LINK to earlier blogpost links on Greek food
Macedonia and Thrace, the northeastern part of mainland Greece (the areas officially became part of Greece in 1913), are home to a wonderful mosaic of people from various ethnic backgrounds and diverse culinary traditions. 

In addition to the descendants of the transhumant Vlach shepherds, there is a Muslim, Turkish-speaking community in Thrace, and people of Slavic or Bulgarian origins throughout Macedonia.

Pontians, Greeks who have lived in the Black Sea regions of the ex-Soviet Union, gradually made their way to Greece in large numbers from the early 19th century until the 1990s. They settled in many parts of the country, but mainly in the north. 

Although you won't find many restaurants serving Pontian dishes such as korkoto (buckwheat pilaf)
or a favorite sorvas (soup made with yogurt and coarse cornmeal or cracked wheat), 

you will find Pontian cheeses, such as Pontiako tyri,

a mozzarella-like semisoft buffalo or cow's milk braid, and kapnisto,

the exquisite smoked version of the same cheese. The cheeses are produced in Macedonia and are distributed in small grocery stores all over Greece in neighborhoods where Pontians live.

Unlike Athens, Salonica (also called Thessalonica)?Greece's second largest city, the capital of Macedonia, and one of the most important port cities of eastern Mediterranean?was always a destination, or at least a daydream, for food-loving people. Salonica:  tast...