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Placenta Cake
Placenta cake is a dish from ancient Greece and Rome consisting of many dough layers interspersed with a mixture of cheese (such as ricotta) and honey and flavored with bay leaves, baked and then covered in honey.. The dessert is mentioned in classical texts such as the Greek poems of Archestratos and Antiphanes, as well as the '' De agri cultura'' of Cato the Elder. It is thought to be related to baklava. Etymology The Latin word ''placenta'' is derived from the Greek ''plakous'' ( – ''plakountos'', from πλακόεις – ''plakoeis'', "flat") for thin or layered flat breads. The placenta of mammalian pregnancy is so named from the perceived resemblance between its shape and that of a placenta cake. History Most claim that placenta, and therefore likely baklava derived from a recipe from Ancient Greece.Mayer, Caroline E.Phyllo Facts. Washington Post. 1989Archived Homer's ''Odyssey'', written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.Mayer, C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Bucharest metropolitan area, metropolitan area of 2.3 million residents, which makes Bucharest the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 8th most-populous city in the European Union. The city area measures and comprises 6 districts (''Sectors of Bucharest, Sectoare''), while the metropolitan area covers . Bucharest is a major cultural, political and economic hub, the country's seat of government, and the capital of the Muntenia region. Bucharest was first mentioned in documents in 1459. The city became the capital in 1862 and is the centre of Romanian media, culture, and art. Its architecture is a mix of historical (mostly History of architecture#Revivalism and Eclecticism, Eclectic, but also Neoclassical arc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baklava
Baklava (, or ; ) is a layered pastry dessert made of filo pastry, filled with chopped nuts, and sweetened with syrup or honey. It was one of the most popular sweet pastries of Ottoman cuisine. There are several theories for the origin of the pre-Ottoman version of the dish. In modern times, it is a common dessert among cuisines of countries in West Asia, Southeast Europe, Central Asia, and North Africa. It is also enjoyed in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, although not a traditional sweet, it has carved out a niche in urban centers. Etymology The word ''baklava'' is first attested in English in 1650, a borrowing from . The name ''baklava'' is used in many languages with minor phonetic and spelling variations. The earliest known reference to baklava is in a poem by the 15th century mystic Kaygusuz Abdal. The historian Paul D. Buell argues that the word ''baklava'' may come from the Mongolian root ' 'to tie, wrap up, pile up' composed with the Turkic verbal ending ''-v'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banitsa
Banitsa ( Bulgarian: баница), also transliterated as banica and banitza, is a traditional pastry made in Bulgaria. It is also made in Budjak, where it is known as milina by Ukrainian Bulgarians; North Macedonia; and southeastern Serbia. In southeastern Serbia, it may also be known as gibanica. Banitsa is prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs, plain yogurt, and pieces of white brined cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven. Traditionally in Bulgaria, lucky charms are put into the pastry on certain occasions, particularly on New Year's Eve. These charms may be coins or small symbolic objects (e.g., a small piece of a dogwood branch with a bud, symbolizing health or longevity). More recently, people have started writing happy wishes on small pieces of paper and wrapping them in tin foil. Wishes may include happiness, health, or success throughout the new year (similar to fortune cookies). Banitsa is served for breakfast with plain yogurt, ay ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiropita
Tiropita or tyropita ( Greek: τυρóπιτα, "cheese-pie") is a Greek pastry made with layers of buttered phyllo and filled with a cheese-egg mixture. It is served either in an individual-size free-form wrapped shape, or as a larger pie that is portioned. When made with kasseri cheese, it may be called ''kasseropita'' (). Spanakotiropita is filled with spinach and cheese; ''cf.'' spanakopita. History According to some scholars, it is stated that in Ancient Greek cuisine, placenta cake (or ''plakous'', πλακοῦς), and its descendants in Byzantine cuisine, ''plakountas tetyromenous'' (πλακούντας τετυρομένους, "cheesy placenta") and ''en tyritas plakountas'' (εν τυρίτας πλακούντας, "cheese-inserted placenta"), are the ancestors of modern ''tiropita''.. A recipe in Greek tradition recorded in Cato the Elder's '' De Agri Cultura'' (160 BC) describes placenta as a sweet layered cheese dish: Shape the ''placenta'' as follows: p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic; Greek: ) is the stage of the Greek language between the end of classical antiquity in the 5th–6th centuries and the end of the Middle Ages, conventionally dated to the Fall of Constantinople, Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453. From the 7th century onwards, Greek was the only language of administration and government in the Byzantine Empire. This stage of language is thus described as Byzantine Greek. The study of the Medieval Greek language and literature is a branch of Byzantine studies, the study of the history and culture of the Byzantine Empire. The conquests of Alexander the Great, and the ensuing Hellenistic period, had caused Greek to spread throughout Anatolia and the Eastern Mediterranean. The beginning of Medieval Greek is occasionally dated back to as early as the 4th century, either to 330 AD, when the political centre of the Roman Empire was moved to Constantinople, or to 395&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Cuisine
Byzantine cuisine was the continuation of local ancient Greek cuisine, ancient Roman cuisine, and Mediterranean cuisine. Byzantine trading with foreigners brought in grains, sugar, livestock, fruits, vegetables, and spices that would otherwise be limited to specific geographical climates. Cooks experimented with new combinations of food, creating two styles in the process. These were the eastern (Asia Minor and the eastern Aegean), consisting of Byzantine cuisine supplemented by trade items, and a leaner style primarily based on local Greek cuisine culture. Diet Byzantine food consumption varied by class, location and time period. The Imperial Palace was a metropolis of spices and exotic recipes; guests were entertained with fruits, honey-cakes and syrupy sweetmeats. Ordinary people ate more conservatively. Thanks to the location of Constantinople between popular trade routes, Byzantine cuisine was augmented by cultural influences from several locales—such as Lombard I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tracta (dough)
Tracta, tractum (), also called laganon, laganum, or lagana (Ancient Greek: λάγανον), was a kind of drawn out or rolled-out pastry dough in Roman and Greek cuisines. What exactly it was is unclear:Charles Perry, "What was tracta?", '' Petits Propos Culinaires 12:37-9 (1982) and a note in 14 "Latin ''tracta''... appears to be a kind of pastry. It is hard to be sure, because its making is never described fully";Andrew Dalby, ''Food in the Ancient World from A to Z'', , ''s.v.'' 'Pastry', p. 251 and it may have meant different things at different periods. ''Laganon/laganum'' was at different periods an unleavened bread, a pancake, or later, perhaps a sort of pasta. ''Tracta'' is mentioned in the ''Apicius'' as a thickener for liquids. Vehling's translation of ''Apicius'' glosses it as "a piece of pastry, a round bread or roll in this case, stale, best suited for this purpose". Perry compares it to a " ship's biscuit".Charles Perry, "Old Non-Pasta", ''Los Angeles Times'March ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Dalby
Andrew Dalby, (born 1947 in Liverpool) is an English linguist, translator and historian who has written articles and several books on a wide range of topics including food history, language, and Classical texts. Education and early career Dalby studied Latin, French and Greek at the Bristol Grammar School and University of Cambridge. Here he also studied Romance languages and linguistics, earning a bachelor's degree in 1970. Dalby worked for fifteen years at Cambridge University Library, eventually specialising in Southern Asia. He gained familiarity with some other languages because of his work there, where he had to work with foreign serials and afterwards with South Asia and Southeast Asian materials. He also wrote articles on multilingual topics linked with the library and its collections. In 1982 and 1983, he collaborated with Sao Saimong in cataloguing the Scott Collection of manuscripts and documents from Burma (especially the Shan States) and Indochina. Dalby late ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheat Flour
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of common wheat used for human consumption. Wheat varieties are called "soft" or "weak" if gluten content is low, and are called "hard" or "strong" if they have high gluten content. Hard flour, or ''bread flour'', is high in gluten, with 12% to 14% gluten content, and its dough has elastic toughness that holds its shape well once baked. Soft flour is comparatively low in gluten and thus results in a loaf with a finer, crumbly texture. Soft flour is usually divided into cake flour, which is the lowest in gluten, and pastry flour, which has slightly more gluten than cake flour. In terms of the parts of the grain (the grass fruit) used in flour—the endosperm or protein/starchy part, the germ or protein/fat/vitamin-rich part, and the bran or fiber part—there are three general types of flour. White flour is made from the endosperm only. Brown flour includes some of the grain's germ and bran, while whole grain or ''wholemeal flour' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philoxenus Of Cythera
Philoxenus of Cythera (; c. 435/4 – 380/79 BC) was a Greek dithyrambic poet, an exponent of the "New Music". He was one of the most important dithyrambic poets of ancient Greece. Life A few details of Philoxenus' life are known. According to the ''Suda'', Philoxenus was the son of Eulytides, from Cythera. On the conquest of the island by the Athenians, Philoxenus was taken as a slave to Athens, where he came into the possession of the dithyrambic poet Melanippides, who educated him. Philoxenus lived for some time in Sicily, as the court-poet of Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse. There, according to Athenaeus—probably based on an account by the 4th-century philosopher Phaenias of Eresus—Philoxenus tried to seduce Dionysius’ mistress Galateia, and was thrown into the quarries. However, according to Diodorus Siculus, Philoxenus' imprisonment in the quarries was the result of his refusal to praise Dionysius' bad poetry: In Sicily Dionysius, the tyrant of the Syracusa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odyssey
The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divided into 24 books. It follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year long Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed. In Odysseus's long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors competing for Penelope's hand in marriage. The ''Odyssey'' was first written down in Homeric Greek around the 8th or 7th century BC; by the mid-6th century BC, it had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship was taken as true, but contemporary sch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
