One of the most delicious home-made desserts now sold throughout the year in most patisseries, is the so-called "melomakarona" (which translates as "honey-cake" or literally as "honey-pasta"). This is a dessert known since the Byzantine times as "finikia" ("palm-tree fruits"), a name still used in many Greek areas.

Finikia (melomakarona) were so named due to their colour resemblance to the palm-tree fruit, the dates. The ingredients used for making melomakarona (flour, oil, walnuts and honey) can be traced in our country from the dawn of civilization.

It is not certain whether melomakarona/finikia were known in Ancient Greece. It is possible that they were included in a group of desserts generally known as "plakountes" (cakes) which were made from first class flour, oil, dried fruit, milk, eggs and honey and were shaped either by hand or wooden moulds. It is certain that the cakes known today as "skaltsounia" (turnovers) were included in the "plakountes" group.

But let us have a look at the diet of Ancient Greeks during the classical era.

Continue.....