Greek Tzatziki and its History

March 3, 2024 8:11 AM

"Tzatziki made Greek yogurt famous, and gave life to the tasteless cucumber. More garlic is used in Greece to make Tzatziki, than any other dish in our cuisine. There is no order given in a restaurant without saying 'vale kai ena tzatzikaki'. There would be no gyros without it, no fried zucchini and no lamb on the spit without a side order of TZATZIKI."
posted by cupcakeninja (29 comments total)

How dare they call a cucumber tasteless! (Also in one of those same things from around the world - Raita)
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:34 AM on March 3 [20 favorites]

-Garlic? As much as you like but my suggestion… not too much.

I hear your suggestion, chef, but nothing's going to stop this train.
posted by mittens at 8:45 AM on March 3 [12 favorites]

᾿Opa!
posted by MonsieurPEB at 11:04 AM on March 3 [3 favorites]

Now I want a Greek feast! I can't have it though, because there are other things in the fridge that need to be eaten.
I could do without the nationalist drama, though...
posted by mumimor at 11:30 AM on March 3 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I hear ya. I went looking for something broadly about yogurt sauces, and I found nothing that wasn’t ad-laden, too short to be meaningful, Tzatziki Pepsi Blue, or jingoistic/contentious.

This post brought to you by the tzatziki on my table, waiting for dinner—recipe from the America’s Test Kitchen Mediterranean cookbook.
posted by cupcakeninja at 11:36 AM on March 3 [1 favorite]

Tzatziki has long been my favourite “Garlic Delivery System”!
posted by Jade Dragon at 12:24 PM on March 3 [2 favorites]

Right, one cucumber and half a pot of yogurt turned into tzatziki and it took five minutes. It's been a favourite of mine for a while, just a brilliant way to get plenty of good veg and healthy yogurt nutrition into me, and I have a vegetable grater on account of my rösti addiction (that's definitely worth me writing a post, which I think I'll base around Adam Ragusea's fantastic experimental video, which I won't link, in order to at least keep the surprise a little).

Anyway, yes, tzatziki is great, although you will be shocked and angry to find that I am allergic to garlic and alliums, so mine is heavy on dill and mint and oil and black pepper and a sprinkling of chili, and that's really not the same. But what can you do? 🤷‍♂️
posted by ambrosen at 12:37 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]

I went to a Mexican restaurant in Greece to see what it'd be like and it was a pretty straightforwardly Tex-Mex menu EXCEPT that the tortilla chips came with both salsa and tzatziki. And I think you could also order retsina, which I obviously did. I love retsina but it doesn't pair all that well with Mexican food.

I wish the article had addressed a question that's been vaguely on my mind for years but which I've never bothered to research. Do we know the history of cucumber raita and tzatziki? Did they evolve convergently or did one inspire the other?
posted by potrzebie at 12:54 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]

The food along the Silk Road is pretty much a continuum, with both produce and concepts developing along the way.
posted by mumimor at 1:22 PM on March 3 [4 favorites]

potrzebie, I accidentally posted a link answering that question originally! Many articles out there mention that it started in India and came west. 🙂
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:02 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]

I went to a Mexican restaurant in Greece to see what it'd be like and it was a pretty straightforwardly Tex-Mex

I also went to a Mexican restaurant in Greece! Was it in Santorini? My restaurant used too much oregano and rosemary for Mexican/Tex-Mex.
posted by LizBoBiz at 2:53 PM on March 3

It may have been! Lol I think after a quick Google search it was almost definitely Señor Zorba's. I do not even remember the food other than the delightful novelty of tzatziki on my chips.
posted by potrzebie at 3:41 PM on March 3

A cucumber...is tasteless? Yeah I agree that's nutty.
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:39 PM on March 3 [1 favorite]

Raita ≠ Tzatziki

There's no dill in Raita; and there's no black salt or cumin in Tzatziki.
posted by lastobelus at 5:52 PM on March 3

I'm going to be the heretic here and recommend my secret technique to making an absolutely magical tzatziki - simply replacing the Greek yogurt in any tzatziki recipe with labneh. I generally use Byblos Lebni, which despite being Lebanese, is happily stocked and sold to me (and was originally recommended to me) by my favorite neighborhood Grecian grocer. Also, plenty of minced garlic. Sorry!
posted by eschatfische at 7:30 PM on March 3

There's no dill in Raita; and there's no black salt or cumin in Tzatziki.

Raita covers a large variety of things, some of which bear almost no resemblance to tzatziki except that both are based on yoghurt. South Asia is a big place, for most dishes found across the region, whatever you have learned is 'the' right way to cook something is likely to be a right way to cook something, as regional variance is huge.
posted by Dysk at 1:47 AM on March 4 [3 favorites]

Raita ≠ Tzatziki

Maybe not, but if you're making something with Indian simmer sauce at home, and you don't feel like making your own raita, the pre-made tzatziki from Aldi does the job nicely. I've been really happy since I figured this out. (And yeah, I eat the stuff with tortilla chips too.)
posted by dlugoczaj at 7:08 AM on March 4

Raita ≠ Tzatziki

There's no dill in Raita; and there's no black salt or cumin in Tzatziki.

^^^^ the picture in the dictionary, next to the definition of "arbitrary gatekeeping."

IMHO, raita is as raita does, and if I want to use tzatziki as a raita, I will damned well do it. Everyone should feel free to follow suit. IMHO.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:04 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure what you mean by "use tzatziki as a raita", but if you mean eat it with Indian food than more power to you.

But dill vs black-salt+cumin are two rather divergent flavour profiles...don't you think it'd be kinda neat if we had words to refer to them rather than belligerently asserting that we'll damn well use whatever use whatever word we damn well feel like using to mean whatever we damn well feel like meaning at the time?

(I know I'm not American, but sheesh)
posted by lastobelus at 9:36 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

...also, it's a little odd to refer to dictionaries to disparage "gatekeeping", dictionaries being the largest human compendiums of deliberate gatekeeping in existence. And all.
posted by lastobelus at 9:39 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

" whatever you have learned is 'the' right way to cook something is likely to be a right way to cook something, as regional variance is huge"

Not trying to tell people how to cook or when to eat what yoghurt condiment — just would like to be able to expect dill when I order tzatziki & black-salt/cumin when I order raita for the remaining decade or so while I can still discern the difference.
posted by lastobelus at 9:53 AM on March 4

> I'm going to be the heretic here [by] simply replacing the Greek yogurt in any tzatziki recipe with labneh.

I think using two different words to describe the Greekishness of yoghurt is what will be considered the heresy, in my experience here.

Regional variance [in how much yoghurt is strained] is huge; however strained your Greekish yoghurt is is right for you.

In fact in America, I believe Greek yoghurt is generally skim milk yoghurt with agar agar, guar gum, carrageenan and alginate.
posted by lastobelus at 10:06 AM on March 4

As the one who started the Raita digression - my point was to expand on the parallels we've been drawing between cuisines and showing how basic forms get repeated over and over again. (See last week's thread on Texas Red and all the various connections that could be drawn to other foods.)

There are absolutely differences between the two sauces, but they definitely rhyme, culinarily speaking. The fact of which doesn't make one dish lesser/more, better/worse. Just always interesting to see how much ideas repeat across cultures.
posted by drewbage1847 at 10:55 AM on March 4 [1 favorite]

just would like to be able to expect dill when I order tzatziki & black-salt/cumin when I order raita

I don't think I've ever been served either. Tzatziki is typically mint around here, and I don't think I've ever eaten a raita with black salt (and I've had a few without cumin, and lots without cucumber).
posted by Dysk at 5:29 PM on March 4 [1 favorite]

Well all right then, that clears that up. If folk have been serving a thing called raita without black salt OR cumin, and folk've been eating it & never encountering the kind WITH black salt & cumin, then it is abundantly clear to me why they would feel a distinction between greek(ish) yoghurty condiments (which happens to map reasonably well to two handily available names) was unwarranted.

Hell, you say it doesn't even have to have cucumbers? you could just shake some salt'n'pepper into a bowl of yoghurt, maybe sprinkle some parsley flakes in, and call it a day. Get your Greek on, then get your Indian on the next night from the leftovers. Come to think of it, using EITHER name seems superflous now that I'm aware of the intricacies of the situation. I'll just call 'em both greekish yoghurt condiment from now on.
posted by lastobelus at 8:08 PM on March 4

Hell, you say it doesn't even have to have cucumbers?

Cucumber raita is only one type of raita indeed, and even within that category the spicing can vary. You're doing something like giving instructions for roasting a chicken, and calling that the only way to do "roast". It's not that what you're describing isn't a roast, it's just an example, not the definition thereof.
posted by Dysk at 9:23 PM on March 4

As someone for whom raita is an ordinary part of a meal at home, not something I order at a restaurant: it is basically just yoghurt + something. That's it, that's raita. It can be thick, though is often a bit runny. My father, a man of profoundly conservative tastes, would recognize both Greek tzatziki and Turkish cacik - and their many various forms, not all of which have dill - as raita. His favourite kind of raita is with small diced potatoes, cucumbers, onions and a sprinkle of cumin. My mother's favourite was with slices of fried aubergine marinated in red chilli and turmeric. I like mint raita with chicken tikka. When hosting a dinner party we often serve raita with bondi, little bits of fried chickpea flour. My sister doesn't care for any kind of raita at all. Some people eat raita with a spoon from a bowl, but usually it's an accompaniment, like a cooling chutney alongside a heavily spiced dish or as a moistening agent for a rice-based dish like biryani. No one I know eats raita as a dip with pappadom (which we call papar), that's something you find at restaurants outside Pakistan, though perhaps it's more common in India.
posted by tavegyl at 11:46 PM on March 4 [4 favorites]

If nothing else came of the great raita digression on the great plains of Tzatziki - learning that raita has so many varieties is going to make me run off and try some new things. (No lie, in 30+ years of going to Indian and Pakistani restaurants around the US, working with a ton of folks from around India and Pakistan - it never once registered to me that raita was anything other than yogurt and cucumber. Off to buy too much plain yogurt!)
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:08 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]

On the question of "raita..."

Tzatziki is a mostly specific thing. There's some variation but it's a seasoned yogurt sauce with specific traditional roles. Raita is more of a role, "a kind of cooling condiment for spicy foods."

I think if you went to 100 Greek restaurants and ordered tzatziki, the 100 things you'd get would be a dense tight cluster in recipe space, while the 100 "raitas" you'd get by doing the similar experiment with India restaurants and raita would be a diffuse cloud by comparison. Big enough even to overlap with the "tzatziki" cluster, maybe.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:02 AM on March 5 [1 favorite]