikia at Christmas, a Lemnian version of honey macaroon and milk pie, a baking sheet dessert without syrup which is traditionally made on the island on Halloween and afterwards, especially on the "Galatopeft" the Ascension Day.

Irresistible are also the syrupy sweets of the island, galaktoboureko (milkpie) with almonds, baked halva, baklava cut into a rose pattern, saragli with grated walnuts, and fifes with almonds and cinnamon clove.

History of Wine in Limnos

History of Wine in Limnos

According to mythology, Thoantas, sun of Dionysus, was the first king of Limnos. Homer connects Limnos with wine, saying in Iliad that the Achaeans were drinking the wine of Limnos as long as the siege of Troy lasted. Wine was loaded in ships and exchanged with metals, oxen, animal skins and prisoners. This testimony shows the importance of viticulture for Limnos since the ancient years, as well as the sea ways of wine trade. Another fact proving the importance of viticulture for Limnos refers to the coins made by the inhabitants of Hephaestia, with a representation of Dionysus or a cluster of grapes on them.

The first existing records concerning the amount of vines and the height of wine production in Limnos, come from the post Byzantine years and the monastery vineyards – the land property (Metohia) of the Monasteries of Mount Athos.

By the early 20th century in Limnos varieties of black grapes are cultivated. The oldest variety of the island is “kalampaki” which gradually spreads elsewhere. In Halkidiki acquires the designation “Limnio”. In 1910, arrives at Limnos the variety “Muscat of Alexandria” which gradually dominates the production, giving wines that are gaining reputation, especially the sweets and semi -sweet .The grapes get high alcoholic degrees thanks to the soil and the climatic conditions. The wines of Limnos today, make up a large range. Produced excellent white wines Origin of Superior Quality (OPAP) and Appellation of Contralled Origin (AOC) -dry, semi- sweet and of course sweet and natural sweet, more and more coming from organic farming.

A distinct reputation nowadays have the dry wines, “Scent of Limnos”, ”Limnia Gi”, ”Lemnia Vines” and others. From the sweets, the famous “Muscat de Limnos” and “Hephaestus Gnosi" (knowledge). Also produced red and rose dry, as during the last years the old red varieties of Limnos are used and also producing very good retsina.

There is a long tradition of producing ouzo and raki. The ouzo of Limnos has years of great reputation and raki (tsipouro) is constantly gaining new friends. Besides from the traditional home production offered now standard on the market. The Union of Agricultural Cooperatives of Limnos features the wines in Myrina and the most famous wineries located in the settlements Karpasi, Pedino, Kaspakas, Atsiki, Kaminia and Agios Dimitrios.

During the 17th and 18th century, travelers make reference to the winemaking production of Limnos and to its wine exchange trade with other products (textiles, etc.), mainly regarding the regions of Asia Minor.