Finikia 

Foinikia:

 a story of more than a decade of research…

Where should I begin with this recipe…

"Traditional" foinikia, but what does "traditional" even mean?

And I'm putting it in quotation marks, my friends, because I believe that somewhere along the way we've lost touch with what it really means.

For me, traditional means something that gets lost in the depths of the centuries and carries the local or national culture of a place unchanged.

Suddenly, everything is called traditional.

Moussaka is considered a traditional Greek dish — but how traditional can something be when the potato came to Greece in the middle of the 19th century?

Even the eggplant arrived in the middle of the 12th century and béchamel only became popular in our country in the middle of the first half of the 20th century.

Even the famous bouréki of Chania (a traditional Cretan pie): potatoes only began to be used in Crete in the early 20th century, while zucchini likely arrived at the end of the 15th century.

Even the horiatiki salad ("Greek village salad"): the tomato also arrived in the early 18th century.

In America, Sarah Tyson Rorer (1849–1937), with one of the first cookbooks, in one of her cake recipes, writes just 2 teaspoons of chocolate (!).

Recipes have changed over the centuries depending on the availability of ingredients.

Within these changes, unfortunately, the original recipes were lost.

We must also not forget the broader picture of Greek society—and of other societies as well—during those years.

The abundance of materials and goods that we have today didn't exist back then.

Do not forget the wars and economic hardships of those years. The collapse of all previously established norms.

It is clear that recipes have changed, especially after the end of the Second World War.

Today's Greek recipes are influenced by chef Nikolaos Tselementes (1878–1958), who tried to modernize Greek cuisine.

He aimed to make it more "European". Whether he succeeded or not is not for me to judge, but for history.

Then came the period of the colonels' dictatorship, which sought to eliminate from Greek society any connection it had with the East.

During those years, all young women learned how to make béchamel properly.

It was the era of the first supermarkets in Greece in their current form.

The variety of ingredients was beginning to influence Greek cuisine.

In the 1970s and 1980s, fast food began to spread because of the lifestyle of that period, creating a larger gap between recipes.

In the 1990s, television brought a revolution to Greek society.

Private TV stations began broadcasting.

They slowly took their first steps, and the first daily morning shows started, and inside them a cooking section was added.

That is when the transition to today's Greek cuisine was completed, which came with the TV chefs Vefa Alexiadou (1933–2024) and Ilias Mamalakis in the 1990s and early 2000s, who tried to reintroduce traditional Greek cuisine to Greeks who had forgotten it.

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Let's get back to foinikia.

The ancient Greeks had something like honey pies.

They also had their bakeries, with various pastries, mostly stuffed with cheese, because they did not drink so much fresh milk as we have it today and they preferred to make cheeses that lasted longer.

A relatively similar recipe to one of the ones they used to make is the Sfakian pie.

They didn't have sugar.

Sugar only started to become popular in the mid-18th century.

Even in the Byzantine era, it was sold in pharmacies as a luxury item.

So what did they use to make sweets?

With what else? With what they had in abundance. Honey.

So, they didn't make syrup to dip foinikia or melomakarona, which unfortunately today are usually made from the same basic recipe, with only minor differences.

Some people add semolina just to call them foinikia.

Let's take it from the beginning.

Have you ever wondered why they are called foinikia?

My interest in this recipe began when a friend gave me a foinikia recipe, telling me that they come out hard and asking me to see what is wrong with the recipe.

To find a clue, I started looking for recipes, almost all similar to melomakarona, with small differences. Some had lemon juice or lye (which is wood ash boiled, and the liquid was kept for washing but also for their baking).

Since baking soda and baking powder were discovered much later (the 18th century for baking soda and baking powder starting in the mid-19th century). Although the ancient Egyptians had it, they used it for dyes, not for cooking.

That is when I began to wonder what ingredients from a modern recipe existed back then.

They are called foinikia because they have foinikia inside, meaning the dates we call today.

They put dates inside, but why? It was the only widely used sweetener since the time of the ancient Persians and even today there are huge areas with palm trees.

From them, it was later spread to the Greek world that came to the region, after Alexander the Great conquered it. They began to spread it in the Greek world.

However, I believe that the Roman Empire was decisive in spreading the basic ingredients which were available throughout the entire empire.

So we have the origin.

They were called foinikia because they have dates inside.

What else? They definitely had oil, even though the ancient Thracians were known for their butter in ancient Greece (the ancient Greeks and Romans considered the ancient Thracians 'butter-eaters,' a term often used insultingly to describe their 'barbaric' customs, in contrast to the Mediterranean preference for olive oil).

If we say they added some kind of drink, it certainly wasn't brandy, because that was created in the 16th century.

If they added any drink, then perhaps wine, although at that time even wine was drunk diluted.

Maybe they used mead. Mead was known since the time of the ancient Greeks.

(Mead is an alcoholic beverage made by fermenting water with honey.

It may contain fruits, spices, herbs or hops and its alcohol content usually ranges from 8% to over 20%.

It is considered one of the oldest alcoholic drinks, with references from ancient Greece (where it was said to be the nectar of the gods) up to the Vikings).

They were familiar with spices, but cinnamon and cloves were likely established during the Byzantine Empire, as Constantinople was a global trade center for spices.

This allowed the introduction and spread of new ingredients into Greek cuisine, including cinnamon, even though they may have also used other spices.

"From a rare luxury pharmaceutical product, sugar transformed into one of the most important and mass-produced commodities in the world"

"In Greece, cloves were known at least since the time of Hippocrates, who used them in pharmaceutical elixirs" 

Add the aromatics (cinnamon, ground cloves, orange zest) according to your taste.

If you prefer more cinnamon, feel free to add extra, and so on 

In all foinikia recipes, pay attention to the spices. We adjust the amount we use depending on how strong the spices are.

The same goes for the flour. Depending on its moisture, you may need more or less to get the dough right.

Remember, the dough should be soft and not stick to your hands or the bowl.

You can also split the fatty ingredients. For example, don't use only butter or only olive oil. Use half butter and half olive oil or sunflower oil.

The honey should be thyme honey, although if you like, jams can also work.

In the oven, since the color can be misleading, we give them a little nudge (haha) to check if they're baked. If they move, they're done. If they don't, they need more time.

They become light as they bake and come off the parchment paper easily.

You can also create your own variations, you can make filled foinikia.

You can soak them in syrup if you like. See our video on melomakarona for how to syrup them. Or, if you prefer, leave them unsyruped and use them for dipping in your coffee.

Also, if you like, you don't have to wear gloves.

Wash and dry your hands well. Let the ingredients come in contact with your hands. Feel them. This will help you understand if the dough is ready or if it needs anything.

Never forget the history hidden in a sweet like this one, the range of cultural influences it has encountered along its way and the changes it has undergone throughout the centuries.

Travel through time with it, guided by the scents and ingredients of another era.