[Sca-cooks] Re: Reply on Filo/baklava was Around the Mediterranean...

[johnna holloway]

Greetings from Johnnae llyn Lewis

On Sun, 21 Apr 2002 I posted a note
saying that there was a neat article
 at Slow Food on the subject of filo dough at
 http://www.slowfood.com/Slowfood_UpLoad/Riviste/SLOW/EN/23/phylo.html.
The reason I thought this was a neat article
was that it showed photos and described the traditional process
of making phylo dough by hand which is becoming a lost art.
(My great grandmother could roll noodles thin enough to read
a newspaper through. I don't have that touch. Few do these days.)
It also mentioned the work of Charles Perry.

Huette von Ahrens then posted on Mon, 22 Apr 2002 :>
> > Interesting.  Because Charles Perry in his entry on
> > filo doesn't exactly say that.  He traces filo back to
> > the kitchens of the Topkopi in Istambul [late 16th
> > century], but states that baklava predates filo.  He
> > traces baklava back to Azerbaijan, but states that
> > they used thin pancakes or thinly sliced bread.
> >
> > This is why you should be very very careful of web
> > sites.  This website in this case is giving
> > mis-information.> >
> > Huette

------------
Quite frankly I didn't see the problem with article that
Huette did and I did not ever remember reading that "thin
pancakes or thinly slicely breads" were used. I clearly
remembered that his earlier papers were connected with how
the doughs for Persian pasta and noodles were transformed
over time, so I started a scholarly investigation.
I reread Huette's post, I reread The Slow Food article
carefully and then I read the Oxford Companion to Food entries
on "filo" and "baklava" which Charles Perry wrote for that work.
Having followed his work beginning with its first appearance in
PPC back in 1980,  I then reread all the various PPC issues
that contained his various articles on this subject to date;
also I reread his Oxford Conference papers on the subject that
he has written through the years. I also reread his paper "The
Taste for Layered Bread among the Nomadic Turks and the Central
Asian Origins of Baklava" which was originally given at a 1992
conference and then rewritten for publication in the volume
edited by Zubaida and Tapper as Culinary Cultures of the Middle East.

Having reread all this material, I then wrote to Charles Perry and
asked him the following two questions:

>"Does the Slow Food article misrepresent your work and do
>you really feel that they used "thin pancakes or thinly
>sliced bread" to make the archaic form of baklava that
>was made in Azerbaijan?"
>
>He wrote back yesterday and said:
>
>"Dear Johanna,
>        I don't think that Aglaia misrepresents my position,
though she's reluctant, like most Greeks, to give the Turks any credit
for inventing filo. "

As for the question regarding whether or not
 as Huette wrote "the primitive Azerbaijani baklava is made from "thin
pancakes or thinly sliced bread,"
he replied that this was a mistake  in that
" It is made from thin sheets of
stiffly kneaded dough; as you say, much like noodle paste."

I didn't ask for permission to quote the rest of his letter
including the more detailed discussion and I won't do so here. Most
of his points are clearly laid out in the Culinary Cultures paper.
There he states that there were thin doughs (although not paper thin)
being used prior to the development of filo in the Topkapi Palace
kitchens. The archaic form of baklava called  Baki pakhlavasi
that was made by the Azabayjanis was a layered pastry of 15 layers,
consisting of 8  noodle thick dough layers with 7 of nut filling.
The Ottoman kitchens combined their skills with this archaic dish
and came up with the paper thin dough now known as filo
and this has led in turn to modern baklava.

Hope this helps clear up some of the questions.

Johnna Holloway  Johnnae llyn Lewis