Loukoumades at Columbia’s Greek Festival
It happens every year. It typically starts with a gyro and fries, appropriately eaten curbside while admiring the dancing and watching the crowd descending onto Columbia’s Greek Festival. I then enter the festival building and immediately am both in awe and completely confused by the dazzling array of pastries in the bakery area. Despite best efforts, it almost always comes down to a confused, rushed purchase and a baklava sundae.
This year, though, everything changes as we take a step back to learn about some of the pastries available at this year’s festival.
Baklava
At its most basic, baklava consists of thin layers of phyllo dough filled with layers of nuts and honey. There is great conflict between Greece and Turkey on which country baklava fully belongs to historically. Between the Turkish history of layered cakes and Greece’s use of phyllo dough, there are arguments for both sides. Regardless, the spread of the Ottoman Empire helped it evolve, introducing new flavors like cinnamon and clove obtained from the Silk Road or rose and orange blossom water inherited from Arab cultures.
The local festival celebrates baklava’s ability to adapt and transform, with some very American variations including the baklava chocolate cheesecake, the baklava-filled brownie and the ever-popular baklava sundae — a must for any Greek festival attendee.
Loukoumades
Loukoumades are warm, puffy doughnut rounds fried to perfection and served with a warm drizzle of honey and sometimes cinnamon with a sprinkle of chopped walnuts. These date back to the original Olympic games in 776 BC, claiming to be “honey tokens” that were both tributes to honor the gods and also one of the earliest prizes awarded to the winners.
Karidopita
A delicate cake filled with chopped walnuts and doused in a honey syrup perfumed with cinnamon or sometimes clove, karidopita is a popular dessert often made around Lent and Easter. There are many variations of this flexible dessert, including anything from orange zest to alcohol like rum and cognac.
Kok
Kok at its most basic is two sponge cakes filled with a pastry cream and topped with chocolate in a similar fashion to Boston creme pies. While it’s simple in premise, there are almost unlimited ways that the dish is made, whether it is different-flavored sponges or different toppings.
The Greek Festival offers a plain chocolate version along with strawberry and lemon cream variations. Much like doughnuts, there is almost no end to how these can be dressed, whether rolled in things like coconut or nuts or filled with different creams.
Galactobouriko
Galactobouriko uses the familiar phyllo dough used in baklava, but is generously filled with a soft semolina custard. Honey or sweet syrups are often drizzled over to balance the creamy custard filling. The dish came from Greek refugees that left Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War between 1919-1922 and adapted to Greek culture, marrying Turkish traditions of semolina custards with phyllo dough to create this unique dessert.
Koulourakia
Typically made for Easter, koulourakias are hand-shaped, vanilla-scented butter cookies. They sometimes are topped with sesame seeds. Occasionally these are also made with cognac or ouzo, a popular Greek aperitif. While the cookies can be shaped in many ways, from wreaths, to twists and different Greek letters, most are shaped in a snake-like manner.
Dating back to the Minoan period, it is believed that koulourakias were made to mimic the snake due to the belief of the animal’s therapeutic powers.
Finikia
Often seen during Christmas time, finikia are light, crumbly cookies made with no dairy, but rather orange juice. They are dipped in a syrup made with honey and topped with cinnamon sugar or sometimes crushed almonds or walnuts. Some serve the syrup on the side, letting patrons dip their cookie in the sweet, sticky sauce.
Kataifi
In some ways a cousin of baklava, the two dishes share similarities with the nuts and syrup that adorn the dish. Kataifi sets itself apart in two ways, though: first, the distinctly thin, shredded phyllo dough which gives it a completely different textural experience, and second, the syrup, which often is scented with citrus and spices.
Flogeres
Translated to “flute” in English, flogeres are essentially a rolled version of baklava featuring phyllo dough that is filled with walnuts and spices and rolled into a cylinder shape similar to cannoli. They are another dessert common around Christmas time. Flogeres can be very regional, changing in flavor depending where a person is in Greece. They are often also related to a different, yet similar Greek dish that involves rolled dough filled with either a sweet or savory cheese filling and fried until golden brown.
Kourabiedes
These shortbread cookies tossed in powdered sugar are the Greek version of wedding cookies. Almonds are often the base of the cookie dough. Along with weddings, kourabiedes are a popular holiday season dessert. Introduced during Ottoman rule, they used to be crescent shaped in defiance of the Ottoman rulers, but softened into rounder shapes after Greece gained independence. The crescent shape is sometimes still seen today.
Ergolavo
Ergolavo is possibly the most different out of all the desserts, being an egg-white cookie similar to a macaroon. The yolkless recipe gives the cookie a light, airy texture. The cookie is mixed with marzipan to give it its distinct, almond flavor. In some places two ergolavos are combined to form an Oreo-esque cookie filled with chocolate or cream.
What: 32nd Annual Columbia’s Greek Festival
When: Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 20-22, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; and Sunday, Sept. 23 noon-8 p.m.
Where: Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 1931 Sumter St.
Cost: Free
More: columbiasgreekfestival.com
