Desserts and Sweets

In the eighth century A.D., long before sugar was introduced to northern Europe, it was already in use as a sweetener in the southern Mediterranean, in Spain, and in Cyprus. Modern Greeks share their love for sweets with their Arab neighbors and with the Turks, who ruled Greece for four hundred years, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.

But even before the introduction of sugar, ancient Greeks used honey to prepare sweets similar to the fried dough pastries and the pies we make today, using sesame seeds, pine nuts, almonds, and walnuts.