Cooking magic: Cloves for gossips and Soul Cakes for the living

Greek Christmas recipes and their magical intent

Like many other aspects of Greek life, meals are sometimes ritualised, with specific ritual dishes prepared for specific uses or occasions. While in modern times the ritualisation of mealtimes themselves has largely faded, especially in urban environments, the use of ritual dishes remains widespread. Even among unobservant or selectively observant families, the winter holiday cakes and breads are considered a necessity, even if they’re store-bought.

However, the vast majority of households will make at least one or two of the traditional breads and cakes. In general, bread has for centuries been considered one of the most important staples in a Greek household, so much so that even today, some families will use every last piece (even stale) rather than discard it.

This is an echo of the agrarian economy that has contributed so significantly to many of these customs: preparation of such dishes was both an act of thanksgiving and offering as much as enjoyment.

During the midwinter holidays, there are special cake-breads and cakes for each festival, alongside traditional sweets with deep-rooted significance. The following descriptions and recipes are the ones still widely practiced. The meanings described below have not been lost to modernity; especially not those relating to the New Year’s Cake and the Christ-Bread shared below.

Note

Several people have asked me for various recipes for the various ritual dishes I have described in previous posts. I have upset some by refusing, so I’d like to clarify where I stand on this:

Ritual dishes prepared on feast days are part of a sacred rite of a living religion and body of faithful. The recipes are unavailable online, but passed down in families, experientially taught by older women to younger ones. They are rarely, if ever, written down. Their consumption is part of a shared, communal ritual, whether in churches, homes, or outdoors.

Some also require extreme care as the dishes based on boiled wheat can be dangerous (potentially deadly due to the possibility of fermentation), so this requires experienced handling.

I feel it is unethical to share recipes for what amount to sacred dishes with people simply wanting to experiment for the novelty or exoticism while not participating in the actual faith. Even though I was christened Orthodox, I would not make them myself unless participating meaningfully. To simply copy the recipe because of its history and truly magical connections is basically disrespectful to those whose faith this is, taking it out of its participative context. I also would not want the responsibility of someone making themselves seriously ill because they mishandled the ingredients.

I understand this was not the motivation of all who asked and that many did inquire in a spirit of respect and understanding of the context. However, this is a public blog, and I cannot know who is reading and how the recipes will be used. So, I apologise to those I had to disappoint.

All of that said, there are many traditional recipes that are meant for general enjoyment even if they do mark particular occasions . Those I am very happy to share and am delighted to bring you some below. As you will see, the first of these is a sacred dish, and for that reason I have omitted the recipe. However, read on for the most delicious sweets and cakes you’ve ever tried!! If you do make them, please let me know how it went! I’ll be buying melomakarona from a small local bakery, but I’ll be making my own Vasilopita just as my mother taught me!

The Christ-Bread (Χριστόψωμο / Christopsomo)

As with many religious festivals, this one also has a special dish. The most expensive flour is used alongside other “luxury” ingredients, including rosewater, honey, sesame, cinnamon, and cloves.

The women of the family gather to prepare it, and while the dough is rising, they sing “Christ is born, the light ascends, for the dough to rise.” They roll the dough, and with half of it, they make a large ring. With the rest they make a cross using strips of dough, and in the centre they place a whole walnut in its shell, or other nuts.

Though the modern explanation is that the walnut is a symbol of fertility and prosperity, it is also used in Greek traditional magic as an attractor for demons in magical workings.

(Δ.Σ. Μπενέκος, Η αγωγή των δαιμόνων στην Ήπειρο. Συμβολή στη μελέτη της νεοελληνικής μαγείας, (Ιωάννινα 1988), 42, 109; Βαρβούνης, Βερναρδάκειος μαγικός κώδικας, 325, σ. 1.).

They use special stamps or prick designs against the evil eye on the surface, and stick in cloves to “pin down” gossiping tongues.

When the bread is baked, the head of the household makes a sign of the cross over it, and apportions it out to everyone at the table in a reflection of the “Bread of Life” of the Communion.

An ornate traditional “Christ-bread”. Note the walnuts in the centre and at the ends of each arm of the cross; the snakes in each arm of the cross, and the Nika symbol in each circle within the quarters. The little balls surrounding the circle create a crux pommée (cross with apples), symbolising the rewards of the Christian life. The snakes are guardians; once emblematic of the devil, now won over to the good, The letters ΧΠ on the left stand for Χρόνια Πολλά - Long life. The remaining elements are decorative, apart from the pricked design which is intended to “pin down” evil gossip.

A similar tradition from Zakynthos uses a variant recipe that includes nuts, raisins, and wine. The lady of the house hides a gold or silver coin in the loaf; whoever finds it will have good luck all year. On Christmas Eve, the Christ-Bread is the main feature at the family table; the meal is a simple broccoli soup, accompanied by red wine.

A small cup of oil and wine and a burning censer are placed beneath the family icon of Panagia.

Then the head of the household picks up the dish with the bread, and all members of the family place their hands on it.

Together, they move it over the lit fire, and there the head of the family makes the sign of the cross three times, pours the oil and wine mixture over it, while chanting a hymn to Panagia.

The mother of the household wafts the incense throughout the house, and a younger family member takes the rifle (most houses in Greece have at least one) and shoots through the window into the air. The loud gunshots signify the news that Jesus has been born in this home; they will echo across the neighbourhood as the other households join in.

The whole ritual only takes a few minutes, then the head of the house begins apportioning out the bread. The first piece is for Jesus, the second for the poor, the third for the home, and then each family member is given theirs in descending order according to age. An almost identical apportioning is conducted with the New Year’s cake.

Pancakes

Traditional Greek pancakes (tiganites or tiganides) are thicker and smaller than those common in other countries. The majority of households make them around this time of year, and each region has its own recipe. The women and girls prepare the dough (not batter), then fold it into specific shapes. In Mani, Peloponnese, they roll it into long thin strips and then fold them. In other regions they are more like patties, deep fried and soaked in honey.

Unleavened, these have their roots in ritual memorial meals after funerals and were commonly left as offerings to the dead in cemeteries. In Modern Greece, they are eaten on the eve of specific saint’s days in an echo of their role in memorial meals, but are also a quick and easy solution for hungry children!

Tiganites, common in many parts of Greece. In the centre, the Mani variant also known as Lalaggia, and last, Corfu Tzaletia, the ones my mother taught me to make. These made a great midnight feast when I was a hungry schoolgirl!

Melomakarona - Honey macaroons

Melomakarona are one of the traditional sweets made only at Christmas time. They originated in antiquity. The word ‘makaroni’ derives from the medieval Greek word μακαρωνία (makaronía), a component of a ritual meal during wakes for the dead, during which they speak highly of the recently departed and focus on the fact that they are ‘at peace’ (an activity summed up in the verb μακαρίζω-makarizo = to beatify).

The medieval makaronía derives from the ancient word μακαρία-makaría: a kind of cake known as ψυχόπιτα (soul-cake), oval-shaped (like today’s melomakarona), given to mourners after a funeral.

Later, when the makaría was soaked in honey syrup, it was called μέλι+μακαρία (meli=honey) giving us melomakarono. The Greeks of Asia Minor called them φοινίκια (finikia), and it eventually became established as a sweet of the 12 days of Christmas, with κόλυβα (kolyva, boiled wheat with raisins) becoming the mainstay of funereal ritual meals (still practiced very widely).

The word μακαρωνία was borrowed by the Italians and came to refer to maccarone - macaroni; later in the medieval period the familiar macaroon made its appearance in France and then England.

The use of honeyed cakes or similar variations on many local saints’ days may also be an echo of the makarìa tradition, since these feasts always mark the death date of the saint. Makarios-makaria also means beatific-beatified, and in modern usage the word makarites refers to the blessed departed.

Regardless, melomakarona are the most popular Christmas sweet in Greece. Read on for the full recipe to enjoy your own this Christmas season!

Ingredients

• 3 teacups olive oil

• 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

• 1 cup of sugar

• 1 tsp.powdered cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp. powdered cloves

• 1/2 cup of brandy

• 1 cup fine semolina

• 3 tsp. baking powder

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 9 cups of all-purpose flour

Syrup

• 1.5 cups water

• 1.5 cups honey

• 2 cups white sugar

• Sprinkling

• 1.5 cups walnut crumbs

• 1/4 tsp. powdered clove

• 1 tsp cinnamon

• 2 tsp. finely grated lemon zest

Process

• Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius and lay a baking sheet in a large baking tray.

• Boil all the ingredients for the syrup for 5 minutes (counting from the time it begins to boil). Then remove it from the heat and set aside to cool.

• In a deep mixing bowl, mix the olive oil, orange juice, sugar, cinnamon, clove, brandy with a whisk.

• Add the semolina, the baking powder and baking soda, and gradually add the flour, mixing gently by hand until it forms a soft dough. DO NOT OVER MIX. It should be soft and pliable, not sticky.

• Take a large tablespoon full of the dough and mould it between cupped palms into a rough oval shape.

• Place on the baking tray and repeat until the dough is used up. These quantities should make 50-60 pieces (you will eat hem, no, they’re not too many!)

• Bake for 30 minutes, until golden brown.

• Remove the tray from the oven, and while they’re still warm, dip them in the pan with the cold syrup and let them soak for 3 minutes.

• Remove with a straining spoon (perforated spoon) and place gently on a plate.

• Mix all the ingredients for the sprinkling in a blender and sprinkle all over the upper surface of the melomakarona.

Enjoy! They keep for several days covered over with cling film. Do not refrigerate (they’ll lose their flavour and harden).

Vasilopita - New Year’s Cake

There is no Greek household without a Vasilopita at New Year’s. The vast majority make their own; a minority buy them from local bakeries, but they are never mass produced. The Vasilopita, much like the Christopsomo above, always has a coin (usually a token or low value coin) .

St Basil of Cappadocia, son of a rhetorician, brother of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Together with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus, they became known as the Cappadocian Fathers. All three are venerated in the Orthodox church and made significant contributions to Orthodox theology. St Basil is the Greek “Father Christmas,” not St. Nicholas, who in the Greek tradition is the protector of seafarers and travellers.

The modern name of the Vasilopita stems from Christian tradition and the Greek Father Christmas: St Basil of Cappadocia (more about him in this upcoming article). According to Orthodox tradition, when he was Bishop of Caesarea, the Roman eparch of Cappadocia was particularly harsh with tax collection. They asked their bishop to protect them, but he told them to gather all their valuables and bring them to offer to the eparch. When the eparch arrived with his guard to collect the taxes, St Basil convinced him to leave without taking them.

Per the legend, this was New Year’s Eve. Since the bishop no longer knew which objects belonged to whom, he ordered the baker to bake as many small pies as there were residents, and hid a valuable in each of them. Then these were distributed among the residents. Following this tradition, we place a coin in the New Year’s cake named for the generous saint.

However, some folklorists have suggested that this tradition derives from the Ancient Greek Thargelia, transmitted, like many of the midwinter traditions, via the Saturnalia.

The Thargelia festival was a two day celebration held in ancient Athens to honour Apollo and Artemis. Held in May, it was composed of two elements, the purification of the city by parading and exiling or sacrificing the ritual scapegoat, followed by the offering of the ‘thargelion arton;’ the thanksgiving bread. The thargelos was a small quantity of the earliest harvest of the year.

First the city was ritually purified in the name of Apollo. Crimes, injustices, and other “miasmas” that had collected in the course of the year needed to be purged and cleansed to allow a fresh start and avoid the gods’ wrath. Thus, two ‘scapegoats’ were selected from among the worst criminals. A wreath of black dried figs was hung around the neck of the one; white figs on the other, to represent men and women respectively. The figs symbolically absorbed the miasma of the city.

These individuals were the pharmakon; the ritual scapegoats whose sacrifice would expiate and absolve the rest of the citizens of all wrongs. The pharmakon - meaning medicine - was a magical dose of medicine (therapeia) for the evils of the city, personified and embodied by the two criminals known as katharmata (what is left over after cleansing; a word still used to refer to a rogue or wretch). After being paraded around the city, they were whipped or stoned, driven out, and usually executed or drowned (as they were already condemned to death). Thus the city was cleansed and the gods appeased. Variations on the practice are attested in many regions, and ancient writers offer various explanations for the origin and reason for the practice. More on this here.

Once the city had been purified, on the second day, the citizens made offerings of the thargelon to Apollo and Artemis, in a practice still widely found on holy days devoted to Panagia (see this article for more on this). The premature grains were ground and made into the thargeleion arton, in expectation of a good harvest and in thanks for the early fruitfulness.

This and other similar practices involving offerings of bread to various deities at specific were known throughout antiquity, and remain equally widespread in modern Greek tradition; Panagia replacing Demeter at the harvest festival, and so forth. I have written about some such instances here and here.

Some may question why the thargeleion ritual specifically is thought to be connected with the New Year’s Vasilopita: the reason is the reflection of the cleansing and purification of miasmata that takes place throughout the 12 days of Christmas, as personified in the Kallikantzaroi and their ritual banishment every year. More on this in the next few offerings where the full ritual climaxing with Epiphany fills in the rest of the gaps.

As for the Vasilopita, there are many regional recipe variants. Here is a traditional one from Smyrna, which is very close to the one my mother taught me to make:

Vasilopita recipe

Ingredients

• 350 gr. butter, cubed

• 350 gr. confectioner’s sugar

• 5 eggs, separate whites from yolks

• 1 tsp. baking powder

• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

• 1/3 tsp allspice

• 1/3 tsp nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp ground cloves

• 500gr self-raising flour

• 80 gr brandy

• 100 gr freshly squeezed orange juice

• zest from 2 oranges

Process

1. Pre-heat oven to 200 Celsius, with fan

2. In a mixer, whisk the butter for 2 minutes until frothy. Add the sugar and egg yolks and continue whisking until frothy. Add the flour slowly to avoid lumps, followed by the baking powder and spices. Then add the brandy and orange juice, and whisk until it becomes a smooth dough. Transfer to a large bowl.

3. Clean and dry the mixing bowl thoroughly. Whisk the egg whites until a meringue forms. Add it slowly to the dough and softly mix it in with a spatula until the mixture is smooth.

4. Butter a 28cm round baking dish. Empty the mixture into the dish and spread evenly. Sink a coin (wash it first) into the mixture.

5. Bake for 50-60 minutes (to check readiness, sink a dry knife into the pie - it should come out clean and dry. If it comes out moist, it is not ready).

6. Remove from the oven and let it cool. Tip to remove from the baking tray and allow to cool thoroughly on a cooling rack.

7. Decorate with spices, confectioner’s sugar, or almond flakes. In Modern Greece we usually write the date of the new year using raisins or almond flakes.

The pie is cut after midnight once the New Year has rung in. Traditionally, the head of the household draws a cross (with the knife) three times on the surface of the cake, saying Χρόνια πολλά, και του Χρόνου (Many Years, and to next year! Meaning, may we live long and be well enough to repeat this next year).

Then they cut the first piece for the home, the second for Christ, the third for Panagia, the fourth for the poor, the fourth for St. Basil, the next piece for the head of the household.

From there on, one additional piece for each member of the family present in descending order of age or relationship (offspring first, then cousins, for example).

Any remaining pieces are named for absent (living) family members, or for the home. Whoever finds the coin has good luck for the year, and it is traditional for the head of the household to give them a small sum of money to start them off.

Upcoming instalments will explore more magical traditions relating to the festive season.

If you try any of the recipes, let me know what you think in the comments!