Pasteli

Pasteli is one of the oldest sweets still eaten in Greece. Linear B clay tablets from the Mycenaean world, around the fifteenth century BC, already record both sesame and honey, its only two ingredients. The fifth-century BC historian Herodotus mentions sesame-and-honey confections, and similar sesame sweets recur throughout classical antiquity, where the combination was prized as a portable, energy-dense food. The honey-and-sesame mixture is traditionally said to have been carried by Greek soldiers as battle fare, valued for the sustained energy it gave. On the Aegean islands the custom of serving pasteli at weddings has endured, and it is frequently called the world's first energy bar.

Intensely sesame, with a deep toasted nuttiness and a clean honey sweetness behind it; there is nothing else to hide behind. Texture is the variable: cooked lightly it stays soft and pliant, almost taffy-like and chewy, while cooked longer it sets hard and snaps into shards that crackle and stick a little to the teeth. The sesame gives a faint, pleasant bitterness that keeps the honey from cloying. A strip of citrus peel cooked in lends a bright top note, and any added nuts bring extra crunch.

There are no shortcuts and no leavening; the whole texture is controlled by sugar chemistry. Honey is heated until it reaches the right stage on the candy scale, and the temperature it reaches decides the result: stopped lower, the set is soft and chewy; taken to the hard-crack stage, around 150°C, it cools brittle and glassy. Toasting the sesame first is what builds the flavour, drawing out the oils and deepening the nuttiness. The hot sesame is stirred quickly through the honey, then the mixture is poured onto an oiled surface or parchment and pressed thin while still hot, because it stiffens fast and cannot be shaped once cool. Scoring it before it fully sets makes clean pieces possible.