[Sca-cooks] So, here's an odd question...

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Dec 23, 2006, at 12:24 PM, Lilinah wrote:

> Wow! This is just like Moroccan warqa in principle (i don't know how
> different the dough is... probably not very different). Real bistiyya
> isn't made with phyllo, although that's really yummy, and how i'd do
> it as i have no experience with warqa. Instead of a griddle, the
> Moroccans use a metal pan that looks like an upside-down wok (i don't
> recall the name). The experienced warqa maker just quickly dabs the
> dough on the hot pan - although a larger leaf can be made by a few
> rapid dabs overlapping at the edges.
>
> I assume no cross-cultural influence, butcha nevah know....

Well, the inverted-wok cooking surface was also apparently used until  
pretty recently by traditional cooks in Persia/Iran (I have a lovely  
smudgy photocopy of an article somewhere on tanurs, the inverted-wok- 
in-question, and these sort of banked-ember firebox ovens in Persia),  
and if you look at some of these places as either being, or near,  
stops along the Silk Road, it doesn't sound too far-fetched.

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them  
eat cake!"
     -- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  
"Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
     -- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry  
Holt, 07/29/04