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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 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. Etymology The Latin word ''placenta'' is derived from the Greek ''plakous'' ( grc, πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος – ''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 An early Greek language mention of ''plakous'' as a dessert (or second table delicacy) comes from the poems of Archestratos. He describes ''plakous'' as served with nuts and dried fruits and commends the honey-drenched Athenian version of ''plakous''. Antiphanes (fl. 4th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bucharest
Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north of the Danube River and the Bulgarian border. Bucharest was first mentioned in documents in 1459. The city became the capital of Romania in 1862 and is the centre of Romanian media, culture, and art. Its architecture is a mix of historical (mostly Eclectic, but also Neoclassical and Art Nouveau), interbellum ( Bauhaus, Art Deco and Romanian Revival architecture), socialist era, and modern. In the period between the two World Wars, the city's elegant architecture and the sophistication of its elite earned Bucharest the nickname of 'Paris of the East' ( ro, Parisul Estului) or 'Little Paris' ( ro, Micul Paris). Although buildings and districts in the historic city centre were heavily damaged or destroyed by war, earthquakes, and even Nic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cato The Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato (; 234–149 BC), also known as Cato the Censor ( la, Censorius), the Elder and the Wise, was a Roman soldier, senator, and historian known for his conservatism and opposition to Hellenization. He was the first to write history in Latin with his ''Origines'', a now fragmentary work on the history of Rome. His work '' De agri cultura'', a rambling work on agriculture, farming, rituals, and recipes, is the oldest extant prose written in the Latin language. His epithet "Elder" distinguishes him from his great-grandson Cato the Younger, who opposed Julius Caesar. He came from an ancient Plebeian family who were noted for their military service. Like his forefathers, Cato was devoted to agriculture when not serving in the army. Having attracted the attention of Lucius Valerius Flaccus, he was brought to Rome and began to follow the ''cursus honorum'': he was successively military tribune (214 BC), quaestor (204), aedile (199), praetor (198), consul (195) together ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armenian Cuisine
Armenian cuisine includes the foods and cooking techniques of the Armenian people and traditional Armenian foods and dishes. The cuisine reflects the history and geography where Armenians have lived as well as sharing outside influences from European and Levantine cuisines. The cuisine also reflects the traditional crops and animals grown and raised in Armenian-populated areas. The preparation of meat, fish, and vegetable dishes in an Armenian kitchen often requires stuffing, frothing, and puréeing. Lamb, eggplant, and bread (lavash) are basic features of Armenian cuisine. Armenians traditionally prefer cracked wheat (bulgur) to maize and rice. The flavor of the food often relies on the quality and freshness of the ingredients rather than on excessive use of spices. Fresh herbs are used extensively, both in the food and as accompaniments. Dried herbs are used in the winter when fresh herbs are not available. Wheat is the primary grain and is found in a variety of forms, such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lesbos
Lesbos or Lesvos ( el, Λέσβος, Lésvos ) is a Greek island located in the northeastern Aegean Sea. It has an area of with approximately of coastline, making it the third largest island in Greece. It is separated from Anatolia, Asia Minor by the narrow Mytilini Strait. On the southeastern coast lies the island's capital and largest city, Mytilene, whose name is also used as a moniker for the island. The regional units of Greece, regional unit of Lesbos, with the seat in Mytilene, comprises the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Ikaria, Lemnos, and Samos. Mytilene is also the capital of the larger North Aegean region. The population of the island is 83,068, a third of whom live in the capital, while the remainder is distributed in small towns and villages. The largest are Plomari, Kalloni, the Gera Villages, Agiassos, Eresos, and Molyvos (the ancient Mythimna). According to later Greek writers, Mytilene was founded in the 11th century BC by the family Penthilidae, who arrived from T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banitsa
Banitsa ( bg, баница, , also transliterated as banica and banitza) is a traditional pastry dish made in Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Southeastern Serbia (where it may also be referred to as gibanica), prepared by layering a mixture of whisked eggs Humans and human ancestors have scavenged and eaten animal eggs for millions of years. Humans in Southeast Asia had domesticated chickens and harvested their eggs for food by 1,500 BCE. The most widely consumed eggs are those of fowl, especial ..., natural yogurt and pieces of white brined cheese between filo pastry and then baking it in an oven. Traditionally, 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 happine ... [...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 Layered dishes like tiropita may originate from layered pan-fried breads developed by the Turks of Central Asia before their westward migration to Anatolia in the late Middle Ages (''cf.'' baklava). Some scholars state 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 rec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Greek
Medieval Greek (also known as Middle Greek, Byzantine Greek, or Romaic) 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 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 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 AD, the division of the empire. However, this approach is rather arbitrary as it is more an assumption of political, as opposed to cultural and linguistic, developments. Indeed, by this time ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Cuisine
Byzantine cuisine was the continuation of local Greek cuisine and Mediterranean gastronomy. The development of the Byzantine Empire and trade brought in spices, sugar and new vegetables to Greece. 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 culture. Tableware and customs While Byzantine pottery found at excavations in Boeotia was decorated with innovative techniques and designs that combined elements from local culture and Islamic art, the shape and function of tablewares remained simple - jugs were uncommon, and the wide, shallow bowls and dishes were too porous to use as drinking vessels or for watery soups or stews. By the 13th-century, this style of dish was replaced by bowls that were deeper and narrower, suitable as vessels for liquids, stews or beverages. Styli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tracta (dough)
Tracta, tractum ( grc, τρακτὸς, τρακτόν), also called laganon, laganum, or lagana () 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'Mar ... [...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 later ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Goat's Cheese
Goat cheese, or chèvre ( or ; from French language, French ''fromage de chèvre'' 'goat cheese'), is cheese made from goat's milk. Goats were among the first animals to be domesticated for producing food. Goat cheese is made around the world with a variety of recipes, giving many different styles of cheese, from fresh and soft to aged and hard. Properties History Goats produce high quality, nutrition-rich milk under even the most difficult environments making them valuable to arid or mountainous areas where cows and sheep can not survive. Goats were one of the earliest animals domesticated to suit human needs- more specifically milk production- going back to 8,000 B.C., 10,000 years ago. Goat cheese has been made for at least as far back as 5,000 B.C. Meanwhile, the first documented proof of humans making cheese is 7,500 years ago in Poland. Nutritional value Goat milk has a higher proportion of medium-chain fatty acids such as Hexanoic acid, caproic and caprylic acid, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheat Flour
Wheat flour is a powder made from the grinding of 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'' is made ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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