Olive oil is the staple of almost, if not all Greek plates. Olive oil is found all over Greece, as well as the trees that bear the fruit. It has ties to both religious and folk beliefs, and is used as Greece's official addition to any plate that needs that extra "touch" of Greek taste.

Food and holidays are both very sacred to the people of Greece. The most extravagant meals are held during Holidays, such as Christmas.

The Greek Christmas celebration lasts for thirteen days, from Christmas Eve until Epiphany, January 6, the day that the Magi arrived in Bethlehem, bringing gifts to the Christ child.

Bread is the most important of the Greek holiday foods. Historically, flour and yeast were scarce and expensive and thus saved for special meals. Traditional items, such as Christmas bread or stravropsomo, a fruit-filled loaf, decorated on top with the sign of the cross and Chistopsomto or “Christ's Bread”, a leavened bread made of flour, sesame seeds, and spices, such as anise, orange, cloves, and cinnamon accompanied by dried figs, are eaten on Christmas Eve.

Other traditional Greek Christmas sweets include thiples, fried dough strips dripped with honey, kourabiedes, holiday butter cookies, kataifi, phyllo-wrapped confections made from cinnamon and sugar and drizzled with honey, melomacrona, popular honey cakes, and the ever-popular sweet pastry, baklava.

The Greek also have their own set of habits that they fulfill at mealtimes, which they take very seriously. For example, meals are always held at specific times of the day. Breakfast is held bright and early at 8 AM, lunch not until around 1 PM or so, and supper can be at either 8 PM or 10 PM.

A typical Greek meal would always start with an appetizer, which usually turns out to be a salad. Feta cheese, olives and tomatoes are commonly seen in them. Wine will also almost always accompany the main course. Robolla is a popular choce for the main course, a white wine hailing from Cephalonia.

When the main course DOES come around, though, it could be any number of delicious plates. However, the Greek national dish is perhaps the Souvlaki. t is a blend of lamb or beef and seasonings, seared and stuffed in a pita topped with sliced and diced tomatoes, onions and tzatziki, then served with a yogurt sauce. Moussaka is normally eaten along with a red wine like Agiorghitiko while Styphado is eaten with a heavy red wine such as a dry Mavrodaphne.

Baklava is also by far the most popular Greek dessert - it is a multi-layered pastry filled with crunchy nuts and oozing with honey syrup. It is made up of little Filo squares filled with a walnut, semolina and honey mixture and garnished with honey and grated orange peel.

As far as I can see, Greek foods and culture have not greatly impacted Nova Scotia's own dining habits and foods. However, Athens is one of the most well-known and most popular restaurants on Quinpool. It is a Greek restaurant with a wide variety of meals.