The story of the loukoumi that made Thessaloniki famous and that we all loved from a young age, begins in the depths of the East, specifically in Trebizond, back in 1912, from the great-grandfather of the family, Stavros Papadopoulos. He brought the recipe, which he perfected through trials, with him to Greece, from the Balkans where he was expelled in 1922 and the business was established in 1948 in Thessaloniki and on Syngrou Street, having already “traveled” to some areas of the country. This was also the first historical store of the loukoumia “Papadopoulou” in our city, until 2001, when they opened the store known to all of us today on 49 Ionos Dragoumi street. Very recently, they also opened their new store, in Kalamaria.
More than a century after the first steps, the business is today taken over by the fourth generation of the family, the great-grandchildren of the original initiator of the “secret” recipe.
In today’s stores, we will find all the original products: loukoumia in every color, flavor and aroma, spoon sweets, vanillas (the Greek ‘submarine’ spoon sweet), cookies, halva and sesame seed candies, Greek sweet breads, syrup soaked sweets , and as time goes by and new types of products.
Small bites, sprinkled with powdered sugar
The Papadopoulou family’s loukoumia are different. Small bites sprinkled with powdered sugar, fluffier and softer than others, almost melt in the mouth. Choice of many shopkeepers of Thessaloniki, who offer them to us as a treat with our Greek coffee, housewives who regularly have them as a treat, every customer who wants a sweet gift that has the smell of tradition for their loved ones.
And they are special and well-known, because in all these decades, nothing has changed in the final product, since it was first released, as the traditional oriental lokum. The recipe is the same (the original recipe is rumored to have originated in 1,300 AD), so is the love, pure and fresh ingredients and stability, “ingredients” with which they are prepared daily. This is, after all, the philosophy of the family: not to change anything in their stores, to keep the recipe as secret but stable as possible, no matter how many stores they open, whether in the city of Thessaloniki, or in other regions of the country, even abroad – something that is within the company’s investment plans. On the other hand, already, the products of the Papadopoulou family can be found almost everywhere, in cafes and other shops, all over Greece.
The recipe is “revealed” only a little: sugar, water, glucose, corn starch and carefully selected flavorings, are shaped and baked in hot cauldrons, from which rich aromas are released, with fruits or nuts added, depending on the product. The square, fluffy bites are sprinkled with plenty of sugar or coconut, to get the final product, which is also available in larger pieces or packages.
