Greek Yogurt: An Origin Story
Ahhh, Greek yogurt! It’s an old yogurt, a nutritious and delicious yogurt, an insanely popular yogurt, and not even Greek at all!
Records of yogurt in Greece begin in the 5th century BCE with the writings of Herodotus, but in reality, the process of straining yogurt (making it “Greek”) began somewhere in the Middle East. In Greece, this strained yogurt is called straggisto, and is often used to make dips (think tzatziki), to spread on flat bread eaten with olives, pickles, olive oil, usually veggies (we usually go with onions, cucumbers, and tomatoes), and often with cheese (doesn’t get betta than feta!). Bonus points for adding some fresh herbs or dried spice blends like za’atar. You can just as easily, and just as deliciously, put your yogurt on bread and drizzle honey on it instead for a sweeter breakfast treat!
Greek yogurt gets its name from a corporate marketing scheme developed by Fage to divert sales away from traditional American yogurts like Yoplait and toward this creamier, more protein-dense product. Because really, who doesn’t like Greek food, and who doesn’t want to eat dairy attached to the well-known health benefits of the Mediterranean diet? What is lovely about our Greek-style yogurts is that unlike with commercial blends, you get all the flavor and higher protein content without all the added sugar. All that sugar really does make it harder for the probiotics to do their job.
So where does it really come from? This is a bit complicated, because the original thermophilic yogurt comes from Bulgaria, dating back around 4000 years! As yogurt spread into the Mediterranean region, you start seeing variations based on the type of animal milk used. Traditionally, both Bulgarian and Greek yogurts are made with sheep’s rather than cow’s milk (American Greek-style yogurt is made with cow’s milk), but in some parts of the Middle East you even see it made with camel’s milk! Over time and travel, and with changes in milk to represent the types of animals pastured in different localities, yogurts shift away from the “base model,” because localized microbes got in there from the air to amend and enrich the base yogurt with new and delicious flavors!
Other than just nomming it down with some fruit and/or granola, or breakfast sandwich ideas above, what can you do with all your delicious Greek-style yogurt? The first thing is to bake with it! You can sub it in for milk in nearly any baking recipe, and I often use up extra yogurt in bread to soften it and make it that much more delicious! You can make dips, ranging from tzatziki to fruit dips to my favorite, Persian mast o moosir! In addition, of course, you can make smoothies. If you’re straining your Greek-style yogurt further, don’t forget to save the whey! Not only can you reculture from it, it’s also a delicious addendum to soups, breads, and smoothies! Lastly, and definitely my favorite, you can strain it further into labneh, which is a Middle Eastern yogurt cheese with a texture similar to cream cheese!
