Talk:Placenta cake

I'm just putting these sources here, since they are not online.

From the Byzantine studies professor Vryonis (Speros Vryonis The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor, 1971, p. 482), "Another Byzantine favorite was the so-called kopte or kopton (koptoplakous) that was the same as the Turkish baklava. This delicacy was known to Athenaeus who gives us the recipe. It was, he says, made of leaves of dough, between which were placed crushed nuts with honey, sesame, pepper, and poppy seed (Athenaeus, XIV, 647-648. Koukoules, Bios, V, 116). The börek are paralleled as early as the second century of the Christian era and throughout the Byzantine world by the plakountas entyritas, which Artemidorus and the medieval lexicographers mention (Koukoules, Bios, V, 118)."

From Patrick Faas (Around the Roman Table: Food and Feasting in Ancient Rome. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2003. p. 184-185.) "Placenta, then, was made of layers of sheep's cheese alternating with layers of thin tracta. The whole thing was baked in pastry dough. The dish looks like the predecessor of modern baklava, except that nowadays the sheep's cheese would be replaced with nuts. The Greeks and the Turks still argue over which dishes were originally Greek and which Turkish. Baklava, for example, is claimed by both countries. Greek and Turkish cuisine both built upon the cookery of the Byzantine Empire, which was a continuation of the cooking of the Roman Empire. Roman cuisine had borrowed a great deal from the ancient Greeks, but placenta (and hence baklava) had a Latin, not a Greek, origin--please note that the conservative, anti-Greek Cato left us this recipe. Also, placenta played a traditional role in ancient Roman religion."

Faas also states, "Placenta... is frequently mentioned in literature. It was the base for various other kinds of sweetmeat made from the same ingredients--dough, tract, fresh cheese and honey." Here is Faas' translation of Cato's ancient recipe for Roman placenta (Faas, p.184),

"Placenta is made like this: take 2 pounds of flour for the crust and make tracta with 2 pounds of alica and 4 pounds of spelt flour...Mix the 2 pounds of flour with water and knead to make a thin base dough. Soak 14 pounds of sheep's cheese, not sour but very fresh, in water. Knead and change the water three times. Take a piece of cheese, squeeze it dry and put it in the mortar. When all the cheese has dried knead it by hand in the clean mortar, and make it as fine as possible. Then take a clean flour-sieve and press the cheese back into the mortar through the sieve. Add 4 pounds of good honey, and mix it well with the cheese. Then place the base dough, 1 four wide, on greased bay-leaves on a clean baking tray. 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 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. Fold the base dough as a cover and a decoration over the contents and prick little air holes. Then place the placenta in the oven and put a preheated lid on top of it. Place hot ashes around and on top of it. Remove the lid two or three times to ensure that everything is going well. When ready, honey is poured over the placenta. That is how one makes a 4.3 litre placenta. " (Cato R.R. LXXCI as cited in Faas) Piledhighandeep (talk) 04:57, 2 October 2014 (UTC) Reply

Faas received negative reviews for his historical research, not a reliable source on this topic. Whonting (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2026 (UTC) Reply