27/04/2026
Last week for we gathered five Greek women to cook the food passed down through their families. The dishes made at home. The dishes taught by watching, repeating, helping, remembering. Food measured by eye, adjusted by feel, and carried across continents and generations.
Greek Independence Day marks a history of courage and struggle. For us, this national memory is kept alive in small, daily ways. In what is cooked, passed down, and made again. Dishes like bacaliaro (salted cod fritter), patzarosalata (boiled beetroot with vinegar and vlita) and skorthalia (whipped garlic potato), have been eaten across Greece on March 25th for generations, where religious tradition and national celebration meet at the table.
These recipes have not arrived here in Melbourne by accident. They have been brought deliberately, preserved carefully, and cooked again so that they're not lost. And isn't this how food culture is created? In migrant homes. In community halls. In family businesses. In the hands of women who kept culture alive through cooking.
Right now, when so much in the world feels fractured, we insist on coming together. It keeps our memories warm and turns identity into something we share. We wanted to offer people not just a meal, but a chance to remember and to be recognised in their heritage.
This menu was made from family dishes and Independence Day traditions.
From women's knowledge.
From migration.
From memory.
From the belief that culture is not only something we inherit but something we keep making.
