What's for Dinner #112 - the "Pre-Holiday Crazies" Edition - November 2024

You should see the Greek culinary nationalism vs Turkish culinary nationalism on Twitter. Trolls on both sides.
I’m hesitant to give any nation or group absolute credit for anything because borders change, people move and languages change.

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Yeah, the whole Aryan timeline & migration theory into South Asia has had a lot of questioning in the past couple of decades, so I bet the timelines for PIE branches eventually shift around a bit too (Indus Valley Civ now dated back to 8-10,000 BC vs when I learned it in school as 3-5,000 BC). Another of the rabbit holes I enjoy, along with cooking & language, lol.

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Oh I know. One of my good friends is Greek, another is Turkish, and I put my foot squarely in my mouth the first time I went to Easter at the former’s family home, lol. (I had no idea, bec we were so preoccupied with learning Indian history that we didn’t pay much attention to who invaded whom elsewhere and left behind hard feelings :rofl:)

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Wiki agrees with you

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/κιμάς

Ottoman Turks, back before the population exchange, when Ottoman Turkey was a place with a Greek population, and Greece was under Ottoman rule and had a significant Turkish population.

https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/قیمه#Ottoman_Turkish

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In one of her books, Dianne Kochalis talks about how many iconic Greek dishes originated in Turkey, especially the casseroles with bechamel sauce, which came from a single hotel in Constantinople, and almost everything with tomato.

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I linked a couple of others upthread. Apparently Chagatai Turkic.

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I had read about the introduction of béchamel to Greek cuisine, and it was a chef who was influenced by the French. Nikolaos Tselementes, in the 1930s.

I think the important thing to remember is that Istanbul/ Constantinople was a city with a Turkish, as well as a Greek, Armenian and Jewish population. It was cosmopolitan before the Population Exchange.

My ancestral island is located 6 miles from Turkey, so many of the foods are identical to what is on the other side of the water.

I own a couple of Kochilas cookbooks. Great chef. I had thought about taking her cooking course in Greece before 2020, but I never got around to it.

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I was amazed by the common thread of phyllo pies through eastern Europe too, when my nephews’ babysitter specially made me her Serbian versions of meat / Kimadopita and cheese / Tiropita not long after I ate them at the aforementioned Greek Easter lunch.

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Was the chef Nikolaos Tselementes?

Diane has a public TV show, My Greek Table, and my DVR records it from several PBS stations. I met her once–her husband is a friend of my brother, and they had us over for NYE. At the time, she was a recipe tester for cookbook publishers. She was a consultant for the NYC restaurant Pylos (East Village), well worth visiting if you’re in the area.

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Serbian baklava is distinct from the Greek and Turkish types, too.

I’m a huge fan of most Ottoman and Balkan savoury pies.

I was aware of Pylos, and I was on their mailing list at one point. I never made it there.

Yep, it was Tselementes.

More dolnades for dinner followed by gado gado. The peanut sauce could have used some oomph. Next time I will add some Sriracha.


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I’ve been there a few times. The first time, the pottery suspended from the ceiling made this Californian transplant very nervous.

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I was SHOCKED in grade 9, to learn Lebanese people also made Baklava. :joy: I embraced the idea as soon as it sunk in. I try all the baklava.

I sort of get miffed when people try to claim the cabbage roll as theirs and theirs alone.:joy:

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The Greek meat pie is usually called kreatopita, even though it contains Kima.

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It was on my wishlist for at least a decade.
When we had a big family gathering for a graduation in NYC in 2011, we held the graduation dinner at Molyvos on 7th Ave, because it was close to where we were staying and where the graduation was held.

On my last visit to NYC in 2019, I only managed to visit one Greek establishment in SoHo which was more style than substance.

When I have visited NYC over the past 25 years, I usually only stay for 4 nights. I try to fit in 2 or 3 plays, 2 or 3 museums, 3 or 4 visits with friends. That usually means at most 1 Greek meal over a 5 day /4 night stay.

FIFTEEN types of beans? Wow!

We used to add a can of creamed corn, plus jalapenos. Now I want some jalapeno cornbread.

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Linguine all’Assassina, more or less according to the NYT recipe here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1023753-spaghetti-allassassina-spicy-singed-tomato-pasta

Full write-up with recipe tweaks here: October - December 2024 COTM + COOKING FROM thread: NEW YORK TIMES COOKING (website & cookbooks) - #258 by biondanonima

Suffice it to say, it was good!


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I stand corrected. 16.

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More comfort food. Nigella Lawson’s Spanish chicken tray bake, with bone-in chicken thighs, fresh chorizo sausages, potatoes, onion, orange, and oregano. My tip: squeeze the orange (after zesting) right into the dish. Served with a green salad in vinaigrette.

I made extra tonight, because we might need comforting tomorrow, as well.

Onions, spuds, and oregano from the garden.

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