Byzantine Honey Fritters

I’ve started posting short videos on TikTok and Instagram, so make sure to follow me over there for appetizers to hold you over between episodes.

Just imagine how much work the tasting history guy 500 years from now is going to have to do to find out how big a frosted mini-wheat is.

What I learned watching this video: - Honey and pepper is an underrated combination - Never be a monk - The messi is the aesthetic Whole Foods is trying to recreate - Price gouging is a tale as old as time - Wine is Byzantine water

Honey fritters , or as we called it today "loukoumades" (λουκουμάδες) , is still one of the most common desserts in Greece to this day

I'm building a D&D campaign around a Byzatine-esque region and I love torturing my players with food descriptions, so this was a great starting point for building each city's food culture, especially since I was able to find an earlier printing of that book in my library! :)

You know, I think this "flogged, shaved, and expelled from the guild" punishment for overcharging on prices is an anti-inflationary solution we should look into trying.

Fun fact: if you lightly toast the Semolina flour before you add it to the Milk it imparts a nice nutty flavor. The Levant region has a similar Sweet called "Halawat Al-Sameed" (translated: Semolina sweet) which involves toasting the Semolina first in 2 table spoons of butter until it is light brown then adding it to a sweet simple syrup and stirring until a porridge like consistency is achieved.

>adds a little more flour now it's too sticky >adds a little more milk now it's too runny >after 5 minutes of fine tuning >congrats you now have 2745 fritters to serve to people

This is absolutely crazy; my nonna used to make these when I was little, and unlike some of the modern things she made like cannoli or doughboys, we had no idea where these came from. When we'd ask she just called them Globi...except there were a few things that she called globi...that basically became the word she'd use for "fried sweet thing," I guess. I was able to find the more conventional "globi" online, but I never found a recipe for these fritters anywhere. Sometimes she'd throw poppy seeds or sesame seeds on them too. She also did them in squares from what I remember, but they'd often puff up to look not quite round, not quite square. I remember as a kid really loving the slight bite of the pepper with the honey, it's not a flavor combination people appreciate anymore, but I really loved it. She said it depended on the season, how much they'd puff up; no idea whether that refers to the grain or when you make them, or if that's even true lol. I should have known these were ancient because the mild sweetness is so balanced and not in your face, you can really hurt yourself eating too many of these without thinking too hard about it! Thank you so much for posting this so I finally could solve the mystery of what those delicious childhood desserts were, and now I can pass them on to my children (she never wrote down ANY of her recipes, and this one wasn't common enough to learn from memory). I'm so glad I found your channel, I love the combo of history and cooking. You're a treasure!!

This channel has become a sort of comfort, when I need an interesting yet useful videos this is the first pick I think I’ve watched the whole backlog, I’m not very good at cooking but learning about it all is awesome, thank you.

Well, the guild of pork butchers fighting back against members trying to scam people was not the story I thought I’d hear in a honey fritters episode, but it’s pretty interesting that prices were so strictly maintained.

I was a fundie Eastern (/Greek) Orthodox and was really into the ascetic-minimalist Byzantine cuisine. The main food of Byzantine monks (who were following the monastic rules) and pious laypeople were the "holy soup" and bread. The 'holy soup' was a legume soup, and it was eaten for lunch and dinner. It had three basic variations: made out of lentils, beans, or chickpeas. The fasting version of the soup was just that - lentils /beans /chickpeas boiled with a bit of salt. Lay people would probably add veggies like celery, turnips, mushrooms, carrots, etc.. On non-fasting days onions, a bit of olive oil, and one or two spice herbs would be added to the soup. Note that when added up, fasting days are around two thirds of the days in a year, and the old strict fasting rules said that only plant foods are allowed, and salt was the only addition allowed - no spices, condiments, sugar, honey, oil, no drink except water. Of course, the soup wasnt eaten on the strictest days of fasting when nothing or just bread was eaten, nor during Lent when only raw fruits and veggies were allowed. For Lent you wouldnt eat the holy soup, but just bread, salads - which would simply be made out of fresh vegetables which were available, such as leeks, cucumbers, radishes, cabbage, etc; and snack plants - olives, raisins, and figs, these three were the daily rations in monasteries for most of the year, and maybe sometimes there would be some nuts such as almonds, hazelnuts, or walnuts, and fruit such as apricots, plums and pomegranates. On non-fast days you could have cheese, eggs, fish and seafood (like oysters, mussels, etc), and would drink juices and wine. Wine was usually flavored with honey and spices, such as cinnamon or black pepper. Also on non-fasting days, especially on holidays, they would make some simple cakes and sweets (which basically just sweet and soft pastries), but the most prominent sweet was rice pudding, which was by the Byzantines considered food of the angels. This was based on some stories of saints going into the desert and not eating for long periods of time, surviving only because angels brought them food, specifically rice pudding for some reason. Ironically, the term 'holy soup' most famously survived in a satiric song from the 11th century, which ridiculed the debauchery in some Byzantine monasteries, where the author uses it as a name for a type of sauce made with onions, oil, and spices, all of which were supposed to be forbidden for most of the year. And most references you can find for the term holy soup are to that song. BTW, the author of the song was signed by a satirical name Ptochoprodromos, or "Poor Prodromos", ie the poor man's version of Prodromos, a famous [serious] Byzantine writer and poet of the time. Thats the same one whose song is cited in this video.

My mother is from Edirne. She said during times they were kids they used to drink water with calcium which made the water more salty. Maybe it was because the water came from Edirne it get calcite

As a Greek, I'm so impressed and thankful for your excellent pronunciation of all the Greek words and names in this video ❤️

Sweet black pepper is really underrated. I had a black pepper spiced cake at Herstmonceux Medieval Festival once and it was wonderful.

There is a southern Italian dish made that is similar called "Strufoli" when they say made in the shape of sweets they usually mean in small marble size balls. In case you were trying to find that, Southern Italians preserve many of these treats. Perhaps that helps in your research.

We have something similar in Algeria called "Makroud", but we stuff these Fritters with dates paste and then fry them and dip them in honey.

Once a year a Greek Orthodox Church near me has a celebration day with homemade foods for sale. There are small honeyed sweets that instantly remind me of these!! There’s lines AROUND THE BLOCK for food orders, first come first serve…and every time my family argues over who gets the last honey-treat….I believe they’re called Loukoumades!

Great episode! The Byzantine/Eastern Roman Empire never gets as much attention as the Western despite having technically lasted until the 1400s. Also, those fritters I think after time evolved into the Greek desert known as lukumades. Basically fried doughballs coated with honey and nuts. Definitely try them if you've never had them before.

I am amazed, one of my favorite Spanish dessert is "Leche frita" fried milk and must be the grandson of this recipe because is almost the same