“Greek phrases were heard frequently at home,” writes retired museum professional Annette Fromm in the book “Jewish Mothers Tell Their Stories: Acts of Love and Courage.” “My mother spoke them in anger and in love, to hasten or caution us, or just to keep them alive in her mind.”

Annette’s maternal grandmother Esther, who she called Nona, was born in Ioannina, a town in the northwest corner of Greece, an hour south of the Albanian border. In Ioannina, “there were at least three to five mosques, numerous churches, and two synagogues, each of which had a small minyan” explains Annette, referring to a group that meets for prayer. Here, Esther was raised in a community of Romaniote Jews — though Annette prefers the term Greek-speaking Jews. “They’re Byzantine Jews,” she adds, part of a community whose roots pre-date the Sephardic Jews who moved to the Ottoman Empire during the Spanish Inquisition. 

By 1900, when Esther was little, there were 4,000 Jews living in Ioannina. Her family lived in a walled area of the city called the Kastro, which juts into Lake Pamvotis. But, after her father passed away, the family moved to the Lower East Side looking for new opportunities. In New York, Esther met Annette’s grandfather, a haberdasher and shoe shiner, whose family was from the town Filiates and the same community. 

Together, they lived deep within the Greek community in the U.S. “My Nona did not speak a lot of English. I don’t believe she could read or write… she lived in a cocoon of other Greek Jewish women around her,” Annette explains. “What they knew was to be Greek.” She listened to Greek records and Esther kept traditions from Greece alive at the family table. “She was always in the kitchen and there were always pots of stuff cooking with tomatoes, and onions, and garlic,” like okra with tomatoes, stuffed tomatoes and peppers.

Among the family recipes is patrigian mi tiri, an eggplant and cheese-laden casserole that’s unique to the Greek-spreaking Jewish community. “Over the years, I figured out… it’s a kosher moussaka because it has no meat in it,” says Annette.  

It was passed down to Annette’s mother Mollie who raised Annette and her brothers in a home where Greek culture was prized. Growing up in Pittsburgh, Annette attended both Hebrew school at a local synagogue and Greek school at a Greek Orthodox church, where she was excused from religious lessons. 

Annette learned the recipe and carried it with her as an adult. In the mid 1970’s, she made it in her tiny home in Jamaica where she served in the Peace Corps, and she brought it to potlucks in Indiana where she lived later. She’s continued to make it for her family as she’s moved around the U.S. 

When tracing the roots of the recipe, Annette says: “There’s the source, who is our grandmother, our Nona in Greece and New York, then my mother took it….then my brother and I took it.” She adds: “It’s like a family tree.”