Plakous

‘Plakous’, often translated as ‘cheese pie’, is mentioned in many texts, both religious and secular. Galen points out that there are many types of plakous found in rural areas, made from rough and ready ingredients. The basic ingredients were, of course, cheese, honey and flour, as described by Antiphanes (fragment 55). It was said that the Athenian ones were particularly good, due to the excellent quality of Attic honey. (Athenaeus D 449c). They should be drenched with melted honey, which will gradually blend in, releasing its flavour, while still hot, to become almost inseparable from the pastry and the filling of fresh goat’s milk cheese (the typical filling of plakountes). They were apparently irresistible, at least judging by the words of Athenaeus: “When I saw the large, round, golden, sweet, soft child of Demeter arrive, a warm plakous …”

The next cake of note, first mentioned about 350 B.C.E. by two Greek poets, is plakous. [...] At last, we have recipes and a context to go with the name. Plakous is listed as a delicacy for second tables, alongside dried fruits and nuts, by the gastronomic poet Archestratos. He praises the plakous made in Athens because it was soaked in Attic honey from the thyme-covered slopes of Mount Hymettos. His contemporary, the comic poet Antiphanes, tells us the other main ingredients, goat’s cheese and wheat flour.

An early Greek language mention of plakous as a dessert (or second table delicacy) comes from the poems of Archestratos. He describes plakous as served with nuts and dried fruits and commends the honey-drenched Athenian version of plakous.

Antiphanes (fl. 4th century BC), a contemporary of Archestratos, provided an ornate description of plakous with wheat flour and goat's cheese as key ingredients:

The streams of the tawny bee, mixed with the curdled river of bleating she-goats, placed upon a flat receptacle of the virgin daughter of Demeter [honey, cheese, flour], delighting in ten thousand delicate toppings – or shall I simply say plakous? I'm for plakous' (Antiphanes quoted by Athenaeus).

There is historical evidence that Greeks ate a flat bread called “flat,” or πλακούς (plakous) in Greek, baked in a mud oven and topped with olive oil, herbs, onion, cheese and garlic.

The plakous was a light, flaky cake, an irresistable postprandial delight, according to Athenaios: ". . . when I saw the golden, sweet, large, round, thick child of Demeter coming, a baked plakous.... "24 Again, quoting the 4th-century B.C. comic poet Antiphanes, he gives a riddling description of the structure of the plakous, which consists of honey and goat's milk cheese alternating with thin layers of pastry dough inside a firm cake shell.25 The plakous was also offered in sacrifice, as a sacred calendar from Miletos reveals, and was one of the foods carried in the liknon by the liknophoros.26 A poem of the 3rd century B.C. describes a four-year-old boy's gift to Apollo, on the occasion of his first haircut, of a rooster and a rich plakous filled with cheese.27

24 Athenaios 137b-c: 8eU' epa oce upaine7t~ & X[ovuo y4iou)ac ... &5 U Yov, cavO6v, yXuxep6v, tiyyav, gyxuxXov, &8p6v, A' naxpo - Wc' 6n-ubv inetLae06vua nXaxo0vrc. . .; Suda, s.v. nXax6aL- xat u6v nXaxr6vrca n(ov Qpo6cpopov.
25 Athenaios 449b-c: iou0i ,ueXtaavs v6VcaLv U alu44Ly) ,uYx&i)v acyxv &n6ppouv Op6VPov, &yxacoeyui~vov et naxxt X crr&iyaacpov &yviq napOWvou A/ok x6pnq, XencoauvO-coLq -pucpyvro Xu1ptoLq xacxUv,,acLv. See Grandjouan 1989, p. 58 for elucidation of this difficult passage.
26 Sokolowski 1955, no. 43, line 2 (5th century B.C., cult calendar from Miletos): ntXcx[o6vTC.... Bekker, Anecd. Graec. I, p. 277: XLxvop6popo o 6cpwv r X(xvov. ga7u M uoYuo [u)uLX6bv -05 AVyr;uptou tpoypi GrVetov ... gax o 6 &nd j Xtxvc, nXaxoOs xac &Xaq.
27 Anth. Pal. 6.55: atxVrunokv 8' &ncduaev &Xfxropa xac nXax6evrca naZt 'HymaMtxou ndova -cupoyp6pov