Facts About Tiropita
Tiropita or tyropita is a Greek pastry made with layers of buttered phyllo and filled with a cheese-egg mixture. It is served either in an individual-size free-form wrapped shape, or as a larger pie that is portioned.
History
The modern Greek tyropita is historically derived from the tyropatinum, which was a sweet custard developed by the ancient Greeks of Sicily consisting of eggs, ricotta cheese, and honey.
Other scholars suggest that the ancient Greek placenta cake (or plakous, πλακοῦς) and its Eastern Roman (Byzantine) descendant, plakountas tetyromenous (πλακούντας τετυρομένους, "cheesy placenta") and en tyritas plakountas (εν τυρίτας πλακούντας, "cheese-inserted placenta"), are the ancestors of modern tiropita (börek or banitsa). Cato the Elder included a recipe for placenta in his De Agri Cultura (160 BC):
Another theory is that layered dishes like tyropita have their origins in Turkish cuisine and may trace back to layered pan-fried breads developed by the Turks of Central Asia before their westward migration to Anatolia in the late Middle Ages (cf. baklava).
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