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‘Pita Ladies’ at Syracuse Greek Festival Cook Up Traditional Food 'Pita Ladies' at the Syracuse Greek Festival cook up traditional food

The 2022 Syracuse Greek Festival kicks off today

By John Wallace

CHRYS INTZE: “You kinda walk the dough, so you can get little wrinkles in there… Wrinkles are important because it allows the steam to come through as it’s cooking.”

JACK WALLACE: Chrys Intze is one of the ‘pita ladies’ of the St. Sophia’s Greek Orthodox Church that turns out thousands of homemade pita for every annual festival.

INTZE: “Ya know, because it takes a lot of muscle. And we got over 260, that’s what we made this year. That’s a lot of, That’s over 5,000 pieces of pita. So, you know, it’s a lot.”

WALLACE: The process involves rolling out the homemade dough into a thin layer, Then putting on a spinach and cheese filling between the dough. The platters are then baked for an hour.

INTZE: “And they’re even delicious, more delicious when they’re nice and warm fresh out of the oven. As long as you don’t burn your tongue.”

WALLACE: For as much as she loves to cook, Intze says the most rewarding part is sharing her culture.

INTZE: “We’re like one big family, we know everybody, we all have the same backgrounds, or similar backgrounds. We enjoy our ethnicity, we enjoy our language, we enjoy our culture and food.”

WALLACE: Sophia Meskos is one of the organizers of the spanakoptia tents, and she says she sees the multi-generational connection within the church that the festival displays.

SOPHIA MESKOS: “We live and breathe our community which is a nice thing I don’t think you see very often anymore. Because we’re the only Greek church in Central New York, everybody kinda comes here to gather together.”

SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News)  — The annual Syracuse Greek Festival returns after a two-year hiatus, and the women of the St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Church are back cooking up as much pita as the ovens can fit.

Chrys Intze has been a volunteer cook for the church for the last four decades, and she prides herself on the sheer effort it takes to create so much food in such little time.

“Because it takes a lot of muscle,” Intze said. “And we got over 260, that’s what we made this year. That’s over 5,000 pieces of pita. So, you know, it’s a lot.”

Intze’s family arrived in Syracuse in 1917 with her grandparents, and she has had her family there ever since.

The family recipes of the women stays true, as they still stay strict to the old ways.

“We prepare spanakopita and tiropita very differently than most other festivals in that our phyllo is still homemade,” event organizer Sophia Mestos said. “We still do it in the old style, so it’s a lot of hard labor and a lot of skill.”

The festival runs from 5:00 p.m. tonight until 9:00 p.m., and throughout the weekend until wrapping up Sunday at 4 p.m.

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