Tracta (dough)

{{Short description|Pastry dough in Ancient Roman and Greek cuisines}}

{{For|the modern Greek flatbread|lagana (bread)}}

Tracta, tractum ({{langx|grc|τρακτὸς, τρακτόν}}), also called laganon, laganum, or lagana (Ancient Greek: λάγανον), was a kind of drawn out or rolled-out pastry dough in Roman[https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dtrakto\s τρακτὸς, τρακτόν] "dough drawn out or rolled for pastry", Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus and Greek cuisines.

What exactly it was is unclear:Charles Perry, "What was tracta?", Petits Propos Culinaires 12:37-9 (1982) and a note in 14 "Latin tracta... appears to be a kind of pastry. It is hard to be sure, because its making is never described fully";Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, {{ISBN|1135954224}}, s.v. 'Pastry', p. 251 and it may have meant different things at different periods. Laganon/laganum was at different periods an unleavened bread, a pancake, or later, perhaps a sort of pasta.Andrew Dalby, Food in the Ancient World from A to Z, {{ISBN|1135954224}}, s.v.'' 'Pasta', p. 251

Tracta is mentioned in the Apicius as a thickener for liquids. Vehling's translation of Apicius glosses it as "a piece of pastry, a round bread or roll in this case, stale, best suited for this purpose".Joseph Dommers Vehling, editor and translator, Cookery and dining in imperial Rome (1936, reprinted 1977), p. 127 Perry compares it to a "ship's biscuit".Charles Perry, "Old Non-Pasta", Los Angeles Times [https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-03-05-fo-34780-story.html March 05, 1997]

It is also mentioned in Cato the Elder's recipe for placenta cake, layered with cheese.{{cite web|url=https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/E*.html|title=De Agricultura|author=Cato the Elder}}, section 76

Athenaeus's Deipnosophistae mentions a kind of cake called {{lang|grc|καπυρίδια}}, "known as {{lang|grc|τράκτα}}", which uses a bread dough, but is baked differently.Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae 3:79

Some writers connect it to modern Italian lasagna,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sJ5Ww8fUSTgC&pg=PA15 |title=Pasta: The Story of a Universal Food|first1=Silvano |last1=Serventi |first2=Françoise |last2=Sabban |publisher=Columbia University Press |date=Aug 13, 2013 |pages=15–18|isbn=9780231519441}} of which it is the etymon,Vocabolario Etimologico Pianigiani, 1907, s.v. [http://www.etimo.it/?term=lasagna lasagna] but most authors deny that it was pasta.[http://www.cliffordawright.com/history/mac_print.html Clifford A. Wright, "The History of Macaroni"]

There is a modern Greek leavened flatbread called lagana, but it is not clear when the name was first applied to a leavened bread.{{Cn|date=March 2025}}