I recently visited my hometown about 45 minutes north of Cincinnati, a city famed for its food in the way North Korea is famed for its civil liberties.
Of all the Queen City’s notorious foodstuffs, none catch more flak than Cincinnati chili, a distinctly soupy concoction made famous by parlors like Empress and Skyline. But if you’re going to cast stones at Cincy’s admittedly rough-looking signature dish, you should at least know of its close connection to:
The next dish you should try in Indy
It’s impossible not to draw comparisons between the stew Tom and John Kiradjieff first served at Empress Chili and the assorted meat sauces common in the Kiradjieffs’ birthplace of Macedonia, now part of Greece. Those curiously peppery sauces star in a number of staple dishes, most famously moussaka, which you can find at Canal Bistro in Broad Ripple.
Canal Bistro’s moussaka most closely resembles the Greek version of the dish, which is distinguished by slabs of eggplant or potato (in this case, both) shingled with generously sauced ground meat and topped with a beautifully browned layer of béchamel. The al dente potato and crumbly beef make for supremely hearty mouthfuls brightened by aromatic spices like cinnamon and oregano. The comfort factor increases exponentially thanks to the béchamel — essentially a butter sauce with cream and a little nutmeg — and the tender eggplant lends some welcome vegetal flavor to what is otherwise a compacted brick of cardiovascular health risk factors.
As you might expect, Greek-style moussaka has a remarkably homey flavor. It’s the sort of dish that gets passed down through generations. And while that may be the case, those generations probably don’t go as far back as you’d expect.
The earliest known reference to moussaka appears in an 1862 Turkish cookbook that includes a recipe for muzakka, described as “minced mutton, done with egg-plants.” But it stands to reason that some composition of eggplant, ground meat and other long-cultivated plants like chickpeas has been consumed for centuries in nations like Turkey, Egypt and other Levantine countries, in the Levant, all of whom claim a variation of moussaka as part of their cuisine today.
It’s unclear whether this style of moussaka reached modern-day Greece before or after Greece split from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. But what we do know with some certainty is when the moussaka we know today arrived.
During the early 1930s, a Greek cook and magazine publisher named Nikolaos Tselementes returned to his homeland after stints at prestigious restaurants in Europe and the United States. Tselementes brought with him a collection of recipes dubbed the “Odios Mageirikis” (“cookbook,” basically), many of which reimagined Greek cuisine. One of these was a new-fangled recipe for moussaka that elevated the dish with the most hallowed of French culinary techniques: throwing a bunch of cream on there.
Tselementes’ writings would go on to shape a good deal of modern Greek cuisine, to the extent that in some parts of Greece his name is a generic term for cookbook. That said, Tselementes’ work is not universally beloved among Greeks. Some have criticized the chef for artificially reshaping the nation’s food in the image of other, supposedly more haute cuisines, showing little regard for traditional recipes in the process.
At first blush, this critique seems a bit like pearl-clutching. There’s no question Tselementes elevated his native cuisine and, speaking from the admittedly biased perspective of a corn-fed Midwesterner, I welcome a thick layer of dairy atop my food wherever possible. Still, I can understand how it would be frustrating for people in Greece to suddenly feel like their family’s food was somehow passé; I’ve never considered myself an aggressive person, but if someone insulted my mom’s meatloaf, I could see myself tweaking my stance on nonviolent conflict resolution.
Alas, at least here in the States, Tselementes’ béchamel-topped moussaka is the people’s choice, and you can find a strong rendition at Canal Bistro. It’s hearty, deeply satisfying and should serve as a reminder to traditionalists that Tselementes could have done far worse in bastardizing his native cuisine — I mean, my God, have you seen what they did to Greek food over in Cincinnati?
What: Moussaka, $23 with side salad
Where: Canal Bistro, 6349 Guilford Ave., (317) 254-8700, canal-bistro.com
In case that’s not your thing: In addition to Greek food, Canal Bistro offers dishes from throughout the Mediterranean basin including Greece and co-owners George and Hanna Mona’s home countries of Egypt and Lebanon. That entails a wide variety of bright, fresh salads ($14 to $21), gyro, shawarma and falafel sandwiches ($14 to $17) and entrées like lamb chops ($37), fish with couscous ($21 to $24) and Lebanon’s very different version of moussaka with eggplant, zucchini and chickpeas over rice ($20). And the stuffed grape leaves, or dolmathes ($13), are lovely.
Contact dining reporter Bradley Hohulin at bhohulin@indystar.com. You can follow him on Instagram @BradleyHohulin and stay up to date with Indy dining news by signing up for the Indylicious newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: INdulge: Dish that helped reshape Greek cuisine is next to try in Indy
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