I like Greek people just fine. I mean, it’s not that I’ve known that many Greek people, but the ones I’ve known I liked just fine. Oh, and I love that movie, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” Who doesn’t love that movie? I will go to my grave loving any movie that features an insecure middle-aged woman who goes through a life transformation and then meets the man of her dreams. That right there is called a winning story formula, people.
I totally respect the Greek language too, even though I don’t know it. At all. I’m a public school kid and public school kids don’t take Greek. I think it’s because kids who learn Greek would probably be all haughty going around saying they know the roots of words. Then one day the kid’s grandma would accidentally say, “It’s Greek to me.” And the haughty 8th grader would say, “Then let me see it, Grandma. I know Greek, remember?” So, even though the New Testament was written in Greek, I never learned Greek because I never wanted to make my grandma feel inadequate.
My husband actually made an academic trip to Greece a few years ago. He brought back all these incredible pictures of the Parthenon and the Greek Isles. He was really smart when he left for the trip but he was even smarter when he got home. Yes. I realize it’s because the Greeks play a huge role in human history and the arts and all the stuff that’s supposed to make us really smart.
With the Greeks being really smart and everything, I’m a little surprised their yogurt tastes so bad. Yogurt is a 4.1 billion dollar a year industry in the United States. Yes, billion with a “b.” And according to Wikipedia (which sometimes gets stuff wrong but most of the time gets stuff right), Greek yogurt has been responsible for most of the yogurt industry’s recent sales growth.
It’s not surprising to me that Americans act like Greek yogurt tastes so good. It’s higher in protein with a lot less sugar, and that makes us feel all grown up when we eat it. It’s also why it tastes like sour cream mixed with chicken livers. Okay. It doesn’t really taste like sour cream mixed with chicken livers. But it doesn’t taste sweet and yummy either. It’s pasty and protein-ish tasting. (Yes, I know “protein-ish” is not a real word).
Remember the rice cake phenomenon of the 80’s and 90’s? Remember how your cousin, Gloria, was determined to put every food known to man on top of a rice cake? Low-fat peanut butter. Sugar-free jam. Low-fat cheese. Eventually we learned the only thing that tasted good on a rice cake was a huge blob of ice cream. When rice cake eaters started gaining weight, the trend all but disappeared.
I’m convinced that’s what will happen with Greek yogurt. People will start adding caramel sauce, Ghirardelli milk chocolate chunks, and leftover birthday cake to Greek yogurt. And when they do? Well, that’ll teach the Greeks to stick to architecture and romantic movies.
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