Pita or pitta (pronounced /ˈpiːtə/ PEE-tə) is a round pocket bread widely consumed in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. It is prevalent from North Africa through the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The "pocket" in pita bread is created by steam, which puffs up the dough. As the bread cools and flattens, a pocket is left in the middle.

Origin

Pita is now the western name for the Arabic bread called khubz (ordinary bread), other breads of Arab or Egyptian, or kumaj (a Turkish loanword properly meaning a bread cooked in ashes), all baked in a brick oven. It is slightly leavened wheat bread, flat, either round or oval, and variable in size. The tenth-century Arab cookery book, Kitab al-Tabikh by ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, includes six recipes for khubz, all baked in a tannur, which is like the modern tandoor oven, in its Chapter 13. Historians believe its history extends far into antiquity, since flatbreads in general, whether leavened or not, are among the most ancient breads, needing no oven or even utensil for their baking. The first evidence of flat breads occur in and around Amorite Damascus. In the early centuries of our era, the traditional Greek word for a thin flat bread or cake, plakous (Greek: "πλακοῦς"), had become the name of a thicker cake.