Curated playlist
Greek cuisine
- SaffronSaffron is the spice made from the crimson threads of a purple autumn crocus, and about 150 flowers are needed to produce a single gram of the dried product. That arithmetic explains why people call it red gold. It also helps explain why…
- SemolinaSemolina is a coarse flour, traditionally milled from durum wheat, and one international food standard defines it with a sieve. The Codex Alimentarius says a durum wheat semolina must have grains large enough that no more than 79 percent…
- TahiniTahini is a paste of ground sesame seeds, and sesame shows up in one of the oldest records of food culture. A cuneiform document written 4,000 years ago describes a custom of serving the gods sesame wine. The paste itself is a later story,…
- PancakeA pancake, also called a hotcake, griddlecake or flapjack, once sent a woman running to church with her frying pan still in hand. Tradition places the scene in Olney, England, in 1445. A housewife was frying pancakes to eat before the…
- PitaPita is a round, yeast-raised wheat flatbread, and its most familiar form keeps a hollow space hidden inside. The bread belongs to a wide family that is common around the Mediterranean, across the Middle East and in the lands next to them.…
- GyrosGyros is a Greek dish of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, shaved into thin slices and wrapped in pita bread. It is a staple street meal in Greece and Cyprus, and it is sold far beyond them. Yet the name on the menu has a curious past.…
- PirozhkiJapan's curry bread is said to have been inspired by pirozhki. Russian refugees brought the pastry there in 1917.
- DolmaDolma first shows up in writing in a 16th-century Persian book called Mâddet ol-Hayât, and the author treats it as a curiosity from abroad. Cabbage dolmeh, the book says, is commonly prepared in the land of the Rûm, meaning Turkey, but is…
- CouscousCouscous is a North African dish of tiny steamed granules of rolled semolina, usually topped with a spoonful of stew. Each granule is only about 2 mm across. Yet this humble grain-like food raises surprisingly large questions. Where does…
- HalvaHalva is spelled at least four ways in English: halva, halvah, halwa and halua. The spelling is the easy part. Behind it sits a confection spread across North Africa, East Africa, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, West Asia, Central Asia and…
- Mastic (plant resin)Mastic is a resin that, during Ottoman rule of the island of Chios, was worth its weight in gold. It comes from Pistacia lentiscus, an evergreen shrub whose resin glands release droplets that dry into brittle, translucent pieces. People…
- MoussakaMoussaka is a dish built on aubergine or potato, often with ground meat, and it turns up across the Balkans and the Middle East. Ask for it in two neighbouring countries and you may get two plates that have almost nothing in common. Some…