The sea. A woman full of mystery. It is she who surrounds this place, from everywhere and for so many centuries, and one could hardly ignore her. That is why the sea played a decisive role in shaping our daily lives and culture.

From ancient times, the Greeks had a deep and true relationship with the sea and its wealth. On its surface, countless boats traveled, and in its depths, the fish were the ones that fed generations of Greeks. Its vastness, its constant movement, its mystery and the variety of its wealth, fascinated and flooded the imagination of our ancestors with inspiration. They fueled our culture, our art, our trade, our everyday life. Our ancestors gave many names to fish that resembled the habits and colors of land animals.

The countless fish, the strange mollusks, the mysterious crustaceans, the large cetaceans, and the impressive wild fish, all enriched ancient texts, wall paintings, vessels, and many other forms of Greek art. Myths, stories, legends, traditions, songs, and all kinds of human expression were created over the centuries through the mystery that the appearance and way of life of the strange creatures that inhabited the surface and depths of the sea caused in people. The relationship of the Greeks with the sea and the creatures that live within it is an eternal and inexhaustible relationship, whose beginning is lost in the depths of the past: from the palace of King Poseidon in mythology and the sirens of the sea in the Odyssey in ancient times, to the myth of the mermaid and King Alexander in more recent times.

But at the same time, the sea is also a mother. A mother who fed countless generations of people in this place, even in times of great poverty and need. The methods and tools of fishing its wealth have remained almost unchanged from ancient times to the present day. The innovative methods and original fishing tools, as well as the names they gave to the fish or the way they cooked each fish, all constitute an entire culture and knowledge that originated over many centuries, through respect, observation, acumen, and genuine inspiration of simple people who lived in this place before us. The names of the fish give us the opportunity to take a journey into the way of life and society of those people. It is truly precious and unique how those who came before us managed, always with simplicity, to marry the creatures of the sea with their daily way of life.

The purpose of this edition is to contribute as much as possible to the promotion, highlighting, and preservation of the relationship between the fish of the Greek seas and the fishermen, the place, and the society in which they lived, through their names, their fishing methods, their processing, and their cooking. It is also to describe the richness and originality of the names of the fish, as well as the way in which these names were used in their daily lives to enjoy, sing, joke, and communicate with each other.

At the same time, however, it wants to show the relationship of people from different places in the wider Greek area, with specific fish, through their fishing, processing, and cooking methods. In this edition, each fish is treated as a separate entity, with its own characteristics and personality. The fishing method of each fish is presented simply, with emphasis on the cultural element rather than technical details.

We could not, of course, fail to mention the traditional cooking methods of each fish. These recipes accompanied and, to some extent, still accompany important moments of our lives, many of which had a festive, local, seasonal, and ceremonial character. It is a culture that we must preserve in order to pass it on to future generations. Already, our modern way of life has changed our dietary habits, resulting in us ignoring truly healthy and quality foods and the appropriate methods of preparation and cooking. Here, therefore, is knowledge that previous generations had conquered and adopted. A very valuable knowledge.

Most of the recipes written for each fish were offered by associations and ordinary people from all parts of Greece, and, where necessary, supplemented by recipes we learned and tried while traveling in Greece. In some rarer fish, the contribution of fishermen from various parts of Greece and people working in fish farms was needed. The recipes were also selected based on the best way to cook each fish. The edition is complemented by rich illustrations for each fish, which are quite detailed and emphasize the unique characteristics and personality of each fish.