Baklava (Turkish Sweet)

 The word baklava is first attested in English in 1650,[4] a borrowing from Ottoman Turkish: باقلاوه‎ /bɑːklɑvɑː/.[5][6] The name baklava is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations.

                                    

Historian Paul D. Buell argues that the word "baklava" may come from the Mongolian root baγla- 'to tie, wrap up, pile up' composed with the Turkic verbal ending -v;[7] baγla- itself in Mongolian is a Turkic loanword.[8] Sevan Nişanyan considers its oldest known forms (pre-1500) to be baklağı and baklağu, and labels it as being of Proto-Turkic origin.[9] Another form of the word is also recorded in Persian, باقلبا (bāqlabā).[10] Though the suffix -vā might suggest a Persian origin,[11][12] the baqla- part does not appear to be Persian and remains of unknown origin.[13] Linguist Tuncer Gülensoy states that the origin of baklava is bakl-ı (feed) in proto-Turkish and suffixes -la-ğı are added. The word changes as bakılağı > bakılavı > baklava.[14]

The Arabic name بقلاوة baqlāwa likely originates from Turkish.

Although the history of baklava is not well documented, its current form was probably developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul.[16] The Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the Baklava Alayı.[17][18]

The three main proposals for the pre-Ottoman roots of baklava are the Ancient Roman placenta cake, [19] the Central Asian Turkic tradition of layered desserts,[20] and the Persian lauzinaj.[17]

There are also some similarities between baklava and the Ancient Greek desserts gastris (γάστρις),[21] kopte sesamis (κοπτὴ σησαμίς), and kopton (κοπτόν) found in book XIV of the Deipnosophistae.[22][23] However, the recipe there is for a filling of nuts and honey, with a top and bottom layer of honey and ground sesame similar to modern pasteli or halva, and no dough, certainly not a flaky dough.[24]

Another recipe for a similar dessert is güllaç, a dessert found in the Turkish cuisine and considered by some as the origin of baklava.[25] It consists of layers of filo dough that are put one by one in warmed up milk with sugar. It is served with walnut and fresh pomegranate and generally eaten during Ramadan. The first known documentation of güllaç is attested in a food and health manual, written in 1330 that documents Mongol foods called Yinshan Zhengyao (飮膳正要, Important Principles of Food and Drink), written by Hu Sihui, an ethnic Mongol court dietitian of the Yuan dynasty.

The placenta theory

The word placenta originally comes from the Greek language plakous (πλακοῦς), which means something "flat and broad".[28] Although there are no surviving recipes for Greek plakous, the term is known from the work of comic poet Antiphanes, quoted by Athenaeus:

"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 449c).[29][30]

The earliest known recipe from the 2nd century BC that resembles baklava is Ancient Roman placenta cake, a honey-covered baked layered-dough dessert which Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava:

"The Greeks and the Turks still argue over which dishes were originally Greek and which Turkish. Baklava, for example, is claimed by both countries. Greek and Turkish cuisine both built upon the cookery of the Byzantine Empire, which was a continuation of the cooking of the Roman Empire. Roman cuisine had borrowed a great deal from the ancient Greeks, but placenta (and hence baklava) had a Latin, not a Greek, origin—please note that the conservative, anti-Greek Cato left us this recipe."[19][31]

Cato's original recipe for placenta follows:

Shape the placenta as follows: place a single row of tracta[32] 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.

— Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura 160 BC[19]

Dalby speculates as to why Cato's section on bread and cakes, which he describes as "recipes in a Greek tradition", are included in De Agricultura: [33]

We cannot be so sure why there is a section of recipes for bread and cakes (74-87), recipes in a Greek tradition and perhaps drawing on a Greek cookbook. Possibly Cato included them so that the owner and guests might be entertained when visiting the farm; possibly so that proper offerings might be made to the gods; more likely, I believe, so that profitable sales might be made at a neighbouring market.

Several sources say this Roman dessert continued to evolve during the Byzantine age into modern baklava. Historian Speros Vryonis describes koptoplakous (Byzantine Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς), a typle of plakous, as a "Byzantine favorite" and "the same as the Turkish baklava",[35] as do other writers.[28]

Today, the Latin word placenta (Greek: πλατσέντα) has entered modern usage on the island of Lesbos for a sweet pie made with layers of thinly rolled pastry. The dough for the modern placenta is made with thin leaves of crumbly pastry dough soaked in simple syrup. Ouzo is added to the dough.

                                                 

Persian lauzinaj

Baklava is a common dessert in modern Arab cuisines, but the Arabic language cookbook Kitab al-Tabikh, compiled by Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq in the 10th Century, does not contain any recipe for baklava.[38] Its recipe for lauzinaj refers to small pieces of almond paste wrapped in very thin pastry ("as thin as grasshoppers' wings") and drenched in syrup.[39] Some writers say this is dessert that most closely resembles the modern baklava.[40] Charles Perry, however, has written that "it was not much like baklava".[41]

There are similar recipes for lauzinaj in the 13th-century Kitab al-Tabikh by Muhammad bin Hasan al-Baghdadi. Written in 1226 in today's Iraq, the cookbook was based on an earlier collection of 9th century Persian-inspired recipes.[17] According to Gil Marks, Middle Eastern pastry makers later developed the process of layering the ingredients.[17]