The aromata of Greek Easter & a Recipe

It's no hyperbole to say there is no celebration more joyful, more optimistic, more heart-wrenching, in its way, in all of the Greek calendar (and it is already full of those) than Orthodox Easter. The awakening of spring, which sheds its pagan archetypes shining upon everything, is walking hand in hand with the tradition of a pious Christianity that is nevertheless smiling, instead of morose, and lenient, instead of boasting a stern Biblical face.


In the processions of the Holy Week, especially in the sunny, picturesque countryside and on the numerous islands, I can still witness the joie de vivre that can exist only in cultures that have been deprived for long; it is only then that people can appreciate the smalleest pleasures, the generosity of nature itself, the simple human contact that needs no social agenda whatsoever. Man is enjoying life, much like he did in the classical era, because he's not entirely convinced there will be a better one, even though the prospect of one delights his soul through the promise of spring's and Christ's resurgence. In Greece where the National Revolution also symbolically sprang along with the first throes of spring, resurgence takes on a loaded nuance: the soul fills with renewed courage for every hardship ahead.

The spring air is aromatized with fragrant effluvia from trees and plants, an intoxicating bouquet that is hard to forget: bigaradiers with orange blossoms in full bloom, bushes of lilacs (called Πασχαλιά/Pashalia in Greek because they bloom exactly during the month of April, when Pasha is celebrated), violets in deep shades but also stocks (Mathiola longipetala) with their spicy, skatole-rich, intense aroma. Dill, thyme, spearmint and humble chamomille are beginning to make the countryside smell like a giant pasture or one enormous kitchen herbs cabinet.
And of course food, glorious food: from red Easter eggs, which make households smell of vinegar and onion peel (traditionally used to "anchor" the dye on the hand-painted egg) as they're prepared on the eve of Good Friday, to the succulent, sweet, cardamom-laced Eastern bread which whets the appetite for the feast of Sunday.

Greek Easter is a Dionysian celebration...

The following recipe, characteristic of spring herbs and traditions in Greece, is of Tzeeyerosarmades/Τζιγεροσαρμάδες: Tzeeyeri means internal organs and is a Turkish word, metaphorically used as an affectionate term for children, as those come indeed from a mother's insides. Sarmas (pl. sarmades) is anything closed up in a small handful "pocket" container, a cook term that is quite usual in other recipes of the Mediterranean region as well.
The dish is cholesterol ahoy, full as it is with lamb organs and animal fat, but its aromatic bouquet of the herbs of Greek spring, dill, spearmint and fresh green onions, is mouthwatering. I suggest you accompany it with a good dry red. As it is a mainstay in our family's Eastern table, our usual coupling is with a tannin-rich full-bodied Xinomauro variety from where the recipe originates from: the northern extremeties of Greek soil, the plains of southern, Greek Macedonia.



Tzigerosarmades (Tzee-ye-ro-saMA-des) from Greek Macedonia

You will need for 6-8 persons:

the internal organs of 2 lambs (offal, but essentially liver, spleen, heart, lungs, kidneys and throughly cleansed~with a knitting needle~ intenstines; you might skip the intestines if it makes you uncomfrotable)
the peritonium of 2 lambs, removed by a skilled butcher with much care (you want it to be as uniformand unbroken as possible)
3 whole eggs, preferably free-range
1 egg yolk for smearing at the finish
1 dry onion, chopped in small pieces
3-4 bunches of "fresh green onions"/shallots with their stems
3/4 cup of Karolina rice (a variety used in "gemista" or substitute with parlboiled rice)
1 small bunch of fresh dill
1 small bunch of fresh spearmint
salt and pepper to taste
a couple of spoonfuls of extra virgin olive oil

Optional, to accompany the dish: a few potatoes for roasting and dry oregano, chopped garlic and lemon juice for the potatoes

1. Put the carefully cleansed intenstines, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys of the lamb into boiling water and let them boil for a few minutes, until relatively firm.
2. Drain and chop finely (not bigger than a small hazelnut) all of it. Put aside.
3. Take a large, deep pan and put a couple of spoonfuls of extra virgin oil in it, over low fire. Put the two kinds of onions/shallots finely chopped in it. Put the finely chopped dill and spearmint as well. Stir for a little while until they become transparent.
4. Put the chopped livers etc., the rice, salt and pepper and let the mix cook on low stove until the rice is cooked thoroughly.
5. In the meantime, put the peritonium membrane in warm weather so it expands and softens and becomes pliable like an elastic membrane (which it is essentially). When ready, drain and open up on a clean surface. You want to cut pieces of it, as large as your palm or a small hankerchief.
6. Return to the pan and break the 3 eggs and stir gently. Leave it on the stove for a minute more, then withdraw.
7. You are now ready to fill the little "pieces" of the membrane. Put about a spoonful of the mix in each and gently close them with ends tucked on the underside. They should resemble round patties of about 8-10 cm circumference. Put one by one in a big ovenproof pan and very gently brush them with egg yolk diluted in a few drops of water (this will give a fine glaze!).
Optional step: If you want you might put some chopped potatoes around or in the middle, salted & peppered and sprinkled with chopped garlic, dried oregano and lemon juice; they accompany the dish just fine. They don't need any cooking oil, because the fat from the meat will nicely get into their flesh and make them "honied".
8. Roast the dish slowly in the oven at no more than 150C mark until the membrane has become golden and lightly crisp. If you have put potatoes in, the potatoes might need a bit more time to get done, so put a piece of aluminum foil over the tzeeyerosarmades in case they dry up too much in the process.

Serve hot with sprinkled lemon juice or accompany with strained Greek yoghurt, which provides the essential backdrop of something cool and tangy. Accompany with a good, dry red wine rich in tannins to cut the "fat" and possibly a fresh strawberry dessert that will cleanse the palate, toasting to the gods of Greek hospitality. And resist the urge to lick your fingers!

Photo of Spring in ancient Olympia in the Peloponnese, Greece by azbeen, via wooz.gr. Photo of sarmades via argiro.gr

Mythology Series: Pomegranate

Whenever I break open a big, heavy pomegranate (Punica granatum), admiring the scattering of its brilliant, wine-coloured tangy-tasting seeds, I can't help but cast my mind to the myth of Persephone and Hades, the chthonian deities forever linked with this autumnal aromatic feast. Its name deriving from the Latin (pomum for apple ~meelo in Greek~ and granatus for seeded, resulting in the Italian melograno) reminds us that, like apples, this is another fruit that is forever associated with tales of darkness, corruption, death and rebirth.

In Greek, pomegranate is called ρόδι (RHO-thee) which is extremely close in both sound and sight to ρόδο (RHO-tho, i.e. rose) ~indeed its proud russet colour reminds me of scarlet roses that hide thorns and shadows beneath their flamboyant beauty.

The pathways which introduced pomegranate to the Aegean were the same as the ones that brought the goddess whom the Anatolians worshipped as Cybele and the Mesopotamians as Ishtar (namely what became Aphrodite...). The cult of Persephone however (or Kore or Cora ~young maiden~, as she was celebrated in the Eleusianian Mysteries of ancient Greece along with her mother Demeter, the secret initiatory mystery rites of regeneration at Eleusis) traces a darker path of death and rebirth, the same path that nature seems to go through with the turning of the seasons. While Hesiodus in his Theogony considers her a daughter of Demeter (goddess of the harvest) and Zeus, other scholars ~among them Gunther Zuntz (1973)~ attribute the cult of Persephone to a continuation of Neolithic or Minoan Earth Mother goddess-worship. Walter Burkert includes that "reading" of this archetype in his definitive Greek Religion (1985). Mythology expert Karl Kerenyi went as far as to identify Persephone with the "mistress of the labyrinth" at the Minoan palace of Knossos in Bronze Age Crete (circa 1700BC)!

In ancient writers she is the parthenogenic daughter of Demeter, recalling shades of other deities who sprang through an immaculate conception, such as Athena and Jesus. The philosopher Plato on the other hand calls her Pherepapha (Φερέπαφα, from the Greek words φέρω ~to bring~ and επαφή ~touch) in his Cratylus, "because she is wise and touches that which is in motion". The Romans took the name from the Greco-cities of the Italian peninsula southernmost extremity as Proserpine (Προσερπινη, Proserpinē) and borrowed her cult as Proserpina. It is under that guise that Persephone inspired the artists of the European Renaissance, when classical antiquity was revisited with a vengeance. It is enough to cast our eyes to the paintings of the Great Masters such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli to admire the pomegranate into scenes of sunset-drenched beauty.

But perhaps the most popular myth concerning Persephone, the one that ties her with the autumnal crepuscule into winter and the flamboyant pomegranate, is the one about Persephone's abduction by the dark prince of the underworld, Hades or Pluto, brother of both Zeus and Poseidon:
"As she was gathering flowers with her playmates in a meadow, the earth opened and Hades, god of the dead, appeared and carried her off to be his queen in the world below. ... Torch in hand, her sorrowing mother sought her through the wide world, and finding her not, she forbade the earth to put forth its increase. So all that year not a blade of corn grew on the earth, and men would have died of hunger if Zeus had not persuaded Hades to let Persephone go. However, before he let her go Hades persuaded her eat three seeds of a pomegranate, and thus she could not stay away from him forever. So it was arranged that she should spend two-thirds (according to later authors, one-half) of every year with her mother and the heavenly gods, and should pass the rest of the year with Hades beneath the earth.... As wife of Hades, she sent spectres, ruled the ghosts, and carried into effect the curses of men." (source: Encyclopedia Britannica)
The pomegranate became her inextricable tie with the world of the dead, the somber world of shadows. In a patriarchal reading of the myth, the abduction becomes the motif of marriage, the submission of the primordial female to the male, reminding us of the comparable survival of that theme in the Abduction of the Sabines tale by the Romans.
The demise of the earth-worshipping of the mother goddess in the now industrialised city of Eleusis, near Athens, is what inspired the Greek composer Manos Hatjidakis and Greek poet Nikos Gatsos to come up with this ritualistic lament named "Persephone's Nightmare" (sung by Maria Farantouri); its somber introductory bars of music a homage to the fragmented ancient classical Greek music:

"There, where mystics joined hands reverently
on entering the sacrificial site,
now tourists throw tab ends
and gaze at the new oil refinery.
Sleep Persephone in earth's embrace,
to this world's balcony come out no more"



It is no coincidence that in today's Greek culture the offerings to which all participants partake in the Christian Orthodox memorials of the dead still consist of agricultural products, in the form of a sweet named κόλυβα (KO-lee-vah); made of boiled shredded wheat, cast sugar, various nuts and raisins and indeed ...pomegranate seeds! A small pagan homage to Persephone who sealed her fate by tasting the fruit of the underworld. It is assumed that like her, the connection of the dead with the living will be possible.
But it's also a reminder of the sweetness of the heavenly kingdom, the pomegranate being a symbol of the fullness of Jesus' suffering and his resurrection, finding its way into religious decoration liturgical vestments and hangings as well as art, such as this Madonna of the Pomegranate by Sandro Botticelli.
In a reverse case of exorcising the spirits of the other side, another Greek custom enacted on New Year's Day, demands that the first person to step into a home bringing the tenants luck (what's called ποδαρικό from the Greek word for foot, πόδι) crashes a ripe pomegranate with their right foot: the scattered seeds are respresenting the flooding of good things to come. Like the Qur'an says, pomegranates are among the good things the merciful God creates!

Fragrances with pomegranate notes are delightful for this time of the year when the fruit is in season: From the darkish, mysterious Pomegranate Noir by Jo Malone and the arrestingly unusual Grenates by Keiko Mecheri with its angelica running thread, to the more standard-fruity-juicy Euphoria by Calvin Klein and Tropical Punch by Escada, pomegranate scents run the gamut all the way to the incensy Melograno by Santa Maria Novella. The lists includes Moschino's Couture, the elegant Ferré Rosé, Tocca's subtle Touch and the spicy-cuminy oriental Aziyadé by Parfum d'Empire . Others yet reference the scarlet beads as grenadine: In Baby Doll by Yves Saint Laurent it is married it to complimentary bittersweet grapefuit, in Ma Dame by Gaultier it's used as a neon accent in a flashy composition and in Heiress by Paris Hilton, well...it alludes to her cocktails sipping activities, I guess.

Today pomegranates are cherished for their complex textural and aromatic nuances ranging from the peppery to the lightly tangy all the way to the nectarous sweet and for the bright juice they bring into several recipes: One of these embodiments takes the role of grenadine, the name of a fruit syrup popular in Gallic cultures, originally made from pomegranates (the French word for pomegranate being grenade), used as a cordial and in numerous cocktails as well as in a number of Iranian recipes. Hence also comes the name of one of the most majestic cities of Spain, the regal Granada! One of the most delicious uses of pomegranate syrup in cooking is in muhammara, a roasted red pepper, walnut and garlic spread consumed in Turkey and Syria, while the Azeri people of Goychay, Azerbaijan devote a whole festival to the fruit's charms drenching them in wine and dance.

If you want to try pomegranates in an easy and aromatically titilating dish, I recommend you my personal recipe for Pomegranate Seed Salad:

You will need some young lettuce leaves (preferably bought when it's very cold so they "hold" and are crunchy), a peeled apple (I prefer Starkins), a heavy pomegranate, extra virgin olive oil and aceto balsamico di Modena.
Chop the apple in small pieces, wash and cut the lettuce leaves in thin slices in a plate and sprinkle over the two the pomegranate seeds, the ensuing juice that drips from the fruit. Finally drizzle the whole with olive oil and balsamico to your taste. Serves 2.
Extremely yummilicious, visually welcoming and quite filling!
Bon appetit!

Pomegranate photo via and painting of The return of Persephone by Fred Leighton and Madonna with the Pomegranate by Sandro Botticelli, all via Wikimedia Commons. Photo of Pomegranate Seed Salad by Elena Vosnaki (click to enlarge)

Eggplant: Colour and Aroma of the Season

Eggplants (or aubergines as they're also known in the UK, the word derived from from the Arabic al-baðinjān) are a summer delight at the farmer's market and in my kitchen: Their varied colours and shapes (long and more rounded, in an endless spectrum) are sorely tempting, almost pleading with me to buy a few of each as I pass through the open-air market stalls with my basket in hand. One variety's really dark purplish colour almost resembles the shade of my hair in the sun and had thus always attracted me.
The exotic genus of Solanum melongena, part of the Nightshade family with its dangerous reputation, bears something of the dark attraction of India and Pakistan where the plant originates from; and also some distant relation to other solaceae plants such as the tomato and the potato. The little seeds inside the eggplant fruit, containing nicotinoid alcaloids (related to tobacco) burst forth with a bracing bitterness which is testament to the power of the human mind to find beauty in difficulty and hinder. Now that eggplants are still sticking around a little while longer, before the first frost makes them only available through the hothouse (not my choice if I can possibly avoid it!) this post is trying to capture the last rays of sun on their glistening, slick backs and bid them farewell till next spring.

The earthy, tangy and bittersweet aroma of eggplant had been my initiation rite from childhood onwards to the mystique of "grown up food" and its acquired taste delights. Luckily for myself my father loved his "meat and potatoes" meals which ~quite contrarily, as any church boy can tell you their family is probably atheist~ had the amiable effect of making me love just about anything apart from meat and potatoes from a very early age. Mother was bragging at elementary school meetings how I consumed my vegetables and legumes not only with tolerance, but actual glee! Aubergines especially were among my very favourite, an unusual trait for a child, as the vegetable is bitter by its nature. But my mother was savvy to exquisite kitchen arcana that involved little tips to be divulged at a later date: One of them is she used to salt them meticulously before broiling on the stove making the roasting aroma of eggplant one of the most beloved and nostalgic pangs I can feel in my heart of hearts even now. The whole house was aromatized by it and coming back from school I knew there was melitzanosalata on the table (aubergine paste, basically, although "salata" means salad in Greek); it's still one of my favourite goes-with-everything accompaniments on the table (Just try to resist spreading on roasted fresh bread and then we can talk). She used the pulp of the roasted eggplant scooped out with a spoon to prepare it, some crumbled feta cheese (the salty flavour again rounding off the bitterness admirably), a couple of teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil and a little finely chopped fresh garlic and blended them in a hand mixer. It was utterly delicious!

We also used to mix the roasted pulp with fresh Greek yoghurt, the paste/dip becoming a bit blander, for when there was another spirited, fiesty dish on the table and we didn't want them to antagonise; or prepared melanzana alla parmigiana and the French classic ratatouille niçoise for when we were hungrier. My grandmothers customarily prepared a main course with aubergines originating in the Near East: Either Imam bayildi (a Turkish dish literally meaning "the imam fainted", infered by pleasure of course, in which eggplants are roasted in the over, cut in half in olive oil, covered with lots of chopped onion, chopped garlic and tomato slices on top until they sweeten) or the classic moussaka with its sautéed eggplant and tomato-sauce-minced-meat layers under the thick, golden crisp béchamel sauce . I make Sicilian involtini myself nowadays. But la crème de la crème of aubergine dishes in my opinion is the Levantine baba ghanoush (بابا غنوج bābā ġanūj), a similar to melitzanosalata paste of light brown shade with so dense a smoky aroma that it is as much hypnotizing to the senses as the sound of a flute is to a cobra. I certainly can't put the spoon down!

According to the Arabs, who first brought eggplant to the West during the early Middle Ages and indirectly gave it its botanical name, "If your future wife can't prepare aubergine 50 different ways, reconsider marrying". (The info comes from Janna Gur's Book of New Israeli Food which is excellent) In Morocco and Lebanon, people eat them fried up along with hummus made from chickpeas and tahini, spreading on small pieces of pita bread. I very much liked this version and am recommending it to you as well.

Recipe for Fried Eggplants with Hummus

You will need four-five purple eggplants, preferably the long, slender variety with white and purple stripes. Also olive oil for frying and all-purpose-flour, a little salt and pepper and 1 cup of soda water for battering. It takes about 20 minutes to prepare and makes enough quantity for 3-4 people as a side-dish.

1.Put the olive oil in a pan, it should be about two fingers deep and bring it to a frying temperature. (Test it for readiness by sticking a piece of the vegetable in it, if it sizzles, it's ready. You want it to be really, really hot so the eggplants don't absorb too much oil but form a crust immediately)
2.In the meantime peel the eggplants taking care to leave a thin stripe of the peel every inch or so and cut them to pieces: I prefer to slice them or cut them in small cubes about an inch thick.
3.Mix a cup of all-purpose flour, a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper and a cup of soda water in a deep plate and lightly cover the pieces/slices of the eggplant.
4.Fry them until they turn dark golden, they should be a little crispy but not darken too much. They tend to absord a lot of oil, so drain them on a plate lined with kitchen paper for a while.
5.Salt them some more and serve hot with hummus sprinkled with roasted pine-nuts and some pita bread to bring out all the humble, earthy elements nicely.
If you don't have a reputable Middle-Eastern deli in your area or have the inclination to make hummus from scratch, here is an easy and quite decent recipe.

As an epilogue, no matter how utterly lovely and intriguing I find the smoky aroma of roasted eggplant, I have been searching for it to no avail in some form of a scented product (Have you been successful? I need the feedback, if you have). Perfumers might not have succumbed to its charms yet, nor have home fragrance producing companies, probably because they think that its peculiar scent is not attuned to the sensibilities of western societies who associate smoky with campfires or electrical wire troubles and not indoor fun activities. Still, I am throwing the idea on the table and hoping that the tanginess and earthiness of this dark, slick beauty will find imitators soon.

Pic of eggplants via elements4health.com, pic of frying eggplant by Elena Vosnaki

A Taste of Bergamot

While travelling on scented adventures across the globe I distinctly recall the uplifting properties that a rind of bergamot tucked in my pocket for difficult moments imparted on my nausated self. A brief whiff of its aromatherapeutic properties was my lucky charm to aliviate the stress of traveling and make me focus. It was only much later I learned that it was the traveller of travellers, Christopher Columbus, who first brought the tree to the Caribbean, where it was popularly used in voodoo rituals to protect against misfortune and that it's still used in in hoodoo rootwork, to control or command individuals!

Antonio Familiari, an 80-year-old former school teacher who tends bergamot groves off Calabria's coast in Italy is definite on the subject:"The bergamot is an intelligent creature. Its arrival in Calabria is shrouded in mystery, and even though it grows elsewhere, only in this area does it give us the essential oil", while his nails claw on a bergamot releasing the little stream of droplets that posses a soft orange undertone under the lemon sharpness. Ezio Pizzi, a 62-year-old former lawyer who returned to his family's bergamot plot after his father died a decade ago is equally enthralled by the fruit: "When I think about the possibilities for bergamot fruit, I get goosebumps." On the outskirts of Reggio di Calabria, Francesco Crispo, director of the state-founded Consortium of Bergamot Growers, has a plan for a 1,500-square metre, seven million-euro institute of perfumery.
But apart from the established role of bergamot in perfumery, is there some way of utilizing this heavenly scent into something that combines the aromatherapeutic with the gluttony? As in food and drink?

The stimulating and pleasantly refined aroma of bergamot has always been a companion in my black tea, in the form of beloved Earl Grey, possibly the best-known incarnation for most people. Its distinctive flavour and aroma derives from the addition of oil extracted from the rind of the bergamot orange; the name on the other hand derives from the 2nd Earl of Grey, British Prime Minister (1830-1834) and author of the Reform Bill of 1832, who reputedly received the aromatized tea and the recipe as a diplomatic gift by a Chinese nobleman who thus thanked him for saving his life. History proves otherwise, but that shouldn't deter you from enjoying a full cup nevertheless! Twinings, one of the loose leaves black tea brands I buy out of tradition, still has the emblem of the Earl on their nostalgic, metallic canisters. Their newest addition Lady Grey is a little pale for my tastes, but you might like it. Fortnum & Mason has a superior Earl Grey blend in their loose leaves tins and is a purchase that won't break the bank. Clearly the many drinkers of Earl Grey have been enjoying this rich, elegant richness above all else and one of the loveliest blends you can try is Adagio Earl Grey Bravo (or Aristocrate), while I also like the balanced approach of Upton Teas Earl Grey Ceylon Select. Perhaps the best novel idea I can give you is to actually ice the tea and drink it for refreshment in the summer: much more invigorating and satisfying than plain black tea with lemon!

Yet bergamot has other uses in flavourful incarnations, even though the fruit is inedible, prompting the owner of this small garden on Zante island to proclaim on this funny placard on his midget trees "they're bergamots, not lemons", to deter poachers from cutting off the fruit to use in their kitchen.

One of the loveliest and easiest ideas is to aromatize a white liquor with the washed, peeled rind. Just peel the fruit, remove the white underside, cut in small rolls and press them inside the neck of a bottle of alcholic drink. Leave them be for a couple of weeks and you will see. The idea is not drastically creative, as Triple Sec has been using citrus essences on a base of brandy distillation to act as a digestif for decades. But it's good to expand. The idea works well with Italian Grappa as well as Vino Greco and I have personally used it with good results in light white rum and local ρακί/raki. The resulting potion can be used in cocktails, imparting a delicately bitter fruity flavour.

The most traditional and devilishly tempting proposition of them all however is the Greek Bergamot spoonful treat: a single spoonful of candied fruit dessert that is served on very small crystal plates and chased down with an icy cold glass of water. The flavour is so concentrated and intense that you won't need another one. And although it's so full of sugar it has no fat whatsoever, rending it a very healthy dessert. You can buy them ready-made, but they're breezily easy to make, so here is a handed-down recipe.

Recipe for Bergamot Spoonful Sweet
You will need:

7 fresh bergamots
white sugar, as much in weight as the bergamots
water
juice of 1 lemon
1 and 1/2 cup of water for the final boil
juice of 1/2 lemon for the final boil
toothpicks
clean, boiled jar with tight-fitting lid

1. Wash the bergamots, wipe and using a kitchen scrub pad scrub until outer becomes bright yellow.
2. Cut a little off the top and the bottom and score with a sharp knife into three or four parts. With the tip of the knife, remove the skin and throw away the inner part. Remove as much white pith from the bergamot peels as possible, because it's very bitter.
3.Pick the rolls of rind and roll them securing them with the toothpicks. Place them in a large saucepan and cover them in water.
4. Bring to boiling point for 2 – 3 minutes. Remove the water and substitute with fresh. Repeath Step 4 for 3-4 times. This can be done on consecutive days or on the same day to remove some of the bitterness. The more diaphanous the water becomes, the less bitter it has got.
5.On the last boiling procedure empty hot water, add fresh cold water and the juice of 1 lemon. Put them again to boil for 10 minutes. Remove from stove and leave until the water cools. Drain them and put them on the pot again.
6.Now add the sugar and the water. Leave them for half an hour and then boil. Lower heat to medium for 15 minutes. Remove from heat and leave for a while.
Bring the bergamots again to a boil, simmer for about an hour, or until the liquid becomes clear and thick (You'll know it's ready when it forms "set" droplets that leave the spoon reluctantly when dropped). Finally add the other lemon juice, stir and leave to cool completely.
7. Place the fruit in clean jars with a lid, close tightly and place them upside down for a couple of minutes. You can keep them in a cupboard for a year.


Related reading on PerfumeShrine: the Bergamot Series, Aromatic Cuisine (scented escapades in the kitchen)

Photos copyright by PerfumeShrine and via Gayot.com

Melomakarona and Kourambiedes: the aromata of Greek Christmas holidays

The word άρωμα (aroma) means several things in Greek: It denotes personal fragrance as a medium of enhancing one's aura, it evokes the content of bottles encapsuling precious essences to be used for aromatizing of various aims, but also it means the lingering smell in the air that might be coming off a fragrant kitchen, busy in preparation for a traditional feast; a feast that is more of a gregarious social and sensuous event than merely a casual gathering. Food and the hearth have always been at the core of Greek culture (the hearth, Εστία, had been an ancient Greek goddess, no less) and savouring the aromata (plural for aroma) in every step of the process is half the fun!
The celebration of the end of the year, including Christmas and the New Year's Eve, is forever in my mind steeped in the sweet smells emanating through the door of an oven while baking the traditional and idiosyncratic cookies of the season: μελομακάρονα/melomakarona and κουραμπιέδες/kourambiedes. Although there are other delicacies around and everyone has to have something sweet on hand for the kid-carolers who come to the house on the morning of each celebration's Eve (caramelised nuts and raisins, marrons glacés and marrons déguisés in chocolate, candied orange rind, and δίπλες/"deeples" or "diples", that is Greek Honey Curls: pieces of fried and suryped dough sprinkled with chopped nuts, supposedly looking like Christ's swaddling clothes) it's those two mentioned above that are most popular and characteristic, found in every home from the most humble to the most extravagant.

So here are the recipes I use, handed down from my mother and grandmothers (excellent cooks all of them) for you to recreate the homely and sensuous atmosphere of this little corner of the world. They're easy to make and very flavourful!

Melomakarona (pronounced Meh-lo-ma-KA-row-na) Recipe
Ingredients for the dough
1 cup Extra Virgin olive oil
1/2 cup white sugar
2 juiced oranges
1/2 juiced lemon
1 egg yolk
3 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground clove
1 1/3 cups chopped walnuts

Ingredients for the syrup
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup boiling water
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
1/2 juiced lemon

1.Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and line 2 flat baking trays with baking paper.
2. Beat oil, sugar, 1/2 cup orange juice and 2 tablespoons lemon juice. You can do this by hand (I do) or use an electric mixer on high speed until thick and creamy.
3.Add egg yolk and beat again, but not too much this time (you want to trap in air so that it raises when baking).
4.Sift flour and add half the cinnamon and the clove to the oil mixture. Fold gently to combine (it should have a doughy texture).
5.Using your flour-dusted hands (so dough doesn't stick)hands, roll the mixture into oval shapes without pressing them too much. Dough should make about 32 pieces. Place on prepared trays without touching one another (as they will expand while baking).
6.Bake for 25 minutes or until firm to the touch and then allow to cool on trays.
7.To make the syrup combine all ingredients in a saucepan over medium to high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar at first and bring to the boil. Then reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 4 minutes or until syrup thickens slightly: you want it to form "drops" when you pour it from a spoon.
8.Using a slotted spoon, dip the cool cookies, 1 at a time, into the hot syrup for about 30 seconds (no more or they become very sweet and sticky!), turning over until well coated. Return to trays. The cool cookie, hot suryp is the secret that makes them absorb the suryp best and thus remain delectably moist and soft.
9.Combine chopped walnuts and remaining ground cinnamon. Sprinkle over cookies: the suryp should make them mostly "stick" on top. Allow to cool completely and they're ready to serve.

Melomakarona are also called Φοινίκια (phoenekia), especially when they're shaped like fingers, in some regions of Greece (mainly where Greek refugees from the -now Turkish- Smyna and Constantinople came to). They keep for a long time (up to a month, although you're sure to consume them long before that!) outside of the fridge thanks to the high sugar ratio; just keep them in an air-tight biscuit box so they don't become dry due to air exposure.
Their clove-y smell is captured in a wonderfully indulgent little solid scent by Pacifica: Madagascar Spice.

Kourambiedes (pronounced koo-rah-bee-YEH-thess) Recipe


Ingredients
4 cups of sheep's butter (cow's can be substituted, but the traditional method calls for sheep)
2 cups of confectioner's sugar
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
2 teaspoons of baking powder
3 tablespoons of brandy liquor or ouzo (or orange juice, if you don't want to use alcohol)
1 cup of coarsely chopped roasted almonds
12 cups (1 1/2 kg or 3 1/3 lbs) of all-purpose flour
2 cups of confectioner's sugar (for dusting)
rose water or orange blossom water (about half a cup)

1.Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 and line 2 flat baking trays with baking paper.
2.Cream the butter (at room temperature) and sugar in a mixing bowl by hand, until white.
3.Dissolve the baking powder in the brandy/ouzo/orange juice and fold into the mixture, along with the egg yolks, vanilla, and almonds, one by one.
3.Gradually add flour without beating too much.
4.Knead the dough gently by hand until malleable. You don't want to let air escape, as it will contribute to making the cookies fluffy and soft.
5.Rolling the dough on flour-dusted hands (so it doesn't stick) roll the mixture into dome-shaped circles (thick like a pinkie finger). The dough should make about 50pieces. Place them on baking sheet without touching one another (as they will expand while baking).
6.Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until cookies barely turn to golden brown. Get them out of the oven and allow to cool completely.
7.Sift confectioner's sugar onto a large tray or cookie sheet. As soon as the cookies are done, sprinkle them with the rose water or orange blossom water and dust them with the sugar. When all the cookies have been coated once, repeat (without sprinkling them in any liquid this time)cool.
8.Serve them in layers on a serving platter that has been dusted with sugar.

These buttery Greek Shortbread Cookies were also given in weddings and christenings once upon a time, because they look pure white, a symbol of new beginnings. They melt in the mouth and are very soft and fragile, so handle them gently!
Kourabiedes will keep for a couple of months thanks to the sugar if stored in an air-tight container. Make sure there's a dusting of powdered sugar on the bottom of the container, then layer cookies as above, each layer with a covering of sugar. Wait one day after baking to cover with an airtight lid, though.

If you're left with too much uncooked dough, you can wrap it well in plastic wrap, put in the freezer and it will keep for up to two months. When ready to use, remove and let the dough sit a while till malleable. Beat with the mixer briefly to aerate the dough ands you're ready to follow steps 5-8.

Happy Holidays!

Pic of Melomakarona by Steve Brown via taste.com.au, pic of Kourambiedes via dianasdesserts.com