Nemea Moustalevria (Μουσταλευριά Νεμέας)

Nemea moustalevria is the Peloponnese at grape harvest, fresh unfermented must thickened with flour into a dark, glossy pudding and finished with walnuts, sesame, and cinnamon. It belongs to the press day, when the juice is sweet, raw, and already impatient. The region is the dish's surname here, because the must is not a background flavor; it is the dish.

The method that decides it is the cleaning of the must. Bring it up slowly, skim every gray froth that rises, and strain it before flour comes near the pot. That froth carries the rough taste and cloud from the crushed grapes. Leave it behind and the pudding sets clear, deep, and gentle.

After that, you only whisk cool must with flour, cook until the spoon leaves a path, and pour it into shallow bowls. It is nistisimo, fasting food, without trying: no milk, no butter, no eggs. I have recipes in my Thessaloniki notebook from Nemea, Patras, and Kalamata, and the careful cooks all wrote the same warning in different handwriting: clean the must first.