in Thessaly has its own specialty especially famous is its apple preserves known as “firikia”. Spoon sweets are colorful preserves of fruits, nuts or even some vegetables put in sugar syrup while jams are sugar preserved fruit pulps.
Greece is blessed with abundance of fruits like strawberries, apricots, cherries, watermelons, plums, figs and oranges that make excellent sweets and jams. Even orange peels can be made into excellent spoon sweets. Orange peels are scraped, boiled, and rinsed many times to leech out their bitterness and then the peels are rolled, secured with cotton threads and simmered over in hot, thick, sweet sugar syrup till they are done and become translucent and soft. Soft fruits like sour cherries or vegetables like tomatoes are soaked in slaked lime water to soften the fruits pulp and also enable the fruit to withstand the hot, simmering syrup.
It is predominantly women in the family who uphold the tradition of making spoon sweets. The preparation of spoon sweets is carried out ritual like in Greek families, supervised by the experienced women, and young girls were allowed to learn by close observation. The preparation of good spoon sweets was considered a criterion for young women to be considered good housewives. And to this day the traditional way of serving spoon sweets still exist. Spoon sweets are generally served in small clear glass plates on which the scooped spoon sweets are kept in special soup-spoon like spoons. A glass of cool water is an accompaniment always served with the sweets.
The credit for preservation of spoon sweet tradition can be safely attributed to the monasteries and convents in Greece where they still serve the spoon sweets religiously to visitors immediately upon their arrival. |
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