Cultural Roots of Baklava

Asst. Prof. Ahmet Uhri, started the seminar with the words of famous Food Historian Charles Perry, who is well known for his research on baklava. Mr. Perry has done an extensive amount of research outlining the origins of “yufka”, a thinly stretched dough that is the main ingredient in baklava. Mr. Perry believes that the origin of “yufka” is Central Asia and it was used by the nomad inhabitants of Central Asia and Anatolia to create layered pastries. Therefore this layering of bread became part of the Turkish repertoire.

Asst. Prof. Uhri continued to explain the roots of baklava in his own words:

 “Baklava cannot be associated with only one nation, race and religion. The birth place of wheat is Southeastern Anatolian region. Regardless of whether a society is leading a nomadic lifestyle or a settled one, they all made same type of “yufka” (or any type of flat bread) cooked over an open fire and consumed this bread in various different ways.  Because of this reason the roots of baklava mainly lies in location, climate and flora, basically the geography and not in a specific nation. However in the light of all this history it is a proven fact that the baklava that we know today has been perfected by the Ottoman Palace Kitchens and just like the word “yogurt”, it was the Turks that gave its name “baklava” that is used all over the world.

After the seminar the guest were offered flat bread, börek (a savoury pastry made from the same dough as baklava) and different types of baklava.  

14 January 2016

The lecture video is in Turkish.