pita bread

Flatbreads are made the world over, a particularly useful item when utensils are not available.  They are grilled, roasted, fried, baked, and sauteed, leading to a myriad flavors.  Despite great similarity in preparation and cooking, they are often very different depending on the culture which produces.

Sometimes the difference is due to the presence of yeast or baking soda, olive oil or ghee, milk or yogurt, honey or sugar.  Sometimes the difference is in the milling – coarse grains vs fine, corn vs millet vs spelt vs wheat.  And sometimes the difference is barely discernible, giving the consumer a fleeting glimpse of the lifespan of grains and the unique climate, water, and soil conditions of growth and production.

Pita is a common flatbread, best known for its presence in the Mediterranean and Middle East.   But even such a localized area can produce a vastly different type of pita – from thick chewy khoubz found in the Levant to the thinner, crisper pide made in North Africa.  It is slightly leavened, owing its chewiness and puffiness to yeast and high temperatures.  It is often cooked in a brick oven or a flat piece of iron, heated to high enough temperatures that placing the dough produces a “sizzle” and a very short cooking-time.

Pita’s uses are thousandfold.  The characteristic pocket that forms in the baking process is used to hold fillings from falafel to hummus to roasted meat to vegetables.  It can also be used as a roll or wrap, surrounding many of the same fillings.  When sweetened, pita can also serve as the layers of a dessert.

Both ancient and versatile, it is also simple to make, hearkening back to days when nomads cooked over fires and carried the bare minimum.  Any flat heated surface would suffice to bake the bread, and as humans settled more permanently and began to grow and harvest wheat more fully, pita and other flatbreads became even more prevalent. Today, we use commercial preparations of yeast, but prior to its availability, yeast was often maintained as part of a “starter”, a method still commonly used and also common to other types of breads.  Nowadays, we also purchase flour, declining to mill our own grains.

Preparation requires time management and a little elbow grease, but is straightforward.  Flour, sugar, and salt are combined with yeast, drizzled with oil (usually olive oil) and then moistened to form dough.  The dough is then kneaded over and over, breaking the gluten bonds and thoroughly mixing all the ingredients.   Then, the yeast takes over, and the dough is left in a warm place to rise, often doubling and tripling its size.

The risen dough is punched down, kneaded a little more, and then separated and formed into small round balls, which are given a chance to rest again.  Then they are rolled out, rested again, and placed on an extremely hot surface.  The baking is delightful to watch – tiny bubbles emerge instantly all over, growing and merging into larger and larger bubbles until the entire surface becomes one single dome, a round puffy concoction of only a few simple ingredients and celebrated the world over.