[Sca-cooks] Corn Flakes (Was: Period Baklava)

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Apr 5, 2007, at 11:10 PM, ranvaig at columbus.rr.com wrote:

>>
>> Well, that's my point. If this is a Turk making a pastry by hand (and
>> is it cooked before filling and baking, as phyllo is?), from a ball
>> of dough instead of batter, and presumably calling it something else,
>> can it legitimately be said to _be_ phyllo, as opposed to _being
>> like_ phyllo? You could probably make that claim and support it well,
>> but I don't think it's a done deal.
>
> Why do you say that phyllo is made from batter?  All the recipes I've
> ever seen are made from a dough.

I've never seen a recipe for phyllo, which is precisely my point. I  
have read descriptions of the process. I've also seen recipes for  
strudel dough, varak/borek, and a variety of others, but while many  
of them call for a dough, none of them were Greek or specifically  
called the final product phyllo; they were recipes for various pastry  
sheets that appeared in some ways like phyllo, but also might have  
been like lasagne, spring roll wrappers, strudel, etc. The only thing  
I can be absolutely certain of is their similarity to phyllo in that  
they produce a wheat-flour-based sheet of pastry rolled and/or  
stacked in layers. The rest may still be supposition.

One of the things I'm trying to avoid is the kind of circular logic  
that says We Know X About Phyllo because We Know X1 About Something  
We Believe To Be Similar.

I recall reading a pretty detailed description someplace; I thought  
it was in Harold McGee's On Food And Cooking, but I now can't find  
the passage. I'll look for it again; there's a limited number of  
places it would be if it's anywhere. It's also conceivable that what  
I read was wrong, or that I'm remembering it incorrectly (for  
example, a description of making qatif), but I doubt it. I'm much  
more likely to forget something I read than to remember something I  
didn't read...

If I can find the reference I'll post it. The Web certainly seems  
like a copious source of the same three or four articles used over  
and over again, much supposition that phyllo, borek, and strudel are  
absolutely identical in all ways, except, perhaps, in use, and that  
virtually nobody makes real phyllo anymore at home.

So far I haven't seen any recipes for making phyllo at home (recipes  
for strudel or borek don't count; a premise being tested can't really  
be used as evidence).

Adamantius




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la  
brioche!" / "If there's no bread, you have 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