Today Barnaby met Andonis Nikolopoulos, a feta cheese maker in Floka, a village near ancient Olympia in Greece. 

Having already learnt about Munster in France, sheep's and goat's cheeses in Poland, and bladdered cheeses in Romania, Barnaby thought he probably knew pretty much all there is to know about cheese.  This is not the first time that Barnaby has been completely wrong.

He was quite surprised when Andonis explained to him how real feta is made by adding live yoghurt (not just rennet) to the sheep's milk.  He was even more surprised when he heard that the cheese ferments in tightly sealed wooden barrels - apparently it gives off so much gas that the barrels nearly explode when you open them!

He also realised that he didn't really know what good traditional feta tastes like - rich, creamy, tangy and salty all at the same time.  He wondered about trying to make his own feta, in fact - but now that feta has protected appellation status, apparently it's not supposed to be made by bears.  He was quite disappointed, but we suspect he'll have forgotten about it in the morning.

So this bear walks into a bar, right, and asks for a submarine.  And the barman says:

"Certainly, Barnaby.  Vanilla or mastic?"

Barnaby had heard of the mysterious "submarine", or υποβρύχιο ("eepovrihio"), way back in Romania.  It's a centuries-old recipe, steeped in history and social ritual (apparently) - but basically a chilled version of candy floss.  Take a spoonful of fondant, dip it in a glass of iced water, and then put it in your mouth.  And repeat.

But he hadn't actually seen one, or got a chance to try it, until he got to Greece.  Once he'd arrived in Thessaloniki, he was excited to find that the ouzerís (just like a Hungarian wine bar is a borozó, a Greek ouzo bar is an ouzerí) still serve them!  So he could sit at a table on the pavement with the old men, watching the world pass by while sucking sweet sticky stuff off a spoon.  Bear heaven.

Today Barnaby got rather over-excited when he came across a carob tree growing among the castle ruins in the little village of Kaleköy on Turkey's Mediterranean coast.

Ever since Barnaby first tasted the deeply fruity and complex treacle-y molasses called pekmez (at Zeliş Farmhouse), he has been a bit obsessed by it.  (He gets like that sometimes).  He has sampled it in grape, mulberry, apple, sugar beet and fig varieties (all delicious), but his clear favourite is the carob kind.  So when he found carob growing wild all over the place in Kaleköy, he couldn't help but investigate...