Now, I’ve recently moved to the United States from the Middle East, and one thing has been bothering me immensly - the Pita. Now, back home, we knew how to deal with them. We’d cut off a strip, open the pocket, and start stuffing. We’d put our falafel, our salad, our meat, our (well, my) peanut butter and jelly, all in this nice, self contained, and often quite spherical unit. It worked just fine. It was the right way to do things.
Here in NYC, though, they have their own ideas on how to serve a pita. They just seem to flop their filling down on top and then sort of roll it around like some half-assed laffa (a large Iraqi pita wrapped like a cone around meat). It’s drippy, it’s messy, it’s an inefficiant way to eat. Frankly, it seemes kind of stupid.
So what’s with that? Is that way of serving a pita part of some legitimate national cuisine I’m not familiar with? Or is it a case of American culinary ignorance?
It sounds like regional ignorance. All the pitas I’ve encountered in the Great Lakes region (where there is a sizable Lebanese community and a smaller Syrian community) have been dealt with in the manner you first described.
(The only problem is finding a good pita bakery since several brands are so thin that the contents of the “pocket” leak as soon as they’re stuffed inside.)
I’m pretty sure the Greeks fold it in the manner you described. Around my parts it is done both ways depending on whether you are in a Lebenese restaurant or a Greek one.
Um, I don’t work in Taco Bell but I’ve eaten Gorditas, and it sure doesn’t seem like there any 1000 island dressing or taco shell in there. It just seems like chewy pita bread, like a pizza crust almost. Unless you’re talking about their double-decker concoctions, but I believe those are usually “glued” with that horrific bean paste.
Plopping the ingredients on top and then folding the pita around them is the way I always saw it done in Greece, and is usually the way it’s done in my town in Greek restaurants. When I make a pita sandwich myself, though, I put the ingredients inside. Much less messy.
I ‘attempt’ to put the filling inside the pita. I say ‘attempt’ because the pita is usually to thin and rips out at the bottom (effectively leaving me with two strips of bread), or I can’t open the damned thing without tearing off extra strips of bread, despite the perforations (effectively leaving me with crumbs). I cannot find a decent pita that will not 1) tear open at the bottom, or 2) not tear open at the top. (Yup, the nots ate in the right place.) All I want is a sandwich that will not explode upon first bite.
How do they make pita hollow?
It wasn’t invented by a rocket scientest, it was invented a long time ago by someone with burning sticks and a rock.
I think restaurants wrap because it is quicker and easier.
All the falafels I’ve ever had in the NY area (at least the ones in Israeli-run places) have had the filling inside. Maybe you’re just not eating at the right places…
