Nikos Tselementes, kitchen magician and great teacher of cooking and confectionery. The "Guide to Cooking and Confectionery", published in 1926, modernized and promoted Greek cuisine.
Since then, his name has been synonymous with cooking guides and has been remembered for decades. And his books move housewives even today as his recipes are unsurpassed.
Who was Nicholas Tselementes?
Nikolaos Tselementes was born in 1878 in the village of Exabela in Sifnos and grew up in Athens, where he finished High School. Initially, he worked as a notary and then as a cook, working in his uncle's restaurant. He studied cooking for a year in Vienna and on his return worked as a chef in various embassies.
His first steps
In 1910 he began publishing in 1910 the magazine "Cooking Guide" due to which he first became known. In addition to recipes, this magazine contained dietary tips, international cuisine and cooking news.
In 1919 he became the director of the Hermes Hotel, and the following year he left for America, where he worked in some of the most expensive restaurants in the world, while also studying cooking, confectionery and diet.
The publication of the cooking guide
In April 1926, the book " Cooking and Pastry Guide" was published, which was the first complete cooking guide in our country. The book was a great success and was reprinted more than fifteen times in the following decades.
He returned permanently to Athens and founded a small school of cooking and confectionery. In 1950 he published a book in Greek about Greek cooking ("Greek Cookery").
Influenced by French cuisine, Celementes was a modernist of Greek cuisine, as thanks to him Greek housewives learned béchamel, piroski and bouillabaisse, which according to some was tantamount to falsifying Greek cuisine.
Nikolaos Tselementes died on March 2, 1958 in Athens, at the age of 80. Its name is now synonymous with cooking guides, and is also used as a joke to someone who knows how to cook very well.
