Pita is a family of round, yeast-leavened flatbreads made from wheat flour, most widely known in the version with an interior pocket, and is associated with the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and North Africa. The English word pita entered use around 1936, borrowed from Modern Greek. The bread is made from a simple dough of wheat flour, water, yeast and salt, and its characteristic pocket forms when the high heat of baking turns the dough's moisture into steam, causing the bread to puff before it deflates and leaves a hollow center. It can also be baked without a pocket, is traditionally baked in a wood-fired oven and eaten fresh the same day, and carries alternate names such as Greek bread, Arabic bread, Syrian bread, Lebanese bread and pocket bread, reflecting its use across many cultures in the region.
Facts
Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own accountThe Near East (Fertile Crescent); the precise place and period of the modern leavened pocket form is unresolved (see open question) 1 Connections
Expresses Tradition
In Cuisine
Open Questions
Source Pita (Wikipedia)
Sources
1. Pita (Wikipedia)
WikipediaHistory section, first sentenceQuote, History section, first sentence
Pita has roots in the prehistoric flatbreads of the Near East.
Open Questions (1 open question)
When did the steam-puffed, two-layer pocket form of pita bread first appear?
Wikipedia's own History section states there is no record of the pocket pita in ancient texts or medieval Arab cookbooks and that food historians such as Charles Perry and Gil Marks consider it "likely a later development," with no period or century named.
What would resolve this A food-history source naming the period or region where the steam-puffed pocket technique was first documented, as distinct from the much older prehistoric Near Eastern flatbread lineage.
food historyPita (Wikipedia)
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