# There is no such thing as bad food in Athens > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "There is no such thing as bad food in Athens," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/no-bad-food-in-athens/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The lesson John Kiriakou says he learned at a lorry drivers' stop outside Corinth, where the food was as good as his grandmother's, reached on the three-and-a-half-hour drives he made to meet a source too sensitive to be met in Athens, with a vineyard tour as his cover story.* - **The claim:** There is no such thing as bad food in Greece - **Where he tested it:** A lorry stop outside Corinth - **Why he was there:** Meeting a source too sensitive to meet in Athens - **Cover story:** Vineyard tours and wine tastings on the west coast **There is no such thing as bad food in Athens** is an old saying [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) reports testing, in the course of an operational routine. He had recruited a source inside a terrorist group who was so sensitive that meeting him in Athens was unsafe. So the meetings happened on the west coast, where nobody knew the man, a three-and-a-half-hour drive each way, and that, Kiriakou notes, *"with John driving 105 miles an hour."*[1] He made a weekend of it, and the weekend was the cover. There are many vineyards out there: he would tour one, do a tasting, eat at a good restaurant, drink more wine and buy a case to take home.[2] ## The lorry stop Outside Corinth, near the ancient city and the canal he says has always fascinated him, is a truck stop that looks like any other anywhere in the world: lorries queued for fuel, and a greasy spoon.[2] Kiriakou notes the Greek custom that made the visit possible: in every restaurant you are invited into the kitchen to lift the lids off the pots and see what is being cooked, stirring with a big spoon and choosing. It is considered offensive not to allow it, and the same is done in Cyprus. *"I really loved it."*[3] He expected low-quality mass-produced Greek food. What he got, he says, was as delicious as any Greek food his mother or grandmother ever made, and that is when he concluded the saying was true: *"there really is no such thing as bad food here."*[4] The claim is not that Greek food cannot be bettered. Speaking from [Cyprus](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-cypriot-ancestry) in 2026 he ranked the island's cheeses above the Greek ones as more sophisticated and more subtle, on the ground that Greek cheeses, feta, kasseri, kefalotyri, kefalograviera, are mostly *"variations on each other"*, where [each Cypriot cheese](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-on-greek-and-cypriot-food) stands on its own.[5][6] ## See also - [Cover stop](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cover-stop) - [Kiriakou's Athens house](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-athens-house) - [The Greek Orthodox Church](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/greek-orthodox-church) - [Kiriakou's first recruitment](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/first-recruitment-in-athens) ## Sources 1. S1E9 The Hothead (2026-01-05), at 06:51. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6951d0bf30165a956d618669/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-05-dead-drop-s1e9-the-hothead/ 2. S1E9 The Hothead (2026-01-05), at 07:23. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6951d0bf30165a956d618669/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-05-dead-drop-s1e9-the-hothead/ 3. S1E9 The Hothead (2026-01-05), at 07:57. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6951d0bf30165a956d618669/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-05-dead-drop-s1e9-the-hothead/ 4. S1E9 The Hothead (2026-01-05), at 08:29. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6951d0bf30165a956d618669/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-05-dead-drop-s1e9-the-hothead/ 5. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou — 'They Physically Removed My Stomach' (2026-06-01), at 24:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmAja1Rly0&t=1449s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-giorgos-omirou-clickbait-title-personal-channel-probe/ 6. CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou — 'They Physically Removed My Stomach' (2026-06-01), at 24:40. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmAja1Rly0&t=1480s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-06-01-giorgos-omirou-clickbait-title-personal-channel-probe/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/no-bad-food-in-athens/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt