Gastra, Peka, or Saçi

We heat our ovens with the turn of a dial, with no advance thought or preparation. Not long ago the difficulty for most cooks around the Mediterranean was not rolling phyllo, but finding an oven for baking the pie. On the nearly treeless islands, wood for the oven was probably the most valuable of the ingredients needed. Firing an oven is a lengthy process and in the past was done only once a week. The cook had to plan ahead to bake a series of dishes, besides the family’s bread, in order to use every bit of the oven’s precious heat. Pies were usually baked after the bread, as the oven started to cool. Lower temperatures were essential to allow both crust and filling to cook evenly.