Greek Salad

Called horiatiki (village salad) in Greek, the modern form was codified in the 1960s when Greek tourism boomed and tavernas needed a cheap, fast salad for foreign visitors. Government price controls in the 1960s capped what tavernas could charge for basic tomato-and-cucumber salads; because feta was not on the regulated list, owners added a slab of it as a loophole to sell the dish at a higher price — which is how the whole-slab feta became standard.

Horiatiki ('village') — tomato, cucumber, red onion, green pepper, Kalamata olives, a slab (not crumble) of feta on top, oregano, olive oil. No lettuce, ever. Tourist menus add lettuce; villages don't.

Wedges of ripe tomato, thick-sliced cucumber, rings of red onion, kalamata olives, and a single slab of feta on top — not crumbled. Olive oil and dried oregano poured over; vinegar is optional and contested. No lettuce. The cheese sits whole so you break it with your fork as you eat, dragging it through the tomato juice and oil pooled at the bottom.

Tomato quality decides the dish; out-of-season tomatoes make the salad taste of nothing because there is nowhere to hide. The whole-slab feta is structural, not stylistic — crumbled feta dissolves into the dressing and loses the salt-creamy contrast against acidic tomato. Use sheep-milk feta in brine, not the dry crumbly American version.