Capers

I am mad about capers; I love them in tomato salad, with fava (yellow split peas), with aubergine salad, with octopus and in any combination you can think of. In recent years it has been really hard to find in Greek Supermarkets capers of Greek origin; what you always find is Turkish origin capers packaged in Greece, that seem to be cultivated and for some reason almost tasteless and with minimum fragrance. The prices are quite nomal but quality is missing, like eating tasteless cucumber pickles-not capers.

I managed to find recently 2 products that are available beyond the local markets (it is quite common to find wild capers in cyclades islands - but these are not available in foreign markets or even Greek Supermarkets - at least not in the mainstream ones)

The first one is from Santo Wines - the Union of Santorini cooperatives which I managed to find in Wine Shops (Cellier) and the second one is from ΣΤΑΤΗΡ that I managed to find in Sklavenitis supermarket. Both claim to be wild capers from Cyclades and the superior quality and fragrance in comparison with the imported Turkish capers seems to justify this. The problem  is the price ~ 4 to 5 times higher - which easily explains why you will not easily find them in mainstream shops. But if you are a Capers-addict like me, you would probably go for the highest quality and if I had to choose among the above 2, I would go for ΣΤΑΤΗΡ.

Santo has also a Capers Leaves package which is also very hard to find and is not so common outside Greece. In case you look for a caper recipies this is a long list you could try.