Italian Cooking & Language Blog

Fare La Scarpetta means to wipe your plate clean with a piece of bread.

What else could you ask for?

Monday, July 19, 2010

Greek Caper Leaves



We did our best in Greece to ask locals for restaurant recommendations. A taxi driver recommended “The Dolphins,” a restaurant on – literally right on – the Akrotiri Beach. That’s where we had our first salad of pickled caper leaves. The salty flavor and smooth surface was delicious on that hot day overlooking the beach. It tasted almost exactly like caper berries, except the texture was different. With some bread on the side, it was perfect.

I had never heard of eating caper leaves and imagined they’d be hard to find Stateside. We bought one jar of caper leaves on Santorini and are now afraid to open it. In typical Chloe’ fashion, I’ll probably hoard it until it goes bad. I should have learned the Mediterranean lesson to enjoy life in the moment!

I think they might be even harder to find than I thought. An internet search didn’t find them for sale at particular gourmet markets (Whole Foods, Zingerman’s, Morgan and York, Foodzie, Balducci’s, etc.) or through more general searches.

So, aside from growing capers ourselves and pickling their leaves, does anywhere know where I can find them?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think they sell them in Astoria Queens. Next time you're in Jersey come to NYC and check it out.

Chloe Yelena Miller said...

Good idea!

Anonymous said...

They sell them at Titan supermarket in Astoria.

Chloe Yelena Miller said...

Thanks for reading and sharing your knowledge. I'll look for them there.