Markook bread (), also known as ''khubz ruqaq'' (), ''shrak'' (), ''khubz rqeeq'' (), ''mashrooh'' (), and

saj bread Saj may refer to: * Saj (bread) * Saj (utensil) * Saj', Arabic literary genre * Saj, Iran, a village in Qazvin Province * Saj, the tree ''Terminalia elliptica'' * Saj (Coronation Street), TV character * Sahu language, ISO 639-3 language code ...

(), is a kind of

Middle Eastern The Middle East (term originally coined in English language) is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage by the United Kingdom and western Eur ...

unleavened

flatbread A flatbread is bread made usually with flour; water, milk, yogurt, or other liquid; and salt, and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are Unleavened bread, unleavened, although some are leavened, such as pita bread. A Se ...

common in the

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

and the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

. It is baked on a convex metal griddle (a saj) or in a '' tannour''. ''Markook shrak'' is a type of thin bread. The dough is unleavened and usually made with only flour, water, and salt, and after being rested and divided into round portions, flattened and spread across a round cushion until it is thin then flipped onto the saj. It is often folded and put in bags before being sold. It is commonly compared to

pita bread Pita ( or ; ) or pitta (British English), also known as Arabic bread (, ), as Lebanese bread and as kmaj (from the Persian ''kumaj''), is a family of yeast- leavened round flatbreads baked from wheat flour, common in the Mediterranean, Levant ...

, also found in Middle Eastern cuisine, although it is much larger and thinner. In some Arab countries, such as

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

, different names are given for the same flatbread, such as ''khamir'', '' maluj'' and ''ṣaluf'', depending on the regional dialects. By Israelis, markook may also be referred to as

laffa Laffa, also known as lafa or Iraqi pita, is the Modern Hebrew term for a large, thin flatbread with an Iraqi origin. Laffa is a simple bread that is traditionally vegan and cooked in a ''tannur'' or '' tabun'', both of which are clay ovens. It ...

, though markook and laffa are distinct types of flatbread.

Etymology

Markook () comes from the Arabic word () meaning delicate, and also comes from the verb ().

History

Markook was also mentioned in the tenth-century cookbook of

Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq () was an Arab author from Baghdad. He was the compiler of a tenth-century cookbook, the (, ''The Book of Dishes''). This is the earliest known Arabic cookbook. It contains over 600 recipes, divided into 132 chapters. The is the oldest survivi ...

under the name ruqaq. He describes it as large and paper-thin, unleavened bread. German orientalist

Gustaf Dalman Gustaf Hermann Dalman (9 June 1855 – 19 August 1941) was a German Lutheran theologian and orientalist. He did extensive field work in Palestine before the First World War, collecting inscriptions, poetry, and proverbs. He also collected physica ...

described the ''markook'' in

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

during the early 20th-century as being also the name applied to flatbread made in a '' tannour'', although, in this case, it was sometimes made with leavening agents. (reprinted from 1935 edition), Photographic illustration no. 30 reizehn Brotarten (Thirteen bread types)/ref>

Gallery

File:Markouk from Jerusalem Israel.png, Markouk prepared by

Syrian Jews Syrian Jews ( ''Yehudey Surya'', ''al-Yahūd as-Sūriyyūn'', colloquially called SYs in the United States) are Jews who live in the region of the modern state of Syria, and their descendants born outside Syria. Syrian Jews derive their origin ...

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

File:Woman Baking Bread on Saj Oven in Artas, West Bank, Palestine.JPG, A

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

woman baking ''markook'' bread on Saj oven in the village of Artas near

Bethlehem Bethlehem is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, located about south of Jerusalem, and the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate. It had a population of people, as of . The city's economy is strongly linked to Tourism in the State of Palesti ...

File:Markouk - Bread on Saje.jpg, Markouk being prepared and cooked on a saj

References

* * {{Flatbreads Arab breads Mediterranean cuisine Levantine cuisine Lebanese cuisine Palestinian cuisine Syrian cuisine Jewish breads Jordanian cuisine Iraqi cuisine Israeli breads Saudi Arabian cuisine Emirati breads Yemeni breads Flatbreads

Etymology

History

Gallery

See also

References