Comments on: Baklava, the missing link

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:03:02 +0000

what a fascinating discovery, you truly are a culinary detective. I just asked my grandmother the name for the thin long rolling pin she uses to make her Kurdish bread. She calls it gira or machalbana but I am not sure if these words are Kurdish or Aramaic as she tends to get the two mixed up. This doesn’t seem to connect to Baklava but I will write to someone who specializes in these languages to see what he has to say. The bread that she makes on the saj is called Lachma Rakika (Aramaic) which reminds me of the rugaq labiq of Medieval Arabic. http://www.sarahmelamed.com/2010/01/kurdish-flat-bread/
Thank you for leaving such an interesting comment.

By: Nawal Nasrallah,

Nawal Nasrallah, — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 03:57:54 +0000

Hi Sarah,
A very interesting topic, indeed. Thanks.

I would like to share with you my latest on the etymology of this famous pastry, baklawa. To begin with, as I axplain in my Iraqi cookbook, early medieval Baghdadi recipes for making baklawa-like stuffed rolls, called lawzeenaq/lawzeenaj/lawzeena can be found in the extant Arabic cookbooks, the earliest of which is al-Warraq’s 10th century Kitab al-Tabeekh.

Now to etymology. In my forthcoming second edition of Delights from the Garden of Eden, I suggest the following (which would answer a question one of your readers, Sazji, raised):

Here is the excerpt from my book:

Baklawa: Possible Etymology
Why baklava, pronounced baqlawa in Arabic, was called so in the first place, nobody knows for sure. Here are my latest findings, which might lead us somewhere:

The thin rolling pin used in rolling out bakalwa dough is called oklava in Turkish, which indeed is a combination of ok =stick + lava =lavash/lawash (thin sheets of bread). That is a stick for rolling out thin sheets of pastry.
In medieval Arabic terminology, thin and malleable sheets of bread were called rugaq labiq. Now, labiq was used synonymously with lawish, which explains where our modern name for thin sheets of bread lawash comes from (Arabic sound w is pronounced v in Turkish).
Oklava is used to roll out baklava. Therefore, baklava is a combination of bak/baq + lava. The lava part is explained above. Now we come to the first part bak/baq. Our clue is in Steingass’ dictionary of Persian words: of the meanings of bugh/bogh: any outward covering or wrapper, pouch, or bundle (the Arabic sound q, is pronounced gh in Persian, and k in Turkish).
Therefore, baklawa may plausibly designate ‘thin sheets of dough used as wrappers for stuffed pastries.’

By: Sammy

Sammy — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 08:30:05 +0000

Bunch of wishful fairy tales trying to Turkify an ancient Anatolian and middle eastern pastry. Baklava has nothing to do with any “Turkic people” of “central Asian origin”. If anything Baklava is a Greek invention. It was started in Assyria (present day Iraq) 2,700 years ago, with a very primitive recipe, and reached Greece where it was more or less developed into it’s current form.

During the centuries Baklava was further developed by Armenians with the introduction of cinnamon and cloves then Arabs with rose water and cardamom. Lastly these people being the subjects of the Ottoman empire perfected the Baklava. There is nothing Turkish about Baklava other than the Greeks, Armenians, and Arabs having perfected the pastry within the Ottoman empire.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:00:00 +0000

I am reading Nawal Nasrallah’s take on the origin of baklava, very interesting and convincing. I gather the information for a post.

By: farida

farida — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:02:00 +0000

Hi Sarah, thanks for stopping by my blog. Came to check out yours:) What a fascinating story about baklava. We make Baklava in Azerbaijan too. It is a little different from baklava that is made in Turkey, Greece and the Middle East, but the concept is the came – layers of thinly rolled out dough and the nut filling. Yum!

Loved reading this post! It’s very enlightening. Thanks for sharing.