The History of Baklava

Baklava in its earliest form dates back to the Assyrian Empire around 8 B.C.E., when people began arranging unleavened flatbreads in layers with chopped nuts in between. Centuries later, a Roman dish called placenta cake emerged — it was made with many layers of dough and filled with cheese and honey. The earliest version of baklava as we know it today emerged as recently as 500 years ago during the Ottoman Empire. The dish was reserved for festive occasions due to the high price of ingredients and intensive skilled labor necessary for making it. Beginning in 1520, the Ottoman sultan would gift massive amounts of baklava to his most elite soldiers, the Janissaries, during Ramadan. Ottoman Christians baked baklava for Lent or Easter, often using 40 layers to symbolize the 40 days of Lent or 33 layers to symbolize the 33 years of Jesus’s life. Jews living in the Ottoman Empire also served baklava on Rosh Hashanah and Purim. Because the dish was widely popular and considered an expensive indulgence suitable for gifting, it was spread along trade routes and pilgrimage routes by traveling bureaucrats and the followers of several religions. This made baklava a staple dessert all across the Middle East and Mediterranean. Consequently, regional varieties developed that utilized local ingredients. (Substitutions in nut type and syrup flavorings are typically what sets one version apart from another.) Because the dessert is now so important to so many different cultures, many countries now claim credit for creating the dish; its origin is especially hotly debated between Greece and Turkey. (It is worth noting that the EU awarded protected status to the Gaziantep variety of baklava from southern Turkey in 2013.) Today, baklava remains an extremely popular treat in many parts of the world, including the United States.