Transcription
Michalis: My name is Michalis Daskalakis Giodis and I am at the former Jewish apartment buildings of Larissa with Mrs. Anita Pinto and Mrs. Luna Arart. Good morning from us as well. With her kind invitation to come and show us how to make kompeta, which is a traditional Purim sweet and she is one of the few ladies who can make it so beautifully.
Luna: Good morning. I was very, very happy that you came to my house. I've known Anita since I was a young child when I got married and she came from Karditsa. I learned to make kompeta and I thank my Anita very much.
Preparation of Kompeta:
Luna: To make kompeta we buy sesame seeds. There are white sesame seeds and natural form. I work more with natural sesame, which we put in the bowl and wash. We wash it, we drain it. This is the process. It's done 5-6 times. After we say it's finished and clean, I put it here like this to drain. After I leave it for about two hours to drain.
Luna: The onion should be coarsely chopped - this gives the nice aroma. The almonds are blanched and toasted, which I have put in for them to soften and when you toast them they become better. We add orange zest and let the mixture bind.
History and Traditions:
Luna: First of all, kompeta is the traditional sweet of Purim. In Larissa we made it very much. There were two older women who knew the method and it was one of the characteristic sweets of Purim.
Luna: As a custom we had - every house would put a plate, various sweets that the housewife made, and we would send them with the children from one house to another with the purpose of getting the Purim liki, that is, pocket money. We put at least three sweets on the plate.
Luna: The younger ones went to the older ones and everyone gave something to the children and at the same time filled the plate with sweets. This happened every year and in the evening many times for Purim we always made parties at the Leska and outside dances and all that, and it became a carnival for the children.
Continuation of Preparation:
Luna: We add the sesame and stir very quickly for the sesame to bind with the honey and sugar, the almonds and orange, to become one, to blend well and bind. And when it starts to come off the bottom, we see it's ready.
Michalis: Is the sesame white or black?
Luna: There are two types of sesame, the natural one as they say and the white one. I, all of us here, use natural sesame. It's more difficult to wash but it's also tastier.
Anita: I make it with white because it's easier. I saw them making the black ones and saw how difficult it was. But I also washed the white one when I used it. Nothing unwashed in the house.
Shaping the Kompeta:
Luna: We wet it with water so it doesn't stick. That's what the water is for. With the help of two spoons we spread it here. One helps the other. We open it a little. Others tell me that you make it very thin. I like it as thin as possible.
Anita: I do it up to this point as you do. From there on I start cutting it because I don't know how to give shape to my pieces. And I make them square.
Luna: A friend of mine who learned it but can't, as Anita says, make the pieces. And what does she do? Before she gets to do this thing she takes the spoon and makes them like little chocolates.
Luna: Many times I sprinkle the counter and the plastic so the sesame doesn't stick on top. I remember my mother-in-law too - this is my mother-in-law's knife. And that plastic is from my mother. I remember our mothers and our mothers-in-law who were excellent.
Variations and Naming:
Anita: I don't know where the name kompeta comes from. We had it like this in Larissa. Because they call it pastel. And in Thessaloniki they call it pastel, they don't call it kompeta. Only in Larissa they call it kompeta.
Luna: Here in Rhodes they call it melekuni and they give it at weddings. But we, apart from Purim, we make it when a baby is teething.
Anita: Let me also say a little about the Purim custom in Thessaloniki. The Thessalonians always came to us - those of us who had relatives - novias. It's foularikos, that is, little dolls made of sugar and we enjoyed them very much.
Anita: My in-laws, my parents spoke Spanish very much because they were all Sephardic. They had come before the persecution from Spain. But mostly my nona spoke - we called grandma nona. She spoke Spanish constantly and my father.
Completion:
Luna: The kompeta is finished. It's done. Everything is made. Now everything is on the reverse side. But in a little while we'll place it like this when we serve it.
Michalis: We want to thank you very much both for the hospitality and for the way you made us the kompeta, showed it to us, treated us, and opened both your heart and your home to us.
Luna: I was very, very happy, children.
The interview with Ms. Luna Arart and Ms. Anita Pinto records the recipe for koubeta, the traditional Purim sweet, and reveals aspects of the daily and festive life of the Jewish community of Larissa. Through the preparation of the sweet, the participants recount customs, family traditions, and linguistic elements that reflect the rich Sephardic heritage of the region.
Luna Arar & Anita Pido
Transcription
Michalis: My name is Michalis Daskalakis Giodis and I am at the former Jewish apartment buildings of Larissa with Mrs. Anita Pinto and Mrs. Luna Arart. Good morning from us as well. With her kind invitation to come and show us how to make kompeta, which is a traditional Purim sweet and she is one of the few ladies who can make it so beautifully.
Luna: Good morning. I was very, very happy that you came to my house. I've known Anita since I was a young child when I got married and she came from Karditsa. I learned to make kompeta and I thank my Anita very much.
Preparation of Kompeta:
Luna: To make kompeta we buy sesame seeds. There are white sesame seeds and natural form. I work more with natural sesame, which we put in the bowl and wash. We wash it, we drain it. This is the process. It's done 5-6 times. After we say it's finished and clean, I put it here like this to drain. After I leave it for about two hours to drain.
Luna: The onion should be coarsely chopped - this gives the nice aroma. The almonds are blanched and toasted, which I have put in for them to soften and when you toast them they become better. We add orange zest and let the mixture bind.
History and Traditions:
Luna: First of all, kompeta is the traditional sweet of Purim. In Larissa we made it very much. There were two older women who knew the method and it was one of the characteristic sweets of Purim.
Luna: As a custom we had - every house would put a plate, various sweets that the housewife made, and we would send them with the children from one house to another with the purpose of getting the Purim liki, that is, pocket money. We put at least three sweets on the plate.
Luna: The younger ones went to the older ones and everyone gave something to the children and at the same time filled the plate with sweets. This happened every year and in the evening many times for Purim we always made parties at the Leska and outside dances and all that, and it became a carnival for the children.
Continuation of Preparation:
Luna: We add the sesame and stir very quickly for the sesame to bind with the honey and sugar, the almonds and orange, to become one, to blend well and bind. And when it starts to come off the bottom, we see it's ready.
Michalis: Is the sesame white or black?
Luna: There are two types of sesame, the natural one as they say and the white one. I, all of us here, use natural sesame. It's more difficult to wash but it's also tastier.
Anita: I make it with white because it's easier. I saw them making the black ones and saw how difficult it was. But I also washed the white one when I used it. Nothing unwashed in the house.
Shaping the Kompeta:
Luna: We wet it with water so it doesn't stick. That's what the water is for. With the help of two spoons we spread it here. One helps the other. We open it a little. Others tell me that you make it very thin. I like it as thin as possible.
Anita: I do it up to this point as you do. From there on I start cutting it because I don't know how to give shape to my pieces. And I make them square.
Luna: A friend of mine who learned it but can't, as Anita says, make the pieces. And what does she do? Before she gets to do this thing she takes the spoon and makes them like little chocolates.
Luna: Many times I sprinkle the counter and the plastic so the sesame doesn't stick on top. I remember my mother-in-law too - this is my mother-in-law's knife. And that plastic is from my mother. I remember our mothers and our mothers-in-law who were excellent.
Variations and Naming:
Anita: I don't know where the name kompeta comes from. We had it like this in Larissa. Because they call it pastel. And in Thessaloniki they call it pastel, they don't call it kompeta. Only in Larissa they call it kompeta.
Luna: Here in Rhodes they call it melekuni and they give it at weddings. But we, apart from Purim, we make it when a baby is teething.
Anita: Let me also say a little about the Purim custom in Thessaloniki. The Thessalonians always came to us - those of us who had relatives - novias. It's foularikos, that is, little dolls made of sugar and we enjoyed them very much.
Anita: My in-laws, my parents spoke Spanish very much because they were all Sephardic. They had come before the persecution from Spain. But mostly my nona spoke - we called grandma nona. She spoke Spanish constantly and my father.
Completion:
Luna: The kompeta is finished. It's done. Everything is made. Now everything is on the reverse side. But in a little while we'll place it like this when we serve it.
Michalis: We want to thank you very much both for the hospitality and for the way you made us the kompeta, showed it to us, treated us, and opened both your heart and your home to us.
Luna: I was very, very happy, children.