delanceyplace.com 07/21/05 - jews in ottoman greece

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In today's excerpt - we see a marvelous list of new dishes brought to Ottoman Greece from Spain by immigrant Sephardic Jews—to Salonica specifically—beginning as early as the early 1500's:

"... they ate Pan d'Espanya (almond sponge cake) on holidays, rodanchas (pumpkin pastries), pastel de kwezo (cheese pie with sesame seed), fijones kon karne (beef and bean stew), and keftikes de poyo (chicken croquettes), and gave visitors dulce de muez verde (green walnut preserve). People munched pasatempo (dried melon seeds), took the vaporiko across the bay and enjoyed the evening air on the varandado of their home. When Spanish scholars visited the city ... they were astonished to find a miniature Iberia alive and flourishing under Abdul Hamid."