SC - Baklava: A Summary of the evidence
david friedman
ddfr at best.com
Wed Apr 4 09:58:02 PDT 2001
The baklava thread seems to have degenerated into casual chitchat
unrelated to either baklava or period cooking, so I thought it might
be time to sum up what we know.
1. There appear to be no period recipes for baklava, at least none
that anyone here knows about. There also appear to be no period
references to filo, although there is a 13th century recipe for a
fried pastry (Musammana) that gives a somewhat similar effect by a
different technique.
2. There is a modern version of baklava, using something like a
pancake instead of the layers of filo, which Charles Perry has
conjectured may be the ancestor of baklava, and might be period.
3. There was an Ottoman ceremony associated with baklava, but the
only date anyone has given for it is late 17th century, so it
provides no evidence that baklava is period.
4. We have an assertion by Hrolf Hrolfsen that "you can easily
document" baklava by looking at the Mullah Nasrudin stories, but no
actual evidence, and he has so far not showed up on the list to
defend his views--on that subject or on the unchanging nature of
Islamic culture.
Hence it appears that, so far, no evidence has been offered that what
we call baklava is period.
- --
David/Cariadoc
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
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