The Department of Tourism of the Municipality of Thessaloniki, attempting to bring together sustainable local production with consumers and entrepreneurs of the city, is organizing a Christmas market on Sunday 3 December from 10.00 in the morning to 8.00 in the afternoon, at the foyer of Thessaloniki Town Hall.

Thessaloniki, a city of the Unesco network of creative cities in gastronomy, aims to promote sustainability, local products, food for life practices followed by producers, the smallest carbon footprint for the environment and the use of the circular economy to reduce waste.

At the Christmas market visitors will have the opportunity to taste:

• healthy drinks produced exclusively by biological and natural methods
• healthy, fasting & vegetarian nut butters ground in a stone mill
• spirits (cognac tsipouro) without preservatives and colouring fibres, based on traditional recipes
• Pontian tomato sauce with organic spices and extra virgin olive oil
• black beans, a superfood rich in fibre, which gives colour to chefs’ dishes
• Christmas pastries from a traditional bakery that evoke memories from the 98 years of the company’s operation
• organic juices without preservatives, water and sugar
• ointments, vegetable pates and whole, 100% natural dried vegetables

Also:

• handmade pasta based on Pontian recipes, made with pure ingredients that won a taste award
• extra virgin olive oil with international distinctions
• gourmet durum wheat pasta with flaxseed and buffalo or goat’s milk
• traditional products from the women’s cooperative of Melissochori made with seasonal local materials
• free-from snacks and bars, otherwise known as biofunctional foods for special diets, based on ingredients such as flaxseed, buckwheat, quinoa, amaranth
• dressings from extra virgin olive oil with the addition of herbs
• innovative products made by hand, using exclusively as raw material the varieties of Florina peppers
• syrups from meadowsweet, sage, lavender, mint, hand-picked herbs and traditional recipes
• “”Fantastic” traditional products from a modern grocery store
• jams from super foods and sauces with hot Greek red pepper and ginger
• cold-crushed fruit oils
• feta and manouri with fresh milk, which is produced exclusively from goat and sheep breeds reared in the rich flora of the prefectures of Grevena and Kozani
• unique crackers with currant butter and spices
• savoury and sweet products of black and white truffles

In the “sweet” corner of the Christmas market you will find:

The Pop Up Kitchen of the Christmas Market will open with the children from the school of Special Education of Pylaia Chortiatis and chef Tasos Christopoulos, who with great taste will sweeten the visitors with healthy truffles from the pure ingredients of the producers of the Market. Then, the trainees of the Thessaloniki Vocational Training Centre of the Ministry of Tourism, together with their teachers, the chefs Antonis Mastora, Stavroula Kesidou, Sofia Teftsi, Vasiliki Staikou and the pastry chefs Paschalis Zervidis, Nikos Pozoukidis and Nikos Alexiadis will create traditional recipes of dishes and sweets with the organic products of the exhibitors. You will taste tender sparerib steak with orzo and black truffle, fillet with trahanoto and eggplant paste, Christmas salad with pomegranate and dressing of the producers and Christmas cookies.

The presentation of the producers and their products and the “sweet cuisine” will be presented by the journalist Rallio Lepidou and the web-tv of Ka-Business.gr