Petimezi

Petimezi is grape must boiled down until it thickens into a dark syrup, and it sweetened Greek food for centuries before sugar was affordable to most households. It is made at the vintage from the same juice that would otherwise become wine, traditionally settled with a chalky white earth to take the sharp edge off its acidity, then reduced slowly until it coats a spoon.

Moustokouloura, the dark spiced biscuits made in the weeks when the must is running, contain neither eggs nor butter and depend on petimezi for their colour and their sweetness alike. Moustalevria sets the same syrup into a pudding with flour or semolina, bobota sweetens a cornmeal cake with it, and Cypriot soutzoukos builds it in layers around a string of threaded almonds or walnuts.

It is less sweet than honey and noticeably more acidic, with a raisin-like depth behind it, so swapping one straight for the other alters the balance of a recipe rather than just its flavour. Good petimezi is thick, almost black, and made from grapes and nothing else, with no added sugar. Poured over thick yogurt it needs no other help at all.