Gastronomy and local products of Arcadia

Try the traditional dishes and the famous Arcadian PDO products: tsakoniki eggplant, white fir tree honey from Mt. Mainalo, and Mantineia wines. Apart from these, you will find even more, such as handmade pasta, honey, chestnuts, fruit, sweets.

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Every village in Arcadia has its own culinary tradition. Famous recipes all over Arcadia (and elsewhere in the Peloponnese) are rooster and rabbit with chylopites (noodles), lagoto (hare with garlic dip), goat with oil and oregano, lamb with celery or with aromatic myronia herbs, pan fried wild boar fillet, lamb with artichokes, goat or hogget stew, pies with trachanas, etc. You can try all this at the tavernas. 

In various locations in Arcadia, fine products are produced, available for purchase.

Tsakoniki eggplant (PDO) holds, of course, a special place, with its distinct sweet taste, and the oblong shape. It is cultivated in Tsakoniain the traditional way. At the great festival of Leonidion Melitzazzyou will taste various dishes with eggplants.  

The second famous PDO product of Arcadia is the wine o f Mantineia. Moschofilero has actually been identified with the region, even thought it is cultivated in many vineyards all around Greece. 

You can buy white fir tree honey of Mainalon from producers, a PDO product as well, which does not crystallize.  

Chestnuts are another famous product. Chestnuts festivals take place in Kastanitsa (since 1983), in Kosmas, (since 2022), in Ano Doliana (since 2004).

Delicious are the local meats and cheeses, such as gruyere of Tripoli.

The handmade pasta is also very famous, such as chylopites, toutoumia (small-sized square chylopites), trachanas, lasagne, etc., which you can buy in all villages of mountainous Arcadia, and elsewhere in the area. You can also buy spoon sweets -with quinces, cherries, chestnuts-, and sheet pan desserts (svingous with honey and cinnamon, milk pie, almond meringue cookies, kaltsounia, etc.  

The apples of Tripoli are a rare variety, cultivated at an altitude of 600 m. The garlic of Lithovouni and the potatoes of the Tegea flatland are also very tasty.  

Festivals: Cherry festival in Platanos in May, Shepherd festival in Perithori in August. On 15 August, the Tegean Association organises the great trade fair and Peloponnesian fair of Tegea in Palaia Episkopi of Tegea. It lasts 10 days. 

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