South Kynouria is a municipality in the Arcadia regional unit , Peloponnese, Greece,including the municipal units Tyros and Kosmas. Located in the southeastern part of Arcadia and it covers the central part of the ancient part of Kynouria and the southern part of the former Kynouria Province. The seaside part of the region is overlooking the Argoloc Gulf and the Myrtoon Sea. It includes Tyros, Melana, Pragmateftis, Livadi, Sampatiki, Leonidio, Poulithra, Fokiano. The mountainous part is situated in the northeastern side of Parnonas or Malevos, and includes Ano Tyros, Sapounakeika, Vaskina, Tsitalia, Peleta, Amygdalia, Pigadi, Kounoupia, Vlisidia, Chouni, Mari, Kosmas, Platanaki, Agios Vasilis and Palaiochori.
The climate of the region is characterized as temperate Mediterranean and particularly arid, with sunshine covering 70% of the days of the year. Winter is mild, the weather from November to March is cold, but not icy and it often rains. The mountain villages have been whitewashed since the beginning of November but one will rarely see snow in the lowlands. The morphology and composition of the soil, geography and climate compose an idyllic place, where the balance of nature reigns and monotony is completely absent. The municipality of South Kynouria combines mountain and sea, quiet ports with picturesque coves, barren mountain ranges with fertile plains, the quiet mountain villages with the busy south. This particular landscape with its microclimate is reflected in the production, which in turn affects the local cuisine.
In Parnonas, a wide variety of products is produced, as it is a special mountain with rich biodiversity. An important place of production is the plain of Leonidio "the garden of Dionysus" according to Pausanias. The traditional cuisine of the area has a wealth and variety of recipes and flavors based on local products. In the mountains, plains and coasts, livestock and crops offer excellent quality dairy products, vegetables, fruit, nuts, oil, edible olives, wine and cereals, which give excellent gastronomic combinations.
The extra virgin quality oil, a product of simple crushing of the olive, without extracts and improving additives, is the raw material for delicious well-cooked dishes and the necessary side dish to fresh salads, vegetables, mountain grass, and bulbs, bourbons, an edible onion, harvested in the spring in the fields. Bulbs were a very popular dish at the dinners of the ancient Greeks and Romans and most of the writers agreed on their aphrodisiac properties. The humble bulbs are still today one excellent as well as a rare appetizer, which accompanies the meals of the Kynourians. It would be a great omission not to try the dried grass, hay, as they are typically called. In the region, housewives and restaurant owners collect wild grasses in the winter, hang them on stakes to dry, and consume them in the summer, when vegetables become scarce due to the lack of plenty of water. These dried greens, which have retained excellent taste, are boiled in water and served like wild greens. The word hay is Slavic and means dry grass.
Excellent edible olives of the local variety karyolia, will be tasted in November - December (the way they are prepared does not allow long-term preservation) green crushed, flavored with lemon, fennel seeds and garlic and black charaktes , preserved in excellent olive oil and vinegar.. The other local variety that is worth trying is the myrolia, wrinkled olives flavored with thyme. The wine, an essential accompaniment to the meal and an element of companionship, produced from local varieties that are fully harmonized with the climatic conditions of the mountainous and lowland areas. Local producers with taste produce fine wines, white, rosé and red, famous, the Peletiotiko, of the municipal district of Peleta, with varieties that are lost in the depths of time, such as, nutmeg, redness related to the muscovite, the exceptional sorrel, the quince , mavrovaria, with aroma and color like agiorgitiko, white barvaria, which gives wine aromatic and yellowbaria, which gives particularly sweet wine, cenzeli, black and white thrapsa, relatives of the assyrtiko, the Sernialiotiko, the municipal district of Melanas, from varieties of sanj , nutmeg, kalpiko and agioritiko, the Lenidiotiko wine, from varieties of rhodite, filler and capernet.
A characteristic of the local family businesses that are active in the catering is the provision of the raw material from local producers. In many restaurants and taverns the visitor will find handmade sourdough bread from local flour, of the mavragani variety, without improvers and additives, baked in a wood oven, a bread with a strong aroma of wheat, crispy crust, and wonderful taste! It is also worth trying in Tsakonia and in the villages outside the Tsakonia, wheat rusks, plakopites or kolioures, pakokolioure, lipses (without yeast) and anasikotes (with yeast), lipsanavatoi and anatainistoi in the Tsakonian dialect and an excellent carob bread of rich organic value, since carob contains 3 times more calcium than milk!
Large quantities of goat cheese, mizithra, kefalograviera, kefalotyri and extremely aromatic milk butter are produced in South Kynouria. The inhabitants of the area have a long tradition in livestock, mainly sheep and goat farming, established and mobile to a greater extent. The grazing of the cultivated fields gives milk of excellent quality and taste due to the endemic aromatic plants, wild grasses and herbs, which are consumed by the herds. The cheese-making is done even today by all of the breeders every morning in the traditional way, sometimes in the sheepfold, in the livestock facilities, in specially designed buildings and sometimes in dry stone constructions always inside the wider area of the pastoral facility, in large copper cauldrons on a wood fire. The visitor should not miss to try, local goat cheese saganaki, omelette with cheese, grilled goat cheese with olive oil and herbs of Parnon. In the mountain villages it is worth trying green goat cheese made with lemon or vinegar, an ancient method that refers to Aristotle (on animals, III, 522b, 21) and Dioscorides (On the subject of Medicine).
With local dry mizithra flavored with local milk butter, the handmade spaghetti is served, with a special character in the area, a Doric food, simple but imposing. In the mountainous villages outside Tsakonia the name which prevails is goges, while, in tsakonochoria, they are called, in the common new Greek cracked spaghetti, and, sphontiou or karatsoune, in Prastos Kynourias, (Southern idiom of the Tsakonian dialect) and Sfontilia or Karatsounia in Sitaina (Northern Idiom). This spaghetti was the special dish of the Carnival, the Cheese or Trani Carnival. They were offered as a main course and served with plenty of local goat cheese or dry mizithra. Today they are combined with meat and sauce, something that alters the character of the dish. Look for them as they are, authentic, simple and Doric, the choice will reward you.
Next necessary dish on a special table are the pitaroudes, kousoune, pies baked on a plate, in stone or cast iron, made with taste, with handmade dough and filled with aromatic herbs, spinach (agzospanako), mironi kantzika, kafkalithra, kokalia, paparouna, makounia, or the Mekon the Roias, the Mikon the sleepy, of the ancient Greeks, the pouragino (pourangine), a particularly aromatic plant for pies, grows alone, plenty of fresh onion, and dill, nyrisma. They are served in almost all the villages of South Kynouria, either cooked or fried. Next is cagiannas, tomatoes with eggs in the pan, which the Tsakones call sfouggato, a dish simple but with a characteristic addictive taste.
However, the protagonist in South Kynouria is the Tsakonian eggplant of Leonidio, a Tsakonian eggplant, which one can try in incredible gastronomic combinations. Grilled salad, accompanied only by onion, oil, lemon,salt, this is the most authentic version, but the cooking itself is the imagination, so it is now usually served with a little tomato without chopped seeds and parsley, in the lowlands. Eggplants in the pot yahni with sweet trachana, red pumpkin with sweet trachana, green in summer, red in winter and yahni potatoes in the pot with sweet trachana. Constant values are the aubergines with rice and red pumpkin with rice. Baked eggplants with sauce and local goat cheese. Stuffed accompanied by peppers and tomatoes with rice and goat cheese. Tsakoniko savori, aubergines in the pot, with onions, zucchini, potatoes, fresh beans, pulp, mint and goat cheese. And of course the king of dishes, meat with aubergines, divine taste, imperative choice and the also worthy variation of chicken with aubergines and colorful peppers! In a period of fasting, dishes worth noting, artichokes with broad beans and fennel, antzinarou with koukoune, koukoune with spinach.
And as far as meat is concerned, the options for the visitor are all excellent. Here the lamb and the goat are first, the place is not favorable for cow breeding, consequently it is absent in the local cuisine. In the lowlands it is cooked in all the classic options, boiled, grilled or braised. A special choice, however, is the rabbit baked on paper stuffed with local cheese. In the mountains and semi-mountains, the options abound, splinandere-boubari, gulbasi, meat with kefalotyri wrapped in paper and cooked on the coals, on the embers with the coals, zigouri, vergadi or betouli boiled, boiled goat, patsas,lamb kapama, chicken with sour trachana, wild boar with chestnuts, hare stew. Lucky those who taste fried liver of the moment, the best appetizer for demanding eaters.
Fish and seafood have the first place in the coastal villages of South Kynouria. Worth mentioning, hull in the hull with vegetables and long chylopites, spinach pie with fresh or sun-dried octopus, squid or cuttlefish with broad beans and spinach, kakavia soup Sampatikioti, bonito and libero plate, bonito with colorful peppers, onion and octopus. In the typical mountain dish, cod plaki and cod in the pot with wild mountain greens and tomatoes.
Completing the delicious tour in South Kynouria, the visitor has the opportunity to try a variety of handmade traditional sweets. Diples, loukoumades and xerotigana with excellent quality honey. Great macaroons flavored with rose water. Kourampiedes with rose water and almond. Melomakarona stuffed with walnut. Traditional sweets with home care, the well-known Leonidion tsakonian eggplant with almond, citrus, frappe, orange peel and green, lemon and orange, fig, grape, cherry and sour cherry, quince and quince paste, pear, sweet chestnut and chestnut jam and whatever offers the fertile area. Excellent and original, ice cream with eggplant sweet. Chestnut pie, walnut pie, orange pie with ice cream and galaktoboureko with fresh local ingredients.