Giaprakia are a Macedonian meze made especially for Christmas-time celebrations because they symbolize Christ’s swaddling. Nowadays, they are eaten all over Greece at any time of the year.
They are a dish that uses vine leaves or cabbage to wrap a filling, and gets their name from the Turkish work yaprak, meaning ‘leaf’. Thus, giaprakia today include dolmaldes, wrapped in vine leaves and lahanodolmades wrapped in cabbage.
Where they differ is in the use of different ingredients for the stuffing, depending on the region. Usually, the stuffing consists of rice and ground pork along with herbs. Sometimes they are called yalancı, which means “pseudo” in Turkish and do not include meat.
