[Cz-L] "treatise on Fluden recipes"

Because of the variety of Fluden recipes I received,
I decided to do some further research. This is what I found:

The Yiddish word "Fluden" comes from the German "Fladen".
This in turn is associated with the French "flan".
Both of these refer to a flat cake, or rather a tart.
According to the Larousse Gastronomique, the Latin poet Fortunatus
(530 - 609) already mentions the word flan.
Some of you wrote me that Jewish "Fluden" is derived from Hungarian
cooking. And indeed, the best Fluden I ever ate was made by my great-aunt
Rivka Steinmetz of Radautz, who was born as Rivka Rosenberg in the district
of Maramures (a Hungarian speaking part of Romania).
Tante Rivka's Fluden was made with a thin strudel like dough and rolled like
a strudel. I do not know whether it was her own idea, or a general
Hungarian custom to make the Fluden as a roll rather than a flat cake.
Many of the recipes I received from members of this list, are for a flat
layered cake.

But my cookbook "The cuisine of Hungary" by George Lang, does not contain
a recipe for Fluden.

The cookbook of "Transylvanian Cuisine" by Paul Kovis calls Fladen or
"Fladni" a Jewish multilayered pastry, considered the symbol of an annual
abundant yield. According to this book, Honey, the basic sweetener, also
symbolizes abundance. The recipe in this book for Flodni or fladni bears no
resemblance to the Fluden I remember, but is similar to one of the recipes I
was sent.

My own conclusion is that if one made "milchidike" fluden, one made a
layered flat cake using "Muerbteig" which contains butter. If one made a
cake which could be eaten right after eating meat, a thin pulled dough was
used. Considering various middle eastern pastries, this may also be a recipe
going back to biblical times. The advantage of making a rolled cake, was
that it could be eaten with your fingers and the filling would not fall out.
After bleaching the stains out of a 3 meter long tablecloth, this is
definitely a consideration.

Some of the recipes I received are taken verbatim from various cookbooks.
So as not to infringe on copyright laws, I cannot send the recipes I
received to the list at large. After this long "megillah" you may not want
them anyhow. But I will send the recipes to all who requested them.

Mimi
Received on 2006-09-25 11:14:05