The Many Halvas Found In Greece

Halvas (this is the Greek spelling) while available in many places all over the world really hasn't caught on as a popular dessert treat in many countries.  Halvas, loosely translated, means sweet food. For the most part halvas is a dessert specialty often found in Middle Eastern, Jewish, or Greek bakeries.  It's kind of a shame, because not only are there many varieties to choose from, it offers such great potential as a candy ingredient too.  Most people are not really familiar with the many varieties available either, and often they've only tried one variety.  People also don't understand how much better this treat can be when it's fresh.  Since moving to Greece I've been lucky enough to sample so many varieties of halvas both fresh and packaged.  A dessert I used to think very little about has quickly become one of my favourite sweet treats.

Sesame halvas is probably the kind of halvas that most people have tried.  Chances are the Sesame halavas you sampled was imported from somewhere in the Middle East or Mediterranean, and it probably wasn't that fresh.  Unfortunately this particular kind of halvas is the easiest to ship, and also unfortunately it's the kind that often turns people off of halvas forever.  Don't get me wrong; there are many great Sesame halvas in the world, however many of the pre-packaged varieties just don't cut it.  They're dry, chalky, and have no discernable flavour.  A good Sesame halvas should taste of toasted sesame with a hint of chocolate sometimes.  It should melt in your mouth almost like a honeycomb.

Semolina halvas was the first step I ever took outside of the dry sesame halvas world.  At first it terrified me, it looked nothing like sesame halvas, and I already thought I didn't really like Halvas as it was.  This particular halvas is much softer and moister than the sesame halvas.  Because of this, its shelf life is very limited, I've made batches of this only to see it go bad in a couple of days.  When you get it fresh, it's absolute perfection.  Best of all, one of the keys to making semolina halvas flavourful is in using syrups, and you can flavour these syrups any way you like.  This means that this halvas has an unlimited choice in flavour potential.  If you can boil it in sugar and water, you can use it to flavour semolina halvas.  The base ingredient, semolina, has a slight toasty flavour, so it can really work with just about any sweet syrup concoction, even maple syrup would work.  Add a few nuts into the mix and you can have a really creative sweet treat.

Farsala halvas is the most mysterious of all halvas.  Many candy makers I've spoken to say it's the most complicated of all halvas to make.  The recipes for the high quality stuff are closely guarded secretes, but one of the key ingredients I’ve learned is cornstarch.  It's said that the highest quality Farsala halvas is only available in its origin town of Farsala in Greece.  Fortunately for me the piece you see above was purchased there, and I can attest to this claim.  Farsala halvas has a shelf life of about 1 week in your refrigerator, but nothing is better than getting a slice that is still warm, straight out of the oven.  It's not as gelatinous as it might appear, and the texture is best compared to the filling in a sugar pie or butter tart.  It's very sweet, and since it’s primary ingredients are cornstarch and sugar, it's not very healthy for you.  The thing is, as soon as you take a bite of this sweet treat, the strangeness of its texture and the fact that it's completely unhealthy for you will fade out of your mind.

As I mentioned before, halvas is a very versatile sweet.  One way to really enjoy any variety is to cover it in chocolate.  While halvas can be very sweet, it's often also fairly nutty as well, and this combination lends itself well to blending with chocolate or cinnamon.  I've only touched on many of the varieties of halvas available in the world, you can get them made with many different seeds, nuts, and flours, each lending a different flavour into the mix.  While you may only be able to buy the packaged variety of chalky sesame halva at your local store, the Internet is filled with many halvas recipes well worth trying at home.  This is a sweet treat well worth sampling in its many forms, and in particular well worth sampling as fresh as you can get it.

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This Week In Candy

Well I'm back from what I can only describe as an exhausting vacation.  While the trip did not focus on any candy adventures, being the Candy Critic I couldn't avoid sampling a few great sweets.  Most notably I learned a little more about a treat I had merely sampled in the past called Farsala Halvas.  Seeing as one of my stops on this trip was to Farsala, the place that this treat originated, I couldn't help but learn a little something about it, and I couldn't help but sample some of the best.  While I've talked a little on this blog about Halvas, later this week I'm going to break down the differences between the many varieties, and let you know why you should be sampling them.

Also on this vacation, I was inspired to start up a few new ideas on this blog.  To start it off, I'm going to start taking a look at awesome candy merchandise, in a section I'll call "Awesome Candy Merchandise".  I think that candy is much more than the sweet treats we eat, I think it's part of our culture, and some of things you can buy with a candy theme are pretty awesome.

Finally, I'm still working out my details for a future trip I have planned to Scotland and Northern England.  If you have any suggestions for must see, and must eat stops, let me know.

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Greek Food Show In Athens

Food shows can really be hit or miss for me.  Sometimes you pay to go into a food show, only to have to pay again and again just to get a bite sized portion of anything.  Other times you pay your entry fee and the food show is full of samples, and nibbles, enough to make you forget about dinner entirely.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I'm a sample hog.  I'm not the guy who walks up to a pile of sample bread sticks and walks away with 20 of them.  I believe in only trying one of each thing available, and if you like it, then maybe go in for another flavour if it's available.

This food show was pretty good on the free samples, and sadly full of people taking handfuls of samples at every opportunity.  I walked behind a few people with their hands full of little cups, tiny spoons, and mini squares of assorted foods.  If you wanted to eat more than a little sample, all of the vendors at this show offered to sell you larger quantities of whatever they had on sample.  So the idea of going in and taking more than a bite came off as really cheap.

Candy wise there was a few offering available, including several sugar free chocolate makers, a couple of traditional Greek sweets, hundreds of spoon sweet makers, and a few tasty cookies.  There wasn't too much that I would call "new" or unique treats available at the show.  Most of the treats I'd seen around town, or at least something very similar.

The one exception to this rule was a halvas that I sampled.  For the most part halvas comes in plain, chocolate and occasionally filled with various nuts.  At this show I had the opportunity to sample cranberry halvas.  It had a really nice tart texture that blended so nicely with the sesame and cocoa flavour of the traditional halvas.  I'd never thought about including juice flavours or even dried berries into a halvas, but I think it's something well worth trying again.  I think a raspberry halvas might work, as might I citrus halvas.  This sample really opened my eyes to some flavour combinations I'd never thought about before.

I had a really good time at this food show, I discovered a few new flavours I'd never sampled before, and I got to enjoy a few flavours that I was very familiar with.  I'm hoping that the large amount of people overindulging didn't put a damper on the show for the exhibitors.  I've been to a few shows that started off with many free samples, but had to change their policies because people visiting got greedy.  It changes the show, and most often not for the better.

Although I did sample a lot, Allison and I picked up a few treats as well, including this selection of sugar free chocolate bars which I hope to review very soon.

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Treats From Thessaloniki - Market Sweets

Last week I got back from a fun adventure to the city of Thessaloniki.  It's the second largest city in Greece, many consider it to be the cultural hub of Greece, but I would also consider it the baking capital of Greece.  It's not hard to argue that this city has some of the best food in the whole country, yet it's very surprising that more tourists don't come and visit. All this week I've decided that I'm going to highlight some of the food adventures I had on my epic adventure.  Most of the treats featured will be sweet, but not all of them.  What I can guarantee is by the time you read all of these adventures, you might consider a stop in Thessaloniki on your Greek vacation.

Most Greek markets that I've visited turn out to either be really small or so large that they're very intimidating. Most of the large markets tend to be so full of people, and general chaos, that I don't really have the ability to see anything for sale and I'm swept up in just trying to work my way through them.  The market in Thessaloniki is different, it's large enough to give you a great adventure, but not so crowded that you just want to leave.  There's plenty of room to look around at all of the stalls.

And many of the stalls were full of sweet treats.  Some had standard packaged goods, others had bulk treats, and most of them had traditional Greek sweets.  The variety of halva available was pretty good, and it all looked hand made.

There were also other Greek delights available that I had never seen before.  Since I'm working on a future project all about Greek treats, I probably should start learning about them too.  I've never felt so comfortable in a Greek market than I did at the Thessaloniki market.  I never felt rushed, I saw some spectacular looking sweets, and all of the people were very friendly.

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Special Greek Halva

Allison and I where traveling through Greece in the town of Ioannina and we discovered a really strange form of halva.  Apparently it's only available in this region, and it's only made by a few people.  Most forms of halva are opaque and brown, but this one is kind of transparent and "Jello" looking.  The texture when you bite into it is really unique too.  You'd think it would be gelatinous, but it's not, instead it's really smooth and it almost has a creamy consistency.  I'm not sure if I'd call it halva, having said that I'm not sure what the definition of halva really is, but I can say that this was a really tasty surprise.

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