Placenta cake
Placenta cake is a dessert from ancient Greece and Rome made of many layers of dough, mixed with cheese and honey, flavored with bay leaves, baked and then covered in honey.[1][2] It is mentioned in the Greek poems of Archestratos and Antiphanes, as well as in the De Agri Cultura of Cato the Elder.[2]
| File:Bucharest, Greek pie-maker, 1880.jpg A Greek plăcintă-maker in Bucharest in 1880. | |
| Origin | |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome |
| Details | |
| Type | Pie |
| Main ingredient(s) | Flour and semolina dough, cheese, honey, bay leaves |
| Variations | plăcintă, palatschinke |
Name
The Latin word placenta comes from the Greek word plakous used for thin or layered breads.[3][4][5] The word plakous comes from the Greek word plakoeis (Ancient Greek: πλακόεις) meaning "flat".[3][4][5][6]
History
The placenta cake first appears as plakous (Ancient Greek: πλακοῦς) in the ancient Greek poems of Archestratos who describes it as a dessert served with nuts and dried fruits.[2] Antiphanes in 4th century BC describes plakous as a dessert made with wheat flour and goat's cheese.[2]
In 160 BC, Cato the Elder wrote a recipe for placenta in his De Agri Cultura following the Greek recipe for plakous.[2][7] Cato possibly copied the recipe from a Greek cookbook.[2][7]
The Byzantine descendants of plakous are the plakountas tetyromenous ("cheesy placenta") and the koptoplakous (Byzantine Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς) both of which are the ancestors of modern foods like tiropita, börek, banitsa, and baklava.[1][8] The name placenta (Greek: πλατσέντα) is used today on the Greek island of Lesbos to describe a dessert made with thin layers of pastry and crushed nuts that is baked and then covered in honey.[9][10][11][12] The Greek dessert was adopted into Armenian food as plagindi, plagunda, and pghagund all meaning "cakes of bread and honey."[13]
See also
References
Citations
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Faas 2005, pp. 184–185.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Goldstein 2015, "ancient world": "The next cake of note, first mentioned about 350 B.C.E. by two Greek poets, is plakous. [...] At last, we have recipes and a context to go with the name. Plakous is listed as a delicacy for second tables, alongside dried fruits and nuts, by the gastronomic poet Archestratos. He praises the plakous made in Athens because it was soaked in Attic honey from the thyme-covered slopes of Mount Hymettos. His contemporary, the comic poet Antiphanes, tells us the other main ingredients, goat’s cheese and wheat flour. Two centuries later, in Italy, Cato gives an elaborate recipe for placenta (the same name transcribed into Latin), redolent of honey and cheese. The modern Romanian plăcintă and the Viennese Palatschinke, though now quite different from their ancient Greek and Roman ancestor, still bear the same name."
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lewis & Short 1879: placenta.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Stevenson & Waite 2011, p. 1095, "placenta".
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Dalby 1998, p. 155: "Placenta is a Greek word (plakounta, accusative form of plakous 'cake').
- ↑ Liddell & Scott 1940: πλακοῦς.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Dalby 1998, p. 21: "We cannot be so sure why there is a section of recipes for bread and cakes (74-87), recipes in a Greek tradition and perhaps drawing on a Greek cookbook. Possibly Cato included them so that the owner and guests might be entertained when visiting the farm; possibly so that proper offerings might be made to the gods; more likely, I believe, so that profitable sales might be made at a neighbouring market."
- ↑ Salaman 1986, p. 184; Vryonis 1971, p. 482.
- ↑ Τριανταφύλλη, Κική (17 October 2015). "Πλατσέντα, από την Αγία Παρασκευή Λέσβου". bostanistas.gr. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
- ↑ Γιαννέτσου 2014, p. 161: "Η πλατσέντα είναι σαν τον πλακούντα των αρχαίων Ελλήνων, με ξηρούς καρπούς και μέλι."
- ↑ Αποστολή με Email. "Πλατσέντα, από την Αγία Παρασκευή Λέσβου | Άρθρα | Bostanistas.gr: Ιστορίες για να τρεφόμαστε διαφορετικά". Bostanistas.gr. Retrieved 2017-01-28.
- ↑ Λούβαρη-Γιαννέτσου, Βασιλεία (2014). "Πλατσέντα ή γλυκόπιτα". Τα Σαρακοστιανά 50 συνταγές για τη Σαρακοστή και τις γιορτές [Lent foods: 50 recipes for Lent and the holidays].
- ↑ Perry 2001, p. 143.
Sources
- Bozoyan, Azat A. (2008). "Armenian Political Revival in Cilicia". In Hovannisian, Richard G.; Payaslian, Simon (eds.). Armenian Cilicia. UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers. pp. 67–78. ISBN 978-1568591544.
- Dalby, Andrew (1998). Cato. On Farming (De Agricultura). A Modern Translation with Commentary. Totnes: Prospect.
- Faas, Patrick (2005). Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226233472.
- Γιαννέτσου, Βασιλεία Λούβαρη (2014). Τα Σαρακοστιανά: 50 συνταγές για τη Σαρακοστή και τις γιορτές της από τη MAMAVASSO. Georges Yannetsos.
- Goldstein, Darra, ed. (2015). The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199313396.
- Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879). A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
- Perry, Charles (2001). "Studies in Arabic Manuscripts". In Rodinson, Maxime; Arberry, Arthur John (eds.). Medieval Arab Cookery. Totnes: Prospect Books. pp. 91–163. ISBN 0907325912.
- Salaman, Rena (1986). "The Case of the Missing Fish, or Dolmathon Prolegomena (1984)". In Davidson, Alan (ed.). Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery 1984 & 1985, Cookery: Science, Lore and Books Proceedings. London: Prospect Books Limited. pp. 184–187. ISBN 9780907325161.
- Stevenson, Angus; Waite, Maurice, eds. (2011). Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Luxury Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199601110.
- Vryonis, Speros (1971). The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-52-001597-5.
Other websites
- "American Pie". American Heritage. April–May 2006. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/2/2006_2_30.shtml. Retrieved 2009-07-04. "The Romans refined the recipe, developing a delicacy known as placenta, a sheet of fine flour topped with cheese and honey and flavored with bay leaves.".