Cookery and food is another thing Sifnos is known about
That is because the most famous Greek cook (chef) was Sifnian! His name was Nikolaos Tselementes and he became the most famous because he wrote the first cook book in Greek! Now it is the same in Greek if you ask "do you have a cook book?" or "do you have a tselemente?" and there are many people who still think that "tselementes" means "cookbook".
Nikolaos Tselementes studied cooking in Greece and abroad, worked in many countries as a chef and then he came back and started publishing recipes and advice about eating habits in a newspaper. In about 1910 his first - and The First – cook book in Greek was published.
Following his steps many Sifnians became cooks and chefs and worked mostly abroad, some of them became also well-known. So a tradition was created and now there are more than 15 young Sifnians who are studying or have just finished studying cookery.
Of course like every other place in Greece we do have some specialities. If you want to taste some, you can choose among several taverns in different villages around Sifnos.
Some of these traditional dishes are:
- "mastelo", lamb cooked in a ceramic pot with wine and dill in an oven with open fire
- "revithada", thick chickpea soup cooked again in a ceramic pot in an oven with open fire
- "revithokeftedes", fried chickpea balls with herbs
- "kaparosalata", caper-salad with sun dried capers cooked with onions
- "mizithra", goat and sheep cheese, white soft and a bit sour, perfect at the top of a greek salad
- "manoura", yellow, hard, spicy, goat and sheep cheese preserved in the mug of wine
- and some sweets: rolls with anise, biscuits with butter, almond sweets in a saucepan or in the oven, tea-spoon sweets, "bourekia" (pastry staffed with almonds, honey and sesame) and "melopita" (honey-pie made of unsalted Sifnos cheese honey and eggs).
