Turkish bread

Pita (/ˈpɪtə/ or US: /ˈpiːtə/) or pitta (British English), is a family of yeast-leavened round flatbreads baked from wheat flour, common in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and neighboring areas. It includes the widely known version with an interior pocket, also known as Arabic bread (Arabic: خبز عربي; khubz ʿarabī), Syrian bread and other names, as well as pocketless versions such as the Greek pita, used to wrap souvlaki. The Western name pita may sometimes be used to refer to various other types of flatbreads that have different names in their local languages, such as numerous styles of Arab khubz (bread).

History

Pita has roots in the prehistoric flatbreads of the Middle East. There is evidence from about 14,500 years ago, during the Stone Age, that the Natufian people in what is now Jordan made a kind of flatbread from wild cereal grains. Ancient wheat and barley were among the earliest domesticated crops in the Neolithic period of about 10,000 years ago, in the Fertile Crescent. By 4,000 years ago, bread was of central importance in societies such as the Babylonian culture of Mesopotamia, where the earliest-known written records and recipes of bread-making originate, and where pita-like flatbreads cooked in a tinûru (tannur or tandoor) were a basic element of the diet, and much the same as today's tandoor bread or taboon bread. However, there is no record of the steam-puffed, two-layer "pocket pita" in the ancient texts, or in any of the medieval Arab cookbooks, and according to food historians such as Charles Perry and Gil Marks it was likely a later development.

Etymology

The first mention of the word in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1936. The English word is

The word has been borrowed by Turkish as pide, and appears in the Balkan languages as Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian pita, Romanian pită, Albanian pite, and Bulgarian pitka or pita; however, in the Serbo-Croatian languages of the countries comprising Former Yugoslavia, the word pita is used for burek-style pastries.

Preparation

Six pitas baking on a circular pan in a wood-fired oven

Pita baking in Nazareth

Most pita are baked at high temperatures (450–475 °F (232–246 °C)), which turns the water in the dough into steam, thus causing the pita to puff up and form a pocket. When removed from the oven, the layers of baked dough remain separated inside the deflated pita, which allows the bread to be opened to form a pocket. However, pita is sometimes baked without pockets and is called "pocket-less pita". Regardless of whether it is made at home or in a commercial bakery, pita isрасслойкаfor a very short time—only 15 minutes.

Preparation

Six pitas baking on a circular pan in a wood-fired oven

Pita baking in Nazareth

Most pita are baked at high temperatures (450–475 °F (232–246 °C)), which turns the water in the dough into steam, thus causing the pita to puff up and form a pocket. When removed from the oven, the layers of baked dough remain separated inside the deflated pita, which allows the bread to be opened to form a pocket. However, pita is sometimes baked without pockets and is called "pocket-less pita". Regardless of whether it is made at home or in a commercial bakery, pita isрасслойкаfor a very short time—only 15 minutes.

Etymology

The first mention of the word in English cited in the Oxford English Dictionary was in 1936. The English word is

The word has been borrowed by Turkish as pide, and appears in the Balkan languages as Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian pita, Romanian pită, Albanian pite, and Bulgarian pitka or pita; however, in the Serbo-Croatian languages of the countries comprising Former Yugoslavia, the word pita is used for burek-style pastries.

History

Pita has roots in the prehistoric flatbreads of the Middle East. There is evidence from about 14,500 years ago, during the Stone Age, that the Natufian people in what is now Jordan made a kind of flatbread from wild cereal grains. Ancient wheat and barley were among the earliest domesticated crops in the Neolithic period of about 10,000 years ago, in the Fertile Crescent. By 4,000 years ago, bread was of central importance in societies such as the Babylonian culture of Mesopotamia, where the earliest-known written records and recipes of bread-making originate, and where pita-like flatbreads cooked in a tinûru (tannur or tandoor) were a basic element of the diet, and much the same as today's tandoor bread or taboon bread. However, there is no record of the steam-puffed, two-layer "pocket pita" in the ancient texts, or in any of the medieval Arab cookbooks, and according to food historians such as Charles Perry and Gil Marks it was likely a later development.

Pita (/ˈpɪtə/ or US: /ˈpiːtə/) or pitta (British English), is a family of yeast-leavened round flatbreads baked from wheat flour, common in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and neighboring areas. It includes the widely known version with an interior pocket, also known as Arabic bread (Arabic: خبز عربي; khubz ʿarabī), Syrian bread and other names, as well as pocketless versions such as the Greek pita, used to wrap souvlaki. The Western name pita may sometimes be used to refer to various other types of flatbreads that have different names in their local languages, such as numerous styles of Arab khubz (bread).