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Melomakarouna and Kourabiethes
Honey cakes and butter-almond biscuits
Greek Christmas Sweets
The traditional greek person in our house made these all by himself. Usually the grandchildren come and make them together but he couldn't wait till they finish school. No, they must be made early and distrubted to family, neighbours and friends. He made piles of them and there are only a few left on the platters so he'll be grumbling again soon and making more, by himself if he has to.
I used to make both of these. There is nothing complicated about the recipes. Now I make the foreign 'stuff', mince pies, Christmas fruit cakes, chutney, pickled onions and chicken liver pate. I suppose we are both going back to our childhood roots. Now I make a little homeamde Baileys as well and some sort of fruit liqueur . I also make sure we have sage to stuff the chook, brussel sprouts, kumara (sweet potato) and enough sauv blanc to sustain the xmas cheer.
Butter and almond cakes - kourabiethes
For these we buy real butter (irish butter from Lidls) not marg. In years gone by the traditional person bought fresh sheeps butter by the kilo. You can imagine what this tasted like. The sheep. We gradually turned him over to Lurpak and now he's quite happy with the Irish butter, half the price of Lurpak. These are sprayed with rose water as they come out of the oven and then drowned in icing sugar. The aroma is more than heavenly. Irresistible
Honey cakes - melomakarouna
A traditional Greek honey biscuit, dipped in honey syrup
Made from flour, oil, and orange juice, flavoured with cinnamon and cloves, drenched in honey and crushed walnuts.
These have no milk, eggs or butter so can eaten during Lent and the other many fasting days during the year. My sis law makes them now and again when she is fasting, to offer visitors
- Word of the day
tintinnabulation
what a wonderful sounding word and you can almost guess the meaning. The ringing or the sound of bells.
All thanks to the online
Thesaurus.com
They both look good! I don't think I've ever had sheep's butter before. Now you are making me wonder, if sheep butter tastes like sheep, does cow's butter taste like cow? -Jenn
ReplyDeleteMmmm, why doesn't butter smell of cow? Sheep and goats, more so goats can be rather rank. There is a certain twang to their products, milk, yoghurt, butter, especially when it is fresh. Fresh sheeps butter is very yellow and quite soft, unlike that solid square of cows butter. Possibly we get more of the non processed product and it is closer to the animal whereas cows butter is processed and preserved. Mind you, sheeps butter from the island of Corfu is very popular here and that is hard and comes in a square pack and still has that 'twang'. I'm waffling on. Who knows
DeleteEdgard Allan Poe is the creator of tintinnabulation. I wonder if he got it from a ghost or maybe sleigh bells?
ReplyDeleteThanks Dave. Good old Poe. It's a wonderful word.
DeleteAll these things, sound delicious!!!
ReplyDeleteBoth sides of the family, are shown, in your goodies. Yesssss....
🎄🌲🎄🌲🎄
Definitely both sides. Greeks didn't really celebrate xmas as we know it when I first came here. I introduced the english tradition in the house and mainly we stick with that. Greeks get presents on New Years eve, given by St Basil . We have good old st Nick on Xmas eve
DeleteBoth goodies look wonderful, and I could eat my weight in them :)
ReplyDeleteTraditions...we do seem to go overboard, but hey, it's once a year to remember those magical times when we were younger.
Homemade Baileys what could be finer !
Wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year, dear friend.
Hugs,
~Jo
Thanks Jo. Once a year it's nice to keep these traditions. I wish I could get shortbread and quality like you though!
DeleteI learn so much from your blog, I didn't know you get kumara there - very cool.
ReplyDeleteHa, wish it really was Kumara!! Looks like it so that's what we call it. Only Red sweet potato
DeleteI could eat all of those biscuits!
ReplyDeleteFortunately he's given most away but is threatening to make more!
DeleteCould I have a few plump Olives instead of the biscuits. They look too sweet for me. Looks like you're getting in the mood.... so are we.
ReplyDeleteLots of olives. A handful with a small glass of local red?
DeleteLoved your Xmas preparations, and the golly. We have a big red flower on the top of our tree
Tintinnabulation is a lovely word. The biccies look delicious.
ReplyDeleteI use thesaurus.com always when writing. English Words don't so easily to me any more, and their word of the day is always enlightening
DeleteFrom a combination of two traditions always comes out something good and delicious.Everyone earns something.
ReplyDelete