Where history is served on a plate: A culinary journey with Meni Valle in Halkidiki

Cookbook writer Meni Valle is organising a culinary retreat successful mid-September that “combines Greek food, wine, and visual storytelling, successful 1 of my favourite places successful the world – Halkidiki, Greece – my location distant from home,” she told Neos Kosmos.

For Valle, nutrient tells the story of the taste weaving and layering implicit centuries and reflects the culinary palimpsest of a modern Greece. A federation that emerged from the Ottoman Empire with eastbound and west woven into its regular foodways.

“It’s astir storytelling—on a sheet and astir the table. This is so overmuch much than a nutrient retreat,” Valle said.

“Greece isn’t conscionable 1 homogenous country—it’s galore regions, each with its ain flavours, customs, and nutrient traditions passed down done generations.”

The culinary retreat coincides with Valle’s caller book, Thessaloniki: And the Many Kitchens of Northern Greece, published by Hardie Grant. In it, Valle turns her absorption to the divers and historically affluent cuisine of Greece’s second-largest city.

Author Meni Valle, beforehand successful white, third from left, with a radical of acolytes astatine the past culinary tour. Photo: Supplied

Over 70 recipes are paired with photography by Stephanie Stamatis, showcasing dishes shaped by the region’s multicultural heritage—including Sephardic, Ottoman and Asia Minor influences.

“Thessaloniki is simply a metropolis of confluence – it’s where nutrient tells the stories of migration, adaptation, and deep-rooted tradition.”

“From wild greens and stone fruits to heirloom legumes oregon the famed elephant beans” said Valle.

“What we devour present tells a deeper story astir who we are, where we travel from and however we live,” said Valle.

She explained that she cares profoundly astir “sharing the existent nutrient of Greece due to the fact that it tells a story.”

“When you taste food from Epirus, bougatsa from Thessaloniki, olives from Kalamata, oregon caller food from the islands, you’re tasting the land, the radical and their way of life.

The dolma, from the Middle East and crossed Asia Minor into Greece. Photo: Supplied

These foods transportation history, love, and tradition. I don’t want to alteration them oregon formal them up—I want to support them honest, conscionable similar the radical down them,” Valle told Neos Kosmos.

“Dishes we present see Greek—like avgolemono soup from Sephardic Jews, oregon moussaka from the Balkans—have roots that stretch crossed borders and centuries,” said Valle.

“Influences from the Ottoman Empire, the Mediterranean, and adjacent Sephardic Jewish communities person shaped what we devour today.

The creation of beingness and nutrient – connected Meni Valle’s culinary retreat successful Greece. Photo: Supplied

“For me, honouring Greek nutrient means not lone preserving section traditions, but besides recognising the galore taste threads that person been woven into each look implicit time. It’s a cuisine of memory, migration, and shared heritage,” she added.

Sephardic Jews, expelled from Spain during the tallness of the Spanish Inquisition, settled successful Thessaloniki successful 1492. Between 40,000 and 100,000 Jews were expelled, galore of whom resettled successful Greece and Asia Minor.

Balkan peppers – a staple. Photo: Supplied

“Moussaka—with béchamel sauce—was created successful the aboriginal 20th period by cook Nikolaos Tselementes, who was trained successful and influenced by French cuisine, and introduced béchamel into the Greek kitchen.

“Moussaka had existed successful the Balkans arsenic eggplant casseroles without the creamy topping,” Valle pointed out.

Participants will stay astatine Elies 33, a edifice known for its elegance and proximity to the region’s coastal beauty. E-bikes will beryllium provided for idiosyncratic exploration of the surrounding area, allowing guests to take successful Halkidiki’s conifer forests, turquoise bays, and hidden villages astatine their ain pace.

The retreat includes cooking classes led by Valle utilizing lone seasonal ingredients from section producers. There are besides photography and nutrient styling workshops with creatives Lean Timms and Stephanie Stamatis, and a full-day excursion to Thessaloniki, including a guided marketplace tour and traditional lunch.

Local food, section euphony and eternal light. Photo: Supplied

Valle is each astir the hearth, and home, and she told Neos Kosmos that the Halkidiki retreat is “for location cooks, originative professionals, and anyone seeking meaningful, slow travel.”

“It’s astir sharing much than food—it’s astir perspective, pace, and rediscovering joyousness done culture.”

Whether done her immersive retreats oregon writing, Meni Valle creates space for connection—one meal, 1 image, and 1 story astatine a time.