The Greek food and Beverage Road show took place in London’s Maida Vale in December 2024, organised by Managi, under the auspices of the Embassy Of Greece.
Much like how the Cypriot Wine Festival & Business Expo is under the auspices of the Cyprus High Commissioner, this event is for the promotion of Greek produce in the UK, however, the Greek F&B Roadshow travels internationally with their next even taking place in Malta.
The Greek Food and Beverage roadshow is organised by Managi and import export company based in Athens, Greece, forming part of the growing trend that is demand for Greek produce, undoubtedly also spurred on by Taste Atlas’s findings that Greek food is the best in world, scoring a 4.60 star rating with Italian cuisine coming a close second with a 4.59 star rating trailing way behind was Cypriot cuisine with 4.13 beating Saudi cuisine to the top 50 spot by a just a single point. The point system is actually review based and unfortunately, we have seen much Cypriot cuisine promoted, publicised and reviewed under the umbrella of either Greek and Turkish (top 6 spot with 4.50 stars).
Cypriot cuisine shares many traits with both Greek and Turkish food but also food from the levant, such as Lebanese, scoring 4.28, and Palestinian and Syrian drawing with 4.17 stars. Are we to believe that Cyprus, historically known for it’s gastronomy, executes mediterranean dishes at a substandard level than all of its north and southern mediterranean neighbours with the exception of Israeli and Maltese cuisine, considering how much similarity there is between Greek in fist place and Turkish in 6th one would expect Cyprus to fit comfortably in 3rd place, instead according to Taste Atlas “Based on 477,287 valid ratings for 15,478 foods in our database, these cuisines have earned the highest average scores”. Cypriot cuisine sits in between Ethiopian and Saudi cuisine, alas the issue not the scoring system but instead the misrepresentation of what is being scored.
We will continue Cyprus comparatively low in the rankings until the people of Cyprus and their diaspora accept that some dishes are uniquely Cypriot and Cypriot alone, of course, produce and thus the dishes have been influenced by other cultures, but this applies throughout all countries. Where would most countries dishes be without the staples such as the humble potato, tomato in the 16th Century, that have been introduced from South America Perhaps the Cypriot embassies around the world, need to take a leaf of the UK and Austrialia’s book that host cultural and culinary events promoting Cypriot cuisine and clarify some of this confusion.
