Cooking classes are our favorite activity to do while traveling. When we backpacked throughout Southeast Asia we partook in classes in Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia and Cambodia! You can learn so much about the culture of a region through the art of cooking. Instructors tell wonderful tales of the food's meaning while showing you the best cooking secrets. When we went vegan and vegetarian a few years ago I was worried that we wouldn't be able to participate in classes anymore because traditional dishes in most cultures are often not plant-based....but boy was I wrong!
To our delight, when we visited Athens, Greece we stumbled upon a VEGAN COOKING CLASS! Soybird is a culinary studio in the heart of Athens that teaches vegan cooking in many styles, from Greek, Thai, Moroccan and more! My husband and I wanted to indulge in authentic Greek food during our trip so we chose their Greek Traditional Class.
In the course's four hour time span we not only ate delicious food, made friends and cooked our butts off, but we also learned so much about Grecian cuisine. Did you know many dishes in Greece are naturally vegan or vegetarian? Fava, for example, is a spread similar to hummus that combines yellow split peas, red onions, lemon juice, oregano and thyme.
When we walked into the class at 11am we were greeted by a warm and friendly instructor, Alexandra, who has been vegan for 15 years! We were provided aprons, ingredients, utensils and laminated instructions (so they wouldn't get messy if food fell on them in the heat of cooking). There were eight other chefs-to-be eagerly waiting instruction in the class. Our classmates were from all over the world, including Germany, London and Lithuania. They were also vegan and wanted to enjoy traditional Greek food. It was so nice to meet like-minded people with similar interests of plant-based food and traveling. After we all introduced ourselves we got to work cooking. Alexandra spilt up the cooking tasks amongst groups of two and floated from group to group to instruct and give feedback.
Time flew by! We whisked, we chatted and we learned valuable lessons that can be applied to any style of vegan cooking. Did you know you can make vegan feta by soaking almonds for two hours, straining the juice and adding spices? No? Me neither until I took the course! Before we knew it we were clinking our glasses (white wine and beer are included with your meal), cheering "Yamas" (which is short for "Stin Yeia Mas," meaning “to our health,” a popular Greek toast) and diving into the the food we spent three hours cooking together.
WOW! Was it delicious! You would never know plant-based substitutes were in these dishes. It was the best food we had in all of Athens. We chowed down on moussaka, tzatziki, spanakopita, koulouri and dakos. They were all phenomenal and tasted even better knowing that we made them ourselves, with Alexandra's skillful teaching of course! We ended the meal with a delicious dessert I've never tried before and it ended up being one of my favorite parts of the meal - Greek Ekmek Kataifi, a custard and whipped topping dessert with syrup soaked pastry. YUM!
The best part of the whole day? We not only got to eat the meal and take home leftovers for later, BUT we also received all the recipes for everything we made that day! This is awesome for travelers who are travel-sick (opposite of home-sick) and want to fondly remember their adventures by tasting the delicacies of their favorite country.
As I said above, my husband and I have done MANY cooking classes over the last seven years, including some in our home state of Connecticut, U.S.A., so I would say we are experts at evaluating a course based on the quality of the venue, food and instruction. The Soybird cooking class ranks very highly on our experience list! Thank you so much Soybird for inviting us into your studio to make some culinary magic.
Are you interested in more vegan food options throughout the world? Then check out my other European blog articles and follow my Vegan Video Playlist on YouTube, which includes vegan eateries in London, Sweden, Las Vegas and more!
