Type | Pie |
---|---|
Place of origin | Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome |
Main ingredients | Flour and semolina dough, cheese, honey, bay leaves |
Placenta cake is a dish from ancient Greece and Rome consisting of many dough layers interspersed with a mixture of cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves, baked and then covered in honey. [1] [2] The dessert is mentioned in classical texts such as the Greek poems of Archestratos and Antiphanes, as well as the De agri cultura of Cato the Elder. [2] It is often seen as the predecessor of baklava and börek. [3] [4] [1]
The Latin word placenta is derived from the Greek plakous (Ancient Greek : πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος – plakountos, from πλακόεις – plakoeis, "flat") for thin or layered flat breads. [5] [6] [7]
The placenta of mammalian pregnancy is so named from the perceived resemblance between its shape and that of a placenta cake.
Most claim that the placenta, and therefore likely baklava derived from a recipe from Ancient Greece. [8] [9] Homer's Odyssey , written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey. [10] In the fifth century BC, Philoxenos states in his poem "Dinner" that, in the final drinking course of a meal, hosts would prepare and serve cheesecake made with milk and honey that was baked into a pie. [11]
An early Greek language mention of plakous as a dessert (or second table delicacy) comes from the poems of Archestratos. He describes plakous as served with nuts and dried fruits and commends the honey-drenched Athenian version of plakous. [2]
Antiphanes (fl. 4th century BC), a contemporary of Archestratos, provided an ornate description of plakous with wheat flour and goat's cheese as key ingredients: [2] [12]
The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the curdled river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Demeter [honey, cheese, flour], delighting in ten thousand delicate toppings – or shall I simply say plakous? I'm for plakous' (Antiphanes quoted by Athenaeus).
Later, in 160 BC, Cato the Elder provided a recipe for placenta in his De agri cultura which Andrew Dalby considers, along with Cato's other dessert recipes, to be in the "Greek tradition", and possibly copied from a Greek cookbook. [2] [13]
Shape the placenta as follows: place a single row of tracta along the whole length of the base dough. This is then covered with the mixture [cheese and honey] from the mortar. Place another row of tracta on top and go on doing so until all the cheese and honey have been used up. Finish with a layer of tracta...place the placenta in the oven and put a preheated lid on top of it [...] When ready, honey is poured over the placenta. [14] (Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura) [1]
A number of modern scholars suggest that the Greco-Roman dessert's Eastern Roman (Byzantine) descendants, plakountas tetyromenous ("cheesy placenta") and koptoplakous (Byzantine Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς), are the ancestors of modern tiropita or banitsa respectively. [1] [15] The name placenta (Greek : πλατσέντα) is used today on the island of Lesbos in Greece to describe a baklava-type dessert of layered pastry leaves containing crushed nuts that is baked and then covered in honey. [16] [17] The dough for this modern placenta is made with thin leaves of crumbly pastry dough soaked in simple syrup. Ouzo is added to the dough. [18] [19]
Through its Byzantine Greek name plakountos, the dessert was adopted into Armenian cuisine as plagindi, plagunda, and pghagund, all "cakes of bread and honey." [20] From the latter term came the later Arabic name iflaghun, which is mentioned in the medieval Arab cookbook Wusla ila al-habib as a specialty of the Cilician Armenians settled in southern Asia Minor and settled in the neighboring Crusader kingdoms of northern Syria. [20] Thus, the dish may have traveled to the Levant in the Middle Ages via the Armenians, many of whom migrated there following the first appearance of the Turkish tribes in medieval Anatolia. [21]
Other variants of the Greco-Roman dish survived into the modern era in the form of the Romanian plăcintă (a baked flat pastry containing cheese) and the Viennese palatschinke [2] (a very thinly made crepe-like pancake; also common in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe).
Cake is a flour confection made from flour, sugar, and other ingredients and is usually baked. In their oldest forms, cakes were modifications of bread, but cakes now cover a wide range of preparations that can be simple or elaborate and which share features with desserts such as pastries, meringues, custards, and pies.
Pastry refers to a variety of doughs, as well as the sweet and savoury baked goods made from them. These goods are often called pastries as a synecdoche, and the dough may be accordingly called pastry dough for clarity. Sweetened pastries are often described as bakers' confectionery. Common pastry dishes include pies, tarts, quiches, croissants, and pasties.
Pita or pitta is a family of yeast-leavened round flatbreads baked from wheat flour, common in the Mediterranean, Levant, and neighboring areas. It includes the widely known version with an interior pocket, also known as Arabic bread. In the United Kingdom, Greek bread is used for pocket versions such as the Greek pita, and are used for barbecues as a souvlaki wrap. The Western name pita may sometimes be used to refer to various other types of flatbreads that have different names in their local languages, such as numerous styles of Arab khubz (bread).
A pie is a baked dish which is usually made of a pastry dough casing that contains a filling of various sweet or savoury ingredients. Sweet pies may be filled with fruit, nuts, fruit preserves, brown sugar, sweetened vegetables, or with thicker fillings based on eggs and dairy. Savoury pies may be filled with meat, eggs and cheese or a mixture of meat and vegetables.
Cheesecake is a dessert made with a soft fresh cheese, eggs, and sugar. It may have a crust or base made from crushed cookies, graham crackers, pastry, or sometimes sponge cake. Cheesecake may be baked or unbaked, and is usually refrigerated.
Filo is a very thin unleavened dough used for making pastries such as baklava and börek in Middle Eastern and Balkan cuisines. Filo-based pastries are made by layering many sheets of filo brushed with oil or butter; the pastry is then baked.
Kuchen, the German word for cake, is used in other languages as the name for several different types of savory or sweet desserts, pastries, and gateaux. Most Kuchen have eggs, flour and sugar as common ingredients while also, but not always, including some fat. In the Germanosphere it is a common tradition to invite friends over to one's house or to a cafe between noon and evening to drink coffee and eat Kuchen.
A buñuelo (Spanish:[buˈɲwelo], alternatively called boñuelo, bimuelo, birmuelo, bermuelo, bumuelo, burmuelo, or bonuelo, is a fried dough fritter found in Spain, Latin America, and other regions with a historical connection to Spaniards, including Southwest Europe, the Balkans, Anatolia, and other parts of Asia and North Africa. Buñuelos are traditionally prepared at Christmas. It will usually have a filling or a topping. In Mexican cuisine, it is often served with a syrup made with piloncillo.
Bougatsa is a Greek breakfast food, or mid-morning snack, or midday snack. Bougatsa has several versions with their own filling, with the most popular the bougatsa krema that has semolina custard filling used as a sweet food and dessert.
Tiropita or tyropita is a Greek pastry made with layers of buttered phyllo and filled with a cheese-egg mixture. It is served either in an individual-size free-form wrapped shape, or as a larger pie that is portioned.
Armenian cuisine includes the foods and cooking techniques of the Armenian people and traditional Armenian foods and drinks. The cuisine reflects the history and geography where Armenians have lived and where Armenian empires existed. The cuisine also reflects the traditional crops and animals grown and raised in Armenian-populated or controlled areas.
Knafeh is a traditional Arabic dessert, made with spun pastry called kataifi, soaked in a sweet, sugar-based syrup called attar, and typically layered with cheese, or with other ingredients such as clotted cream, pistachio or nuts, depending on the region. It is popular in the Middle East.
Baklava is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey. It was one of the most popular sweet pastries of Ottoman cuisine.
The poppy seed roll is a pastry consisting of a roll of sweet yeast bread with a dense, rich, bittersweet filling of poppy seed. An alternative filling is a paste of minced walnuts, or minced chestnuts.
Nun's puffs are a dessert pastry originally from France, where they were known as pets de nonne. They are now also produced in French Canada, the United States, England, and Spain.
Plăcintă is a Romanian and Moldovan traditional pastry resembling a thin, small round or square-shaped cake, usually filled with apples or a soft cheese such as Urdă.
Tracta, tractum, also called laganon,laganum, or lagana was a kind of drawn out or rolled-out pastry dough in Roman and Greek cuisines.
Palatschinke is a thin crêpe-like variety of pancake of Greco-Roman origin. The dessert is common in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe.
The Romans refined the recipe, developing a delicacy known as placenta, a sheet of fine flour topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves.