How Lavash Came into Being

In medieval Baghdad, ruqaq (thin sheets of bread) were synonymous with luxurious living. In an anecdote about his experience in the city of Aleppo, a Bedouin describes how within the course of a wedding meal he attended, he and the other diners were handed white pieces of cloth in which he could see neither woof nor warp. He wanted to make a shirt of the ‘fabric’. As he was about to ask some of the guests to give him their share of it, he saw that they started tearing pieces from it quite easily. To his surprise, it turned out to be bread, the likes of which he had never seen (al-Dinawari, ‘Uyoun alAkhbar).