Placenta cake
{{Short description|Layered dessert from classical antiquity}}
{{for|eating of afterbirth|Human placentophagy}}
{{Infobox prepared food
| name = Placenta
| image = File:Bucharest, Greek pie-maker, 1880.jpg
| caption = A Greek plăcintă-maker in Bucharest in 1880.
| alternate_name =
| country = Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome
| region =
| creator =
| course =
| type = Pie
| served =
| main_ingredient = Flour and semolina dough, cheese, honey, bay leaves
| variations =
| calories =
| other =
}}
Placenta cake is a dish from ancient Greece and Rome consisting of many dough layers interspersed with a mixture of cheese (such as ricotta]) and honey and flavored with bay leaves, baked and then covered in honey.{{harvnb|Faas|2005|pp=184–185}}.{{harvnb|Goldstein|2015|loc="ancient world"}} The dessert is mentioned in classical texts such as the Greek poems of Archestratos and Antiphanes, as well as the De agri cultura of Cato the Elder. It is thought to be related to baklava.{{Cite book |title=Traditional Greek Cooking: A Memoir with Recipes |isbn=9781859641170}}
Etymology
The Latin word placenta is derived from the Greek plakous ({{langx|grc|πλακοῦς, gen. πλακοῦντος}} – plakountos, from πλακόεις – plakoeis, "flat") for thin or layered flat breads.{{harvnb|Lewis|Short|1879}}: [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Dplacenta placenta].{{harvnb|Liddell|Scott|1940}}: [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dplakou%3Ds πλακοῦς].{{harvnb|Stevenson|Waite|2011|loc=p. 1095, "placenta"}}.
The placenta of mammalian pregnancy is so named from the perceived resemblance between its shape and that of a placenta cake.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}
==History==
Most claim that placenta, and therefore likely baklava derived from a recipe from Ancient Greece.Mayer, Caroline E. "[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Phyllo Facts]". Washington Post. 1989. [https://web.archive.org/web/20191229205837/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Archived].{{Cite web |title=The Long, Contested History of Baklava |date=20 May 2019 |url=https://junglejims.com/the-long-contested-history-of-baklava/ }} Homer's Odyssey, written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.Mayer, Caroline E. "[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Phyllo Facts]". Washington Post. 1989. [https://web.archive.org/web/20191229205837/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/food/1989/05/03/phyllo-facts/1ca7102a-fb19-4abe-af8d-2cb17f49b98b/?noredirect=on Archived]. In the fifth century BC, Philoxenos states in his poem "Dinner" that, in the final drinking course of a meal, hosts would prepare and serve cheesecake made with milk and honey that was baked into a pie.Hoffman, Susanna. The Olive and the Caper. Workman Publishing Company, Inc. {{ISBN|9781563058486}}
An early Greek language mention of plakous as a dessert (or second table delicacy) comes from the poems of Archestratos. He describes plakous as served with nuts and dried fruits and commends the honey-drenched Athenian version of plakous.
Antiphanes (fl. 4th century BC), a contemporary of Archestratos, provided an ornate description of plakous with wheat flour and goat's cheese as key ingredients:{{harvnb|Dalby|1998|loc=p. 155: "Placenta is a Greek word (plakounta, accusative form of plakous 'cake').}}
The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the curdled river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Demeter [honey, cheese, flour], delighting in ten thousand delicate toppings – or shall I simply say plakous? I'm for plakous' (Antiphanes quoted by Athenaeus).
Later, in 160 BC, Cato the Elder provided a recipe for placenta in his De agri cultura which Andrew Dalby considers, along with Cato's other dessert recipes, to be in the "Greek tradition", and possibly copied from a Greek cookbook.{{harvnb|Dalby|1998|loc=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. There is a Possibly Greeks included it from Italians. 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."}}
Shape the placenta as follows: place a single row of tracta along the whole length of the base dough. This is then covered with the mixture [cheese and honey] from the mortar. Place another row of tracta on top and go on doing so until all the cheese and honey have been used up. Finish with a layer of tracta...place the placenta in the oven and put a preheated lid on top of it [...] When ready, honey is poured over the placenta.De agri cultura [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/E*.html 76] (Cato the Elder, De Agri Cultura)
Legacy
A number of modern scholars suggest that the Greco-Roman dessert's Eastern Roman (Byzantine) descendants, plakountas tetyromenous ("cheesy placenta") and koptoplakous (Byzantine Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς), are the ancestors of modern tiropita or banitsa respectively.{{harvnb|Salaman|1986|p=184}}; {{harvnb|Vryonis|1971|p=482}}. The name placenta ({{langx|el|πλατσέντα}}) is used today on the island of Lesbos in Greece to describe a baklava-type dessert of layered pastry leaves containing crushed nuts that is baked and then covered in honey.{{cite web|last=Τριανταφύλλη|first=Κική|title=Πλατσέντα, από την Αγία Παρασκευή Λέσβου|website=bostanistas.gr|date=17 October 2015|access-date=7 February 2020|url=http://www.bostanistas.gr/?i=bostanistas.el.article&id=3528}}{{harvnb|Γιαννέτσου|2014|loc=p. 161: "Η πλατσέντα είναι σαν τον πλακούντα των αρχαίων Ελλήνων, με ξηρούς καρπούς και μέλι."}} The dough for this modern {{lang|la|placenta}} is made with thin leaves of crumbly pastry dough soaked in simple syrup. Ouzo is added to the dough.{{cite web|author=Αποστολή με Email |url=http://www.bostanistas.gr/?i=bostanistas.el.article&id=3528 |title=Πλατσέντα, από την Αγία Παρασκευή Λέσβου | Άρθρα | Bostanistas.gr : Ιστορίες για να τρεφόμαστε διαφορετικά |website=Bostanistas.gr |access-date=2017-01-28}}{{cite book |last=Λούβαρη-Γιαννέτσου |first= Βασιλεία |title=Τα Σαρακοστιανά 50 συνταγές για τη Σαρακοστή και τις γιορτές | trans-title=Lent foods: 50 recipes for Lent and the holidays | chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5U0iAwAAQBAJ&q=%CF%80%CE%BB%CE%B1%CF%84%CF%83%CE%AD%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B1&pg=PT161 |year=2014 | chapter = Πλατσέντα ή γλυκόπιτα}}
Through its Byzantine Greek name plakountos, the dessert was adopted into Armenian cuisine as plagindi, plagunda, and pghagund, all "cakes of bread and honey."{{harvnb|Perry|2001|p=143}}. From the latter term came the later Arabic name iflaghun, which is mentioned in the medieval Arab cookbook Wusla ila al-habib as a specialty of the Cilician Armenians settled in southern Asia Minor and settled in the neighboring Crusader kingdoms of northern Syria. Thus, the dish may have traveled to the Levant in the Middle Ages via the Armenians, many of whom migrated there following the first appearance of the Turkish tribes in medieval Anatolia.{{harvnb|Bozoyan|2008|p=68}}.
Other variants of the Greco-Roman dish survived into the modern era in the form of the Romanian plăcintă (a baked flat pastry containing cheese) and the Viennese palatschinke (a very thinly made crepe-like pancake; also common in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe).
See also
{{portal|Food}}
References
=Citations=
{{reflist}}
=Sources=
- {{cite book|last=Bozoyan|first=Azat A.|chapter=Armenian Political Revival in Cilicia|pages=67–78|editor-last1=Hovannisian|editor-first1=Richard G.|editor-last2=Payaslian|editor-first2=Simon|year=2008|title=Armenian Cilicia|series=UCLA Armenian History and Culture Series|location=Costa Mesa, CA|publisher=Mazda Publishers|isbn=978-1568591544|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0KYMAQAAMAAJ}}
- {{cite book|last=Dalby|first=Andrew|year=1998|title=Cato. On Farming (De Agricultura). A Modern Translation with Commentary|location=Totnes|publisher=Prospect}}
- {{cite book|last=Faas|first=Patrick|year=2005|title=Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome|location=Chicago, IL|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=0226233472|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YXGlAr17oekC}}
- {{cite book|last=Γιαννέτσου|first=Βασιλεία Λούβαρη|year=2014|title=Τα Σαρακοστιανά: 50 συνταγές για τη Σαρακοστή και τις γιορτές της από τη MAMAVASSO|publisher=Georges Yannetsos|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5U0iAwAAQBAJ}}
- {{cite book|editor-last=Goldstein|editor-first=Darra|year=2015|title=The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199313396|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jbi6BwAAQBAJ}}
- {{cite book|last1=Lewis|first1=Charlton T.|last2=Short|first2=Charles|year=1879|title=A Latin Dictionary|location=Oxford|publisher=Clarendon Press|url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.147309}}
- {{cite book|last1=Liddell|first1=Henry George|last2=Scott|first2=Robert|year=1940|title=A Greek-English Lexicon|url=https://archive.org/details/b31364949_0002|location=Oxford|publisher=Clarendon Press}}
- {{cite book|last=Perry|first=Charles|chapter=Studies in Arabic Manuscripts|pages=91–163|editor-last1=Rodinson|editor-first1=Maxime|editor-last2=Arberry|editor-first2=Arthur John|year=2001|title=Medieval Arab Cookery|location=Totnes|publisher=Prospect Books|isbn=0907325912|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EbHYAAAAMAAJ}}
- {{cite book|last=Salaman|first=Rena|chapter=The Case of the Missing Fish, or Dolmathon Prolegomena (1984)|pages=184–187|editor-last=Davidson|editor-first=Alan|year=1986|title=Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery 1984 & 1985, Cookery: Science, Lore and Books Proceedings|location=London|publisher=Prospect Books Limited|isbn=9780907325161|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jYa3J6xrjt4C}}
- {{cite book|editor-last1=Stevenson|editor-first1=Angus|editor-last2=Waite|editor-first2=Maurice|year=2011|title=Concise Oxford English Dictionary: Luxury Edition|location=Oxford|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0199601110|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sYScAQAAQBAJ}}
- {{cite book|last=Vryonis|first=Speros|year=1971|title=The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century|location=Berkeley, CA|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-52-001597-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wBpIAAAAMAAJ}}
External links
- {{cite news|title=American Pie|url=http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/2/2006_2_30.shtml|quote=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.|work=American Heritage|date=April–May 2006|access-date=2009-07-04|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090712030514/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2006/2/2006_2_30.shtml|archive-date=2009-07-12}}