Baklava

[Kjetil Rå Hauge]

Genevra Gerhart wrote:
> Over fifty years ago, my Russian landlady in Paris served me a dessert which
> she said was very popular and came from the eastern Mediterranean. 
> Table discussion tonight  was whether baklava or pakhlava was from Greece,
> Turkey, Azerbaidzhan, etc.  None of my dictionaries was any help whatsoever.
> Help!
> Genevra Gerhart

According to Hasan Eren, Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü,  Ankara 1999, 
its etymology is not too clear, but it could be some kind of 
contamination of _bakla_ 'broad bean' (from Arabic) and _oklava_ 
'rolling pin' and has spread from Turkish to South Slavonic, Romanian, 
Armenian, Greek and Arabic.

You get the best baklava (my opinion, but I am sure Eren would agree) in 
Gaziantep, where they make it with honey and pistachios instead of sugar 
syrup and hazelnuts.

-- 
--- Kjetil Rå Hauge, U. of Oslo
--- tel. +47/22856710, fax +1/5084372444

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