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And Rhu dear-- the technical name for "pizza ovens"-- when you go to a restaurant supple store is "a peel oven" pizza's might be the most common use for a this type of oven.. but it's not a pizza oven.

I think its door size and depth that make it so.. i remember once going to a restoration village, and the bee hive oven was deep, but had a very small door.. and they had a long pole with a hook on one end to to snag the hot pots, and drag them to the front of the oven.. a peel would not have fit throught the relatively small door.


#47979 11/21/01 07:25 PM
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mezzaluna: the correct translation is not "crescent moon", but "half moon"
As to crescent moons, we have intriguing entemology of the "croissant" As stated by the aptly-named Charles Paniti:
http://trivial.homestead.com/Panati1.html: Next time you indulge in a croissant with your coffee,
consider this: It's not French--it originated in Austria. The croissant would never have been invented had it not been for some serious bloodshed. It commemorated the 1863 defense of Vienna against invading Turkish troops. What's more, you are committing a kind of oral aggression when you eat it because the crescent shape stands for the similar symbol on the Turkish flag. In the act of eating you are thus devouring someone's enemy. Now put down that bloody piece of bread before you do any more harm.


Note: the web site is an paraphrase of Panati. As I recall, the croissant was not just "commeration": rather, an inventive baker ingeniously seized commercial opportunity in the defeat of a turkish siege.



#47980 11/21/01 07:48 PM
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Count Spatula prefers the rigid one over the flexible; says he gets better leverage on his lovely indi-victuals.


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ah the bit i heard was, the turks where defeted because the planned invations was foiled by the early rising bakers..who realized the turks where invading the city in the dead of night. the bakers raised the alarm and roused the city and the army. so it is fitting that bread is used to comemorate the battle.

actually, this is very close to being very politacal. for many moslems, this battle is part of a turning point-- it marks a time when they began to lose their place in the modern world.. this battle lost, the french in eygpt, and they were unable to roust the french.. it was the english who finally did.. but now a once proud people, made into colonies of the european powers they saw them selves in opposition too.. from the moslem point of view, there is a direct line from the battle for vienna, to the WTC destruction. i don't want to be in the position of treating moslems as enemies, but i have been trying to learn why it is they hate me, so very, very much.. i don't agree with them, and the current leaders play pick and chose with the facts to arive at why we are the great satan.. but i am beginning to have some understanding.


#47982 11/21/01 10:37 PM
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Well, Consuelo answered that haunting question I've had for years related to the moon, and croissants will never be the same with this new little bit of Turkish historical perspective...

But I've another question related to a story. A friend of mine once made a pastry that he shaped like a three-cornered hat. It had a filling of raisins or some other dried fruit. I cannot remember either the name of the pastry or the historical story associated with the baking of these little hats. I just remember that they're baked once a year to commemorate something that happened during a period in which (I suppose) three-cornered-hats were worn. It was a delicious pastry--too bad only served annually.

Does this ring a bell at all?


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Histoire :

L´origine de cet article de viennoiserie remonte à l´époque où les Turcs assiégeaient la capitale de
l´Autriche (1683).

Une nuit les boulangers de Vienne ont entendu les sabots des ennemis, et ils ont donné l´alarme, ce
qui a permis de repousser l´assaut.

Lorsque les Ottomans ont été vaincus, Jean III Sobieski accordait aux boulangers le privilège de
fabriquer une pâtisserie qui immortaliserait l´événement.

C´est ainsi qu´est né le „Hörnchen" (petite corne en Allemand), allusion au croissant qui orne
l´étendard turc.

Marie-Antoinette arrivant d´Autriche, l´introduisit à la cour de France en 1770.

Une autre tradition attribue l´invention du croissant à un certain Kolschitsky, cafetier viennois,
d´origine polonaise.

En récompense de son courage pendant le siège, il aurait reçu des sacs de café pris à l´ennemi. Il
aurait alors eu l´idée de servir ce café accompagné d´une pâtisserie en forme de croissant.

Dear Keiva: I thought it unlikely that the invasion of Austria by Turks was in 1863. It was in 1683.




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wwh, you quote:

Une nuit les boulangers de Vienne ont entendu les sabots des ennemis, et ils ont donné l´alarme, ce
qui a permis de repousser l´assaut.


The bakers heard the boots of the enemies. Here's a cross-thread reference to "Footnotes," oui? Quite literal, in fact, au militaire...

Boulanger is a word that promises of of puffed pastry and rising breads in the way it comes out of your mouth...


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The old quibbler does it again. Sabots usually means wooden shoes, but I never heard of the Turks wearing them. I doubt that anybody wore sabots if they could afford leather shoes. And an army would not be able to march very far or very fast in sabots. It must have been a trick to keep them from falling off your feet, and very easy to get terrible blisters and calluses.


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wwh: Don't 'cha think "sabots" here is being used loosely? Whatever the Turks were wearing, the sound of shoes was audible to the bakers. Maybe Turkish taffy was stuck to the soles of whatever they wore and picked up debris in the road... Maybe this is really where the original Turkey Trot was heard....


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My dictionary does give as a second definition shoes of leather with thick wooden soles. I remember having seen very serviceable looking sandals worn in Near East. I can't think of any way of getting definite detail on what Turkish military footwear would have been in the sixteen hundreds. I'm glad I didn't have to do twenty-five mile hikes in wooden soled boots.


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