What we term ‘soups’ were served a times in order to moisten rice dishes. A celebratory meal would be quite elaborate with many small dishes none of which would in itself satisfy an appetite but all of which would make obvious the abilities of the cook, the prosperity of the house and together constituted a feast of quite extraordinary proportions. It should be kept in mind that the format of a traditional Sephardi meal in the Near East and Balkans was quite different to that in the West. The following recipes have been drawn mainly from pre-War sources. It is only after the War that the re-emergence of a Sephardic kitchen takes place in Thessaloniki but it is highly atrophied and tends to steer away from imaginative twists and turns.
Examination of pre WWII Sephardi recipe notes would indicate that until the dramatic and tragic events of the War the kitchen of Thessaloniki Jewesses was highly creative and innovative and was adapting French and to some degree Greek influences, as in preceding years High Ottoman cooking had been a paramount influence. reflect certainly the influence of local - in this case - Greco-Ottoman dietary tastes and style.
Recipes with Turkish names such as Borekitas, yaprakites, moussaka, baklavah, sotlatch, etc. Any recipe that incorporates tomatoes, peppers, aubergines is obviously of a non-Iberian origin or at least not ‘traditional’ in the strict sense of the word as such vegetables and fruits were not introduced from the New World until some time after the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492.
For example it is obvious that many of the recipes are not in a direct transmission from the Iberian Peninsula. In the case of the cuisine of Thessaloniki this is especially true. A truly gifted cook is of two sorts - either one who can doggedly follow an accurate recipe so as to re-create exactly the same dish or the more cavalier sort who can innovate and even introduce new and even eccentric twists to old recipes depending on the availability of ingredients or the dominant contemporary ‘culinary’ style. ‘Traditional’ is always a difficult term to use when being applied to a kitchen.
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