Foni Demos, 69, a guardian of the recipes she learned as a girl in the mountains of southern Greece, died Wednesday, March 15, in Edgewater Medical Center of complications related to diabetes. Mrs. Demos could make dolmades that no one could resist, had a recipe for Pastichio Mousarka that was always in demand and made a Galatobourikuo that could make a weak person cry. “All you had to do was eat it once, and you would crave it the whole year round. That’s how good it was,” said her son Louis. She learned the recipes–important things for a young woman of that time and place to know–from her mother and grandmother in Kolines, a small town among the rocky vineyards and olive orchards of Peloponnesus. Mrs. Demos and her family moved to Chicago in 1968 because they believed the higher wages and greater opportunities would allow them to save money. Her husband, whom she had met when he was a Greek soldier on parade, worked as a cook, and when her children opened their own restaurants, Mrs. Demos supplied them with the secrets of her traditional cooking. “There aren’t that many women left from the old country that have the old, traditional recipes,” her son said. “She was everybody’s favorite and everybody wanted to come and talk to her about it.” In addition to her son, Mrs. Demos is survived by her husband, Paul; another son, Nick; two daughters, Maria Silvestros and Alexandra Houmpavalis; and 11 grandchildren. Services will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday in St. George Greek Orthodox Church, 2701 N. Sheffield Ave., Chicago.
