This flaky filo pastry encasing tangy, briny feta, traces its roots to Greece’s long tradition of combining simple, high quality ingredients with rustic baking techniques. Filo itself, evolved from Byzantine and Ottoman pastry making influences, while feta has been a staple of Greek shepherding culture for millennia, made from sheep’s and sometimes goat’s milk and aged in brine. The dish crystallises those histories with rural households and village cooks would wrap preserved cheeses in thin pastry for portable, hearty snacks or celebratory fare, and urban tavernas later polished the idea into the elegant, shareable pies and parcels we adore today.

Its beloved status comes from that perfect contrast, crisp, buttery layers giving way to creamy, salty feta, and for mine the addition of sesame seeds give it a nutty hit and the honey a sweet balancer to cut through the creamy feta cheese. A lot of recipes ask to fry the parcel, but I think an oven bake is cleaner, easier and offer a lot less calories, with the dish being just as delicious.