Khubz, alternatively transliterated as khoubz, khobez, khubez, or khubooz,[clarification needed] is the usual word for "bread" in Standard Arabic and in many of the vernaculars.
Among the breads popular in Middle Eastern countries are "pocket" pita bread in the Levant and Egypt, and the flat tannur breadinIraq.
The oldest known kind of bread, found by archaeologists in the Syrian Desert (modern-day southern Syria and northern Jordan), dates back 14,000 years. It was a sort of unleavened flatbread made with several types of wild cereals.[1]
The word tannur comes from the Akkadian word tinūru (𒋾𒂟), which consists of the parts tin 'mud' and nuro/nura 'fire' and is mentioned as early as in the Akkadian Epic of Gilgamesh.[2]
Six recipes for bread baked in a tannur are included in Ibn Sayyar al-Warraq's 10th century Kitab al-Tabikh cookery book.
Pita is a flatbread found in many Mediterranean, Balkan, and Middle Eastern cuisines. In Arab countries, pita bread is produced as a round flatbread, 18 cm (7 in) to 30 cm (12 in) in diameter. It is thin and puffs up as it bakes. Since it does not contain any added fat, it dries out rapidly and is best consumed while still warm; later, it may become chewy.[4]
The "pocket" pita originated in the Middle East.[5][6] It is also known as Arab(ic) bread, Lebanese bread, or Syrian bread.[7][8][5]
Nationals of other countries, for example, South Asians, also consume it as a replacement for roti with curries, cooked vegetables or meat (dry or gravy).
^"Khubz. Arabic Bread". Al Mashriq (The Levant). Archived from the original on 3 October 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2016. from Khayat, Marie Karam; Keatinge, Margaret Clark (1959). Food from the Arab World. Beirut: Khayat's.
