Back to Cyprus!

What to say about food in Cyprus? There is a lot of it! The common style of eating in Cyprus is tons of little dishes which everyone takes a small portion from and put it on their dish to eat. Nothing is very big it is all small but there is so much food and so many course that you can never finish. Bread or pita is served with every meal as well. One night we started dinner at 7:30pm and were not done until 12:30am! Meals are long in Cyprus, because it is not only about the eating it is a socializing time and you do not eat fast it is a slow process, which was honestly so foreign to me because dinner normally only last an hour in my house if that. Dinner is also later then in the United States, normally starting around 8 or 9 at night.
So, now the food itself! (We are going to go through a traditional Cyprus dinner). First there will be a serving of pita or breads there will be dipping sauces on the table as well some of the most commons are hummus and tazike, which is a yogurt cucumber sauce with some herbs. They are both very good. Then comes the salads which are normally tomato, pepper (sometime), cucumber, lettuce, and sometimes cheese. The salads normally do not really have dressing on them but only a little vinegar.
Next up is all the meat that is served. There can be many different meat dishes so here they are: there is always liver, lamb, chicken and pork kababs, then pork or lamb sausage, these are all served in different sauces, or with no sauce. Sometimes we got all these meat dishes, which I must say is a little overwhelming. Then there would be chicken done is some kabab manor and served normally with french fries. Somewhere in the middle of all the meat dishes they bring out a dish of cheese raviolis, I guess to take a break from all the meat for a minute.
Up Next, dessert come on down! For dessert there will normally be a plate of fresh sliced pears, oranges, apples, and an occasional pineapple. The second dish for dessert has a few possibilities. First is a candied fruit. Baby walnuts, oranges, pears, and apples are taken then something is done to them which involves being soaked in honey then they are served to you. I think it is some version of a preserve, the fruit becomes quite soft. Another option is this honey sweet tan colored desert that comes out cut in a small block and has the texture of koos-koos. This was not really my favorite desert option. The last option was of course smaller piece of baklava, my favorite! Something which I had not had before was baklava made with pistachios which I tried while in Cyprus, it was quite lovely. And that concludes the very long dinners of Cyprus.