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A recent whirl south took us to Crete, then on to Athens and central Greece. And what was our first stop in Athens? The city’s huge Central Market, even late on a Saturday morning is in constant motion. Flanking the hall’s front doors are aisles of butchers’ stalls – all hung and strung with sides, hinds, heads and tails of beef, pork, mutton and lamb. There appears to be a customer for every morsel, including sheep heads threaded on a skewer; nothing goes to waste. But in the center of this hubbub, under the sky-lit roof, one finds fish and shellfish fresh out of Mediterranean waters. As we arrived, fish vendors were still wheeling in tubs of fish, misting their glistening displays and hawking scaly creatures of all sizes. Slabs of tuna and swordfish, red rock fish (the Greek names are, well, Greek…), and many little slivers of fish akin to smelt – ready to be fried or grilled. This is a kalamari afficianado’s (for language soup!) dream market, for all sorts and sizes of octopus and squid. These tentacled delicacies sell out fast, so a shopper is advised to arrive early.

Directly across Athinas street from Athens’ Central Market, a pedestrian passage is lined with vendors of fruits and vegetables. Shoppers fill their sacks with just-picked oranges, long cucumbers, zucchini and tomatoes – and the season’s first strawberries. We retraced our steps back through the market hall, and exited by way of side doors (wondering what people were eating in a spare and bare, smoky-windowed café in a rear corner of the hall) and found ourselves surrounded by a completely different arrary of products. Here we found cheese sellers, and along the same crowded walkers’ passage, we admired Greek olives large and small, oily or brined – too difficult to resist. This is where to find the eastern Mediterranean’s best dried fruits, as well as stalls selling only nuts. Only nuts? The Greeks top the list of European nut consumers, just one of the reasons a great selection is found here. Turkish pistachios, Greek walnuts, peanuts, macadamias and almonds are sold in natural, salted or spiced variations. A big sack of California almonds sat in a row with all the rest. I was amused, watching a young man take an almond out of an open sack: he showed it to his bright-eyed, toddling daughter, then popped it into her mouth. She bit, both grinned and they continued, hand in hand, on their rounds.