Karamanlidika - Tα Καραμανλίδικα του Φάνη - Athens favorite delicatessen: Karamanlidika pastirmas, kavourmas, soutzouki

Our favorite deli in this area has actually become two: Arapian, a hole in the wall so narrow there’s only room for the showcase and perhaps three customers, and its new (two-year-old), much larger store-cum-all-day-restaurant, Ta Karamanlidika tou Fani, on the corner opposite. They specialize in the preserved meats of Central Turkey, delicacies like pastourma, kavourmas, soutzoukia (piquant Anatolian beef salami) and cheeses from all over Greece. The forefathers of Fanis, the present owner, brought the recipes with them from Cappadocia when they were resettled in the Macedonian town of Drama after the population exchange of the 1920s. Their pastourma, made with camel, lamb or two cuts of beef, is always seasoned with a potent red paste called çemin, very redolent of fenugreek, garlic, cumin and paprika. One doesn’t normally eat this, but it flavors the pastourma and keeps it surprisingly delicate and tender. Kavourmas is a confit of chicken or beef rolled into a large cylinder like mortadella and scented with spices and herbs; its consistency is similar to the rillettes of France. Besides these distinctive specialties, you’ll find the more familiar dried sausage, exquisite smoked hams and roast pork to add to the picnic basket. As for cheeses, given the enormous variety, you may have trouble choosing between hard and soft – aged gravieras, smoked or studded with peppercorns, medium-soft kasseri, goat cheeses flavored with different herbs and spices…