Baklava Fun Facts

The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and baklava fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Baklava fun facts.

Baklava Fun Facts: Baklava is a rich, sweet pastry made of layers of filo filled with chopped nuts and sweetened and held together with syrup or honey.

Baklava is the ancestor of strudel. It was brought to Hungary by Turkish invaders in the 16th century.
Phyllo dough is named after the Greek word for “leaf”, being “as thin as a leaf”.
November 17th is National Baklava Day.
The origin of the name is disputed. Turkish etymologists claim an old Turkish origin. Others argue that the word “baklava” may come from the Mongolian root ba?la- ‘to tie, wrap up, pile up’ composed with the Turkic verbal ending ba?la-.

REGIONAL VARIATIONS:

In Greece, baklava is supposed to be made with 33 dough layers, referring to the years of Christ’s life.
Bulgaria, Serbia and Macedonia, baklava is made with walnuts and sugar syrup.
In the Balkans, it is a popular dessert. It is also made on special occasions, especially by Muslims during the holy month of Ramadan and Eid ul-Fitr, and by Christians duringPascha and Christmas.
In Armenia, paklava is made with cinnamon and cloves.
Israelis make baklava with phyllo pastry sheets, nuts, such as pistachios, walnuts, hazelnuts, and almonds, sweet butter, clove, sugar, cinnamon, and the syrup combined with orange and lemon rind.
In Jordan, baklava is made of dough layers filled with nuts, such as pistachios, and sugar or honey syrup.
In Lebanon, baklava is made of filo pastry filled with nuts and steeped in Attar syrup (orange or rose water or sugar) or honey. It is usually cut into triangular or diamond shapes.

Baklava Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we missed any baklava fun facts in the comment section or food truck forum. If we can verify the facts we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia: Fun Facts about Baklava.

Plan your future food truck daily menu specials based on the food holidays.

By Richard Myrick|2020-11-17T08:03:17-05:00Nov 17, 2020|Food Facts|

About the Author: Richard Myrick

Richard Myrick is an architect by degree (Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan) who began his career in real estate development and architectural planning. In September of 2010 he created Mobile Cuisine Magazine to fill an information void he found when he began researching how to start a mobile hotdog cart in Chicago. Richard found that there was no central repository of mobile street food information anywhere on the internet, and with that, the idea for MCM was born. Richard also wrote the "Running a Food Truck for Dummies" available in bookstores everywhere and Amazon. You can reach out to Richard by email at: [email protected].