Marmalades, spoon sweets, and other forms of fruit preserves from the summer’s abundant crop are prepared and stored, along with homemade pasta and trahana. As crushed wheat that has been boiled in milk and then dried in the sun, trahana forms the basis of the warming nutritious soups served in the wintertime. The best grains and legumes are picked over and then put aside for autumn sowing. Wood is cut, stacked, and stored for winter. And, grape picking culminates with the making of wine, must, and tsipouro.

These agrarian activities coincide with the restarting of the Orthodox Church’s liturgical calendar. September features one of the Church’s most important feasts, the Elevation of the Cross, a feast day that commemorates the reclaiming of Christ’s cross and its return to Constantinope, where it was raised by the Byzantines after defeating the Persians in battle. In accordance with tradition, the faithful take sprigs of basil from a tray carried by the priest during services. As symbolic blessings, the springs will be either fastened to an icon in the home or placed in water and left to form roots, then planted. Whether dry or fresh, it will be used to make the year’s supply of prozymi, or the sourdough starter for the Prosphoroor Bread of Oblation.

The feast is a strict fast day similar to Good Friday, which meaning that the consumption of meat, dairy, and olive oil is forbidden unless the feast falls on a Saturday or Sunday. Fortunately, Greek cuisine features a range of delicious fasting dishes, thus allowing Stavros and Stavroula to celebrate their name day. Guests will be served a number of traditional sweets, from spoon sweets and almond confections to phyllo-based pastries made without olive oil.


A traditional sweet popular at this time of year is grape must pudding, or mustalevria. Made from grape must–the strained pulp of just-pressed grapes–the pudding will be thickened with either flour or semolina, and then topped with chopped walnuts or sesame seeds and ground cinnamon. Grape must is also used to make delicious mustokouloura (soft or hard cookies made with olive oil and generously spiced with cinnamon and cloves) and soutzoukia (walnuts dipped in warm mustalevria and air dried). Traditionally, grape must was reduced to the thickness of molasses, then stored in jars and used throughout the year as a sweetener in desserts.