It is said that a bowl of soup made of cow bellies and legs can cure ulcers, hangovers and an assortment of other ailments – if you are courageous enough to try it.
And Dimitris Tsarouhas, the owner of a restaurant in the Greek city of Thessaloniki that specialises in patsa, is striving to register the soup with Unesco as a unique and traditional dish of Greece that harks back to the time of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey.
That has conjured up a new dispute with age-old rival Turkey, which also claims the soup as its own.
Greeks and Turks have been feuding over everything culinary from coffee to stuffed grape leaves and even baklava – the legacy of life under centuries of Ottoman rule. Now, the Turks are up in arms that Greeks are taking sole credit for a soup they call iskembe, which, according to them, has been a cultural staple for centuries.
Tsarouhas has compiled a large and detailed file with the help of a local cultural organisation and Lena Oflidis, the author of the only book that chronicles the soup’s history, to incorporate it as part of Greece’s cultural heritage.
Dozens of patrons show up at Tsarouhas’ restaurant at all hours – particularly at the crack of dawn – to enjoy patsa, as many say the soup eases the stomach after a night of heavy drinking. It is usually garnished with a sprinkle of seeds and a dash of hot peppers.