The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
which from the description sounds Turkish.

One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
was not called "pita."

Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
individual restaurant?

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

"Curly Sue" > wrote in message
...
> The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
> which from the description sounds Turkish.
>
> One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
> puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
> at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
> was not called "pita."
>
> Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
> individual restaurant?
>

A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.

pavane

pavane wrote:
> "Curly Sue" > wrote in message
> ...
> > The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
> > which from the description sounds Turkish.
> >
> > One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
> > puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
> > at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
> > was not called "pita."
> >
> > Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
> > individual restaurant?
>
> A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
> just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
> have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
> it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.

Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.

They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!

--
Paul

On 19 Sep 2005 04:37:19 -0700, "Paul" >
wrote:

>pavane wrote:
>> "Curly Sue" > wrote in message
>> ...
>> > The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
>> > which from the description sounds Turkish.
>> >
>> > One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
>> > puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
>> > at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
>> > was not called "pita."
>> >
>> > Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
>> > individual restaurant?
>>
>> A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
>> just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
>> have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
>> it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.

Pavane's answer didn't appear in my usenet feed, so I'll give my
thanks here for calling the restaurant! I appreciate it.

>Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
>bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.
>
>They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
>put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
>shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
>sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!
>
>--
>Paul

That sounds good too! What kinds of topping? meat? vegetable?

Sue(tm)
Lead me not into temptation... I can find it myself!

(Curly Sue) wrote in news:432f2c4f.1168871
@news-server.nyc.rr.com:


>>> A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
>>> just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
>>> have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
>>> it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.
>
> Pavane's answer didn't appear in my usenet feed, so I'll give my
> thanks here for calling the restaurant! I appreciate it.

Interresting, I've only ever known lavash a very thin flat bread, often
used for wraps and such. There is a Turkish bread commonly available here
is a thicker flat bread - chewy, holey, very yummy. You find it in most
supermarkets (ready baked, and in the home bake form) and bakeries, and
many cafes, sandwich shops, etc. offer Turkish amongst the breads.
>
>>Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
>>bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.
>>
>>They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
>>put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
>>shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
>>sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!
>>
>>--
>>Paul
>
> That sounds good too! What kinds of topping? meat? vegetable?

Pide is yummy! There are various different toppings - meats, vegies, egg.
There are quite a lot of takeaway places serving pide - quite often doner
kebab places also serve pide. From memory, that is a thinner sort of
bread, but I don't remember the boat shape. I'll have to see if I can
find recipes for both sorts.

There's a kebab, pizza and pide place in Penrith - might get some pide
delivered Saturday night and have a night off cooking.

The area where I work has a large Turkish and middle Eastern population,
so there are a number of takeaway food places serving these sorts of
foods (plus Abla's Sweets - a shop full of lots of very nice and very
fattening baklava and other Turkish sweets) about 10 minutes walk from
work.

One food I sometimes succumb to is borek, which is like the chewier sort
of Turkish bread, with a filling. The ones I've had have been shaped sort
of like a boat shape, but completely closed. I like the spinach and
cheese, but have also had one with sucuk (sp??) which was a spicy
sausage. Googled borek and it looks like it's a name for a range of
filled "pastries" with the crust anything from flaky pastry to a bread.

Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

Rhonda Anderson wrote:
> Curly Sue wrote in news:432f2c4f.1168871
> @news-server.nyc.rr.com:
>
> >>> A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
> >>> just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
> >>> have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
> >>> it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.
> >
> > Pavane's answer didn't appear in my usenet feed, so I'll give my
> > thanks here for calling the restaurant! I appreciate it.
>
> Interresting, I've only ever known lavash a very thin flat bread, often
> used for wraps and such. There is a Turkish bread commonly available here
> is a thicker flat bread - chewy, holey, very yummy. You find it in most
> supermarkets (ready baked, and in the home bake form) and bakeries, and
> many cafes, sandwich shops, etc. offer Turkish amongst the breads.
> >
> >>Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
> >>bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.
> >>
> >>They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
> >>put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
> >>shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
> >>sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!
> >
> > That sounds good too! What kinds of topping? meat? vegetable?
>
> Pide is yummy! There are various different toppings - meats, vegies, egg.
> There are quite a lot of takeaway places serving pide - quite often doner
> kebab places also serve pide. From memory, that is a thinner sort of
> bread, but I don't remember the boat shape. I'll have to see if I can
> find recipes for both sorts.

As Rhonda says they have all sorts of toppings, but they are not tomato
based like Italian pizza. I can't find any good pictures on the net,
I'll have to look at my holiday snaps.

> The area where I work has a large Turkish and middle Eastern population,
> so there are a number of takeaway food places serving these sorts of
> foods (plus Abla's Sweets - a shop full of lots of very nice and very
> fattening baklava and other Turkish sweets) about 10 minutes walk from
> work.

Don't get too sick on the baklava!

Another thing I loved from Turkey was the stuffed pancakes/crepes
called Gozleme. They're not made from a batter but are more like giant
flour tortillas cooked on a big dome thing.

--
Paul

Rhonda Anderson wrote:
>
> Pide is yummy! There are various different toppings - meats, vegies, egg.
> There are quite a lot of takeaway places serving pide - quite often doner
> kebab places also serve pide. From memory, that is a thinner sort of
> bread, but I don't remember the boat shape. I'll have to see if I can
> find recipes for both sorts.
>
> There's a kebab, pizza and pide place in Penrith - might get some pide
> delivered Saturday night and have a night off cooking.
>
> The area where I work has a large Turkish and middle Eastern population,
> so there are a number of takeaway food places serving these sorts of
> foods (plus Abla's Sweets - a shop full of lots of very nice and very
> fattening baklava and other Turkish sweets) about 10 minutes walk from
> work.
>
> One food I sometimes succumb to is borek, which is like the chewier sort
> of Turkish bread, with a filling. The ones I've had have been shaped sort
> of like a boat shape, but completely closed. I like the spinach and
> cheese, but have also had one with sucuk (sp??) which was a spicy
> sausage. Googled borek and it looks like it's a name for a range of
> filled "pastries" with the crust anything from flaky pastry to a bread.
>
> Rhonda Anderson
> Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

In my experience borek refers specifically to a filled pastry. The
Maghrebi (North African) equivalent is brik. The Bulgarian is burek. Im
not certain if burek is used elsewhere in the Balkans. They're all
filled. A Bulgarian friend makes stuffed peppers she calls chushka
burek (pepper burek). They're filled with a feta/egg misture, battered
and fried. Reminded me of Mexican chiles rellenos without sauce.

I'd be surprised if pide wasn't linguistically related to pita, but I
coukld be wrong here.

-bwg
"Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house
--
there's going to be a fantastic house."
--G.W. Bush

Paul wrote:
> pavane wrote:
>
>>"Curly Sue" > wrote in message
...
>>
>>>The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
>>>which from the description sounds Turkish.
>>>
>>>One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
>>>puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
>>>at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
>>>was not called "pita."
>>>
>>>Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
>>>individual restaurant?
>>
>>A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
>>just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
>>have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
>>it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.
>
>
> Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
> bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.
>
> They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
> put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
> shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
> sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!
>

According to the Turkish cookbook we have ('Classic Turkish Cooking', by
Ghillie Basan), Pide is the bread that the "pizza" is made on, not the
dish itself.

Jon
Remove the canned meat to email me.

Paul wrote:
> pavane wrote:
>
>>"Curly Sue" > wrote in message
...
>>
>>>The Resident College Student ate at a "Mediterranean" restaurant,
>>>which from the description sounds Turkish.
>>>
>>>One item was a loaf of bread. It was served (one for the table)
>>>puffed up with steam and the diners had to deflate it before eating,
>>>at which point it was flat and looked like a large pita. RCS says it
>>>was not called "pita."
>>>
>>>Does anyone know what this is, or is it just a "specialty" of that
>>>individual restaurant?
>>
>>A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
>>just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
>>have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
>>it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.
>
>
> Last year we holidayed in Turkey. Lovely place. They served this
> bread everywhere, but I don't remember the name.
>
> They also turn it into a kind of pizza called 'pide'. The topping is
> put on the bread and 2 opposite edges are folded in to make a long boat
> shape (I think pide might actually mean boat in Turkish). This is
> sliced into strips and served. Great finger food!
>

According to the Turkish cookbook I have here, ('Classic Turkish
Cooking', by Ghillie Basan), Pide is the bread that the "pizza" is made
on, not the dish itself.

Jon
Remove the canned meat to email me.

Jon > wrote:

> According to the Turkish cookbook we have ('Classic Turkish Cooking', by
> Ghillie Basan), Pide is the bread that the "pizza" is made on, not the
> dish itself.

Indeed, and this is how the word is used in Germany (with 2.5 million
Turks living here), too. "Pide" is flat bread of the puffy kind; the
"pizza" made with it is called "lahmacun".

Victor

(Victor Sack) wrote in
:

> Jon > wrote:
>
>> According to the Turkish cookbook we have ('Classic Turkish Cooking',
>> by Ghillie Basan), Pide is the bread that the "pizza" is made on, not
>> the dish itself.
>
> Indeed, and this is how the word is used in Germany (with 2.5 million
> Turks living here), too. "Pide" is flat bread of the puffy kind; the
> "pizza" made with it is called "lahmacun".

I've seen "lahmacun" as a handwritten label at one place in Granville
(the area near where I work)where I've bought borek. Their "lahmacun" is
a flat round - like a pizza shape - and they only have the one topping
on it - like a very finely minced meat, very thinly spread.

Pretty much all the other places I've seen call it either Turkish pizza,
or pide. The place in Penrith bills itself as Nepean Turkish Pide Pizza
and Kebabs (they sell "pide", pizza, doner kebabs, burgers and baked
potatoes with toppings - plenty of diversity!), and in their takeaway
menu the section for the Turkish type of pizza is titled "Turkish Pide".

The "pide" we get here are sometimes folded, I think - I certainly
remember having some cut into strips as mentioned by the poster who had
holidayed in Turkey. The local place's menu notes on some types "open",
"folded" and "half folded".

These places I've seen are mostly takeaway sort of places, maybe with a
few tables. And of course, although they may call it Pide, or Turkish
pizza, I couldn't guarantee all the people running them are actually
Turkish <g>. Perhaps it has just become a common term - maybe they
thought it was more "user friendly" <g> than lahmacun (can you tell me
exactly how that's pronounced, Victor?)

Rhonda Anderson
Cranebrook, NSW, Australia

Rhonda Anderson wrote:
> These places I've seen are mostly takeaway sort of places, maybe with a
> few tables. And of course, although they may call it Pide, or Turkish
> pizza, I couldn't guarantee all the people running them are actually
> Turkish <g>

Easy - look out for a Turkish 'eye' hanging somewhere!

I'll let someone else explain:

"A very common Turkish custom is to have an "Evil-Eye" hanging
prominently in most every store, home, taxi mirror and on a lot of car
bumpers. An evil-eye is usually a poured piece of blue glass with a
smaller pour of white glass in the middle followed by an even smaller
pour of black glass. Sometimes the white and black are replaced by
glued plastic pieces, but the blue glass remains a staple. They come in
a wide variety of sizes from charm bracelet dangles to 12" diameter
wall hangings and are available for sale almost everywhere. I usually
bring several back as gifts when I travel. Anyway, the local legend
says that if an evil person enters your shop, home, etc. the evil-eye
will spontaneously shatter alerting the owner to his or her presence.
They swear by these things and everybody has seen it happen or heard
about it happening to a friend."

>From http://www.sas.org/E-Bulletin/2003-0...back/body.html
(there's a picture there too, about halfway down the page).

--
Paul

Rhonda Anderson > wrote:

> These places I've seen are mostly takeaway sort of places, maybe with a
> few tables. And of course, although they may call it Pide, or Turkish
> pizza, I couldn't guarantee all the people running them are actually
> Turkish <g>. Perhaps it has just become a common term - maybe they
> thought it was more "user friendly" <g> than lahmacun

Yes, I'm pretty sure sure that must be the case. After all, neither
pide nor lahmacun are a pizza - they are just being compared to one. As
far as I'm concerned, pide is flat bread, to be compared more to pita
than to pizza, but a lot of things can be done with bread, of course,
serving it with a topping being one, so some people may see it fit to
compare it to pizza. Lahmacun is a more particular term.

> (can you tell me
> exactly how that's pronounced, Victor?)

Somewhat like "lah-ma-jun", with the stress on the last syllable.

Victor

"pavane" > wrote:

>A very fine Turkish restaurant (Bosphorus) in Winter Park FL
>just started serving the same bread...really good, but I also
>have no idea what the name is. ... I just called the restaurant,
>it is called "Lavash." Served hot and puffed. Great.
>
>pavane

I just found a recipe for "Lavash" in a book I have here, but it only
has 3 T of sugar in it, so I don't think it would be very sweet. I'm
also a little skeptical about it's authenticity, because it's from a
Jeff Smith book, the one about Immigrant Ancestors. It's referred to
in the book and also in a taped FG episode my wife has generically as
"Armenian Cracker Bread", which implies that it is very crisp. The
book does say that you can wet it under running water, wrap it in a
damp towel to soften and use it as a wrap. There aren't many
ingredients, but the instructions are incredibly lengthy. You'd
probably be better off Googling for it. I'm willing to try to post it
by paraphrasing the directions, but I don't think it's what is being
searched for here.

--
The Doc says my brain waves closely match those of a crazed ferret.
At least now I have an excuse.