Yiayia Katerina’s Pumpkin Pita (κολοκυθόπιτα)

The Sydney Markets are woven into the fabric of our family history. In very early 1960s, my father in law opened a corner store in Sydney’s Dulwich Hill. Like other Greek migrants who became grocers, Baba was one of the many faces of Australia’s emerging multiculturalism in the postwar years. As a grocer, he became a trusted source of advice for other new Greek migrants. Baba also introduced anglo-Australians to a new culture and food traditions. 

Fresh fruit and vegetables were an important part of Baba’s corner store. Before dawn, his day would start with a trip to the Sydney Markets (then in Sydney city) for a supply of whatever was best in season. Baba would cast a keen eye to find the mediterranean produce he knew his mainly Greek, Italian and Lebanese customers needed to make their traditional dishes. Baba fondly remembers trying to stay ahead of food trends (yes, there were food trends in the 1960s). One year, grapefruits were heralded to be a weight loss essential. The trend didn’t take off quite as well as he hoped and Baba recalls eating grapefruit, for what seemed like days on end. 

Baba’s favourite story about a trip to the Sydney Markets was the day my husband arrived in the world. Baba recalls heading out to the markets in his 1970s Kingswood station wagon, as usual before dawn. Being late winter, he had filled the wagon with the market’s best cabbages and cauliflowers. He came home to find his fourth baby was  imminently about to arrive and my mother in law needed to be rushed to hospital. With no time to unload the produce, Baba said he never drove so fast as he did that day, worrying his son would literally arrive in a box of cabbages. 

Like most neighbourhood corner stores, the family home sat behind. Very occasionally, Baba was permitted entry into Mama’s kitchen. Inspired by the seasonal produce he bought home from the market, Baba would try to re-create the simple dishes that he remembered his own mother preparing in his childhood village near Ancient Olympia. In spring, it was tender broad beans, lightly floured and fried whole in extra virgin olive oil. In summer, he would scramble fresh eggs with juicy ripe tomatoes and a hint of garlic.  

Remembering his mother Katerina’s cooking, Baba recalled a savoy pumpkin pie that she would make as the slate-grey light of autumn arrived in his small village. So evocative were the flavours and texture of this pita, that even in his early nineties Baba knew exactly which ingredients were required. The velvety flesh of the pumpkin needed tangy, herby pops of feta to contrast its sweetness and shards of crunchy, olive oil rich phyllo pastry for texture. 

With over 60 years experience with fresh produce, Baba knows a thing or two about spotting the best autumn pumpkin. “It should sound a bit hollow when tapped, Keti” he said to me. “…And don’t pick a pale one. Dense, bright orange flesh is what you want” Baba advises. 

Baba closed his corner store about 20 years ago and now in search of the best-quality pumpkin I could find, that would meet with his discerning eye, I went straight to another Greek family owned grocer. Vicki and Dimitri own Fresh Harvest in the Southern Sydney suburb of Engadine.

Having grown up in Sydney’s South, I had bought produce from Vicki and Dimitri, long before I came to be part of my own Greek family. Now living closer to the city, I still return to shop with Vicki and Dimitri when I can. My parents, who still live in Sydney’s south, have shopped at Fresh Harvest for more than a decade and still continue to do so, knowing it to be a trusted source of super fresh, high quality produce. 

Dimitri does the pre-dawn runs to the Sydney Market and Vicki hails from a long family line of Sydney based greengrocers. At around the same time my father in law had his corner store in the inner west, Vicki’s dad was a greengrocer in Sydney’s northern Suburbs. Vicki recalls that after a day spent at school, she would return home to craft the signs for her father’s shop, as well as that of her uncle. 

When the time came to close his shop, Vicki’s father chose to return with his family to his beautiful village of Ploumari on the spectacular Greek island of Lesvos. It was here that Vicki met and married Dimitri, but it wasn’t long before they returned to Sydney to continue the family tradition of providing their community with the best produce from the Sydney Markets. 

Today, Vicki was interested to know how I was going to make Yiayia Katerina’s Peloponnesian pumpkin pita. Vicki tells me that on her island of Lesvos pumpkin pitas were normally a sweet offering with sultanas and warming spices like cinnamon. A talent for food clearly runs in the family and Vicki also tells me that today her own daughter was attempting her first Galaktoboureko (a famous Greek custard filled phyllo pie). “It’s my aunt’s recipe” Vicki noted, saying “I had to look through all my recipe notes to find it. Make sure you come back soon and I’ll give you the recipe.”

Shopping with Vicki and Dimitri reminds me a lot of the times I have shopped at our small local street market in Greece. I love feeling part of a connected community and where else would you be happily offered trusted family recipes to accompany your beautiful produce!