The currently running World Chefs’ Conference, being held at the Helexpo in downtown Thessaloniki, is a meeting place for over 700 top chefs from all over the world.
Their goals are to inform one another and the public about global developments and culinary trends. Events include a pastry competition, with fellow chefs urging participants on to greater quality work.
The spotlight on Monday’s program (September 26th) was on two local chefs, Arigiris Barbarigou, and a monk from Mt. Athos, Epiphanios. Argiris put on a clinic of what can be done with spinach, with a side presentation of the feeding of refugees to Greece. Epiphanios introduced the simple, healthy aspects of the monastic kitchen. This included cooking cod over a wood fire in a pot outside the venue.
Professor Dora Katsanopoulou presented the results of extensive research on culinary traditions of the Mediterranean. In addition the city of Thessaloniki had a stand dedicated to local, traditional sweets, featuring “trigonakia,” some syrup-infused desserts, in addition to traditional “traxana (a wheat-based soup)” cooked by Kiki Emanouilidou, member of the Chefs and Confectioners of Northern Greece.
