Circling back around to Limassol for a minute: I really want to do more than just write about other cities and cultures – wherever possible, I want to get some cultural flavor. In the case of Cyprus, one of its tastiest exports is a cheese called halloumi. I was able to pick some up at Thanos Imports, one of Syracuse, New York’s culinary gems.

Halloumi is a lot like mozzarella – white and very slightly sweet. But it’s much sturdier than mozzarella and it’s pleasantly salty. I used my indoor grill to grill some up and was amazed that it took as long as it did to soften.
I also tried some raw and didn’t enjoy it as much. Freshly grilled, it was very nice and surprisingly squeaky when chewed. It was a bit like eating sweet, salty rubber – but that suggests an unpleasant flavor, which is wrong. It’s quite delicious.

Apparently, halloumi is one of the few things that Greeks & Turks on Cyprus actually agree on, although Turks refer to it as “hellim.” They’ve been united in their efforts to get the European Union to grant them “Protected Designation of Origin” status, so that halloumi made elsewhere (say, Great Britain) would have to be given a different name.