
A History of Börek - diodorus
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/historians-cookbook/history-borek
======
theobeers
I wasn't quite convinced by the etymology, so I figured I would check Gerhard
Doerfer's _Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen_ (vol. 2). It
turns out this is not an easy word to trace.[0]

Doerfer judges it as not originally Turkic, owing to its limited distribution
and absence in older texts, and suggests that it more likely came from Iranian
languages. So far so good. But, he adds, "Here it also seems to be
unetymologizable." Womp womp…

It may be that Andreas (sic) Tietze found something else—I haven't looked at
his Turkish etymological dictionary, which was unfinished at the time of his
death. If there were a clear answer, however, I don't think it would have
escaped Doerfer and the others who looked into this.

[0] [https://i.imgur.com/sTbWtq6.png](https://i.imgur.com/sTbWtq6.png)

~~~
egeozcan
Sevan Nişanyan (an Armenian-Turkish language researcher) suggests that it may
be of Persian origin (būrak, a dish made with dough and meat). He, however,
doesn't dismiss the possibility that it may have some etymological
relationship with the Slavic word peirogi (pirog пирог, pirojki пирожки - a
dough dish) and the Persian word having a Turkic root (having made a full
circle like tülbent).

[https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=b%C3%B6rek&view=annotated](https://www.nisanyansozluk.com/?k=b%C3%B6rek&view=annotated)

~~~
theobeers
I love Nişanyan Sözlük! It's an incredible resource.

Anyway, Doerfer mentions the pierogi theory, attributing it to Ramstedt (see
the last part of the screenshot I posted), but he says it's been refuted by
Vasmer. (Presumably Max Vasmer? Wow, that guy had a hell of a career.)

There is the impression of something circular going on. If you look for būrak
in the Dehkhoda Persian dictionary, you'll see that it was also known as a
kind of yogurt soup/stew, with the name perhaps originating as an alternate
form of the Turkic (!) bughrā. That, in turn, may be an abbreviation of
bughrā-khānī, which you can find described, e.g. in Steingass's dictionary, as
a pastry dish dressed with milk or gravy. (It was allegedly named after a
ruler of Khwarazm.)

So, if you wanted to piece the whole thing together, you could theorize that
bughrā-khānī was shortened to bughrā, from which the Persian būrak eventually
derived—and then went back into Turkic as börek. This could also involve
flexibility in the intended dish, between a stuffed pastry with gravy, and
some kind of soup… maybe with dumplings? It wouldn't be the strangest instance
of metonymy.

You know, it's crazy for me to revisit this topic. Some time ago I was trying
to figure out a sixteenth-century Persian poem, in which there are references
to bughrā'ī and māhīchah. The best I could figure out, it was supposed to mean
a soup with pieces of pastry in it. It never occurred to me that this might be
connected to a theorized etymology of börek.

~~~
egeozcan
Etymology can be addictive. The links, theories and how the words reflect the
evolution of societies always amaze me.

Nişanyan also has a blog where he goes deep in words he finds interesting.
It's in Turkish and translators fail horribly, unfortunately, to keep most of
the meaning. I still wanted to share if anyone speaks the language:

[http://nisanyan1.blogspot.com/search/label/etimoloji](http://nisanyan1.blogspot.com/search/label/etimoloji)

I took his class when I was an undergrad. He's a very smart and colorful
person who speaks 12 languages. I remember looking forward to each class.

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keiferski
I've always thought that schools should teach history with food. Bring in
börek and you can teach about Byzantium, the Ottomans, and Southeastern
Europe, the Middle East and North Africa in general. Bring in pierogi and
teach about Central Europe, Russia, Poland, the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, Ukraine, and so on. Better yet, make the foods during class
itself.

~~~
carlob
An excellent book about this is Cuisine and Empire by Rachel Laudan.

However I think you're missing one of the points of teaching history in
schools, which is to instill some sort of shared sense of national identity
(which is mostly made up).

I'm Italian, and we are taught that there is some kind of common thread
between Caesar, Dante, Machiavelli, and modern Italy. What if we were taught
that the durum wheat we use for pasta came from North Africa, that the same
idea of making pasta is probably Chinese (by way of the Mongols)? Most of what
we consider staples nowadays are either very recent inventions or come from
immigration and interaction with our neighbors. How could we justify closing
our borders to the refugees coming from the other side of the Mediterranean if
we didn't believe the nationalist propaganda?

Another great example of the political use of cuisine is the adaptation of
Greek moussaka from its Ottoman ancestor, which involved adding Béchamel to
make it more French...

~~~
westicle
I'm not sure I follow this post.

All cultures mimic, adopt and modify aspects of other cultures. See: New York
pizza, Australian beer etc. It doesn't follow that the resulting outcome is
any less a valid expression of national cultural identity.

Likewise, I don't follow the connection between having a national identity and
having national borders.

I once invited my neighbour over for dinner. He introduced me to his BBQ
recipe which I now make all the time for my family. But he also got drunk and
pissed himself on my couch. I won't be inviting him to move in with us any
time soon, despite us having some culinary cultural overlap.

~~~
carlob
Well there is a stark difference between: "This is my grandma recipe, a family
heritage" and "This is my drunk piss-himself-on-the-couch neighbor recipe" the
first is something that can inspire you to impale yourself on a bayonet, the
second is not.

In Europe much of the teaching of history in school has something to do with
inventing a common national narrative, that's why everyone minimizes their own
war crimes (with some exceptions after Nazism and Fascism, where Germany and
Italy wanted a clean cut), and that's why France has forbidden Paths of Glory
until 1975 and celebrates WWII victory.

As I was saying in another post almost every country in the Balkans has some
kind of national myth about when they were an empire spanning the whole region
(so does Italy about the Roman Empire). Ukrainians are very proud about Kievan
Rus' (as a tool to prove superiority or precedence over Russians) and I could
go on about this.

Maybe New World countries are based less on a nineteenth century national
myth, with everyone being able to trace their ancestry to some immigration a
few generations back, but here in the Old World this kind of half lies are
still very much present.

Re: the connection between national identity and national borders is basically
a softer version of the racial substitution conspiracy theory: if these
immigrants swamp our country they are going to prevent us from using real pork
in carbonara and add pineapple to our pizzas.

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aytekin
I was at a luxury Turkish resort in the Mediterranean this summer. It had an
amazing open buffet. You could find anything you want. I'd just fill two
plates with different boreks and nothing else. Hot, right out of the oven,
they were amazing.

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bump64
If you visit the Balkans make sure to try it. There are many variations of the
börek and all them are great.

~~~
hellwd
At least in Bosnia, there are no variations of the börek. There is only one
börek - with meat. Other "variations" with cheese, potato etc.. they have also
a different name. Basically if you order a börek, you will get it with meat.

~~~
input_sh
Yes, this is a common "fight" between people in Bosnia and neighboring
countries:

In Bosnia, "börek" (or "burek", as is its local spelling) is only filled with
meat, while the rest of the dishes fall under the broader category of "pitas"
(or pies): sirnica (filled with cheese), krompiruša (filled with potatoes),
zeljanica (filled with cabbage), jabukovača (filled with apples)...

In Serbia and Croatia, they're all "burek" with different stuffings, so burek
with cheese, burek with potatoes, etc.

It's a weird hill to die on, but you will receive some weird looks if you
request just "burek" in Serbia/Croatia/Montenegro, or "burek with cheese"
within Bosnia.

~~~
nuxi
Zeljanica is, despite its name, filled with spinach rather than cabbage. Then
there's also an abomination called "pizza-burek", it's probably as bad as it
sounds...

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subpixel
Highly recommended in the NYC area:
[https://www.djerdan.com/](https://www.djerdan.com/)

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afroisalreadyin
This reminds me that I should bake a börek again sometime. With a decent
salad, you can have it even for lunch or dinner.

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smonff
Excellent dish for programmers.

~~~
masklinn
Dunno, pastries are often nice but the flaky dough is messy to eat in front of
a computer, and the bite-sized pastries tend to be sweet and covered in sticky
stuff.

~~~
smonff
Real programmer don't eat in front of their screen.

~~~
masklinn
Then I fail to see what's programmer-relevant about dishes, and what would
make börek an excellent dish _for programmers_ aside from being an excellent
dish in general.

~~~
smonff
« For centuries, it had been the food of nomads and wanderers. Cooked over
campfires, it had been carried in knapsacks from Beijing to Barcelona, from
Modena to the Maghreb. »

~~~
masklinn
That's the exact opposite of programmer-relevant.

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dr_dshiv
I love the idea that folded Philo dough originated to emulate oven-fluffy
bread -- when ovens weren't available.

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researcher7
Actually it's not Turkish. It is an Armenian food, some of the Balkan states
also had it in different forms and different recipes at the same time. Those
predate even the ancestors of the Ottoman Turkish empire. This is again, part
of the genocide. After committing the actual murders, the culture is stolen
all good things are now claimed to be Turkish. They did this also to the
Greeks, Assyrians, and some of Balkan states.

~~~
mda
"Borek" is definitely Turkish, of central asia origin. You are conflating
irrelevant things. Not everything you see in Turkish culture is "stolen" from
some other culture, Turks roam a huge area in 3 different continents for
thousands of years, they teach learn and adapt, what did you expect? It is
getting really tired of seeing whenever something remotely Turkish is
mentioned someone jumps with these.

~~~
researcher7
Feel free to downvote more or post more revisionist history. It is not even
remotely turkish, but like most "turkish" food and drinks, it was stolen from
the cultures they attempted to destroy. Truth is downvoted these days.

~~~
mda
Well, if you have a pinch of evidence, please enlighten us.

