Baklava Athenaeus. Several sources state that this Roman dessert continued to evolve during the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire into modern baklava. In antiquity the Greek word ' () was also used for Latin ', and the American scholar Speros Vryonis describes one type of plakous, koptoplakous (Byzantine Greek: κοπτοπλακοῦς), as a "Byzantine favorite" and "the same as the Turkish baklava", as do other writers. Indeed, the Roman word "placenta" () is used today on the island of Lesbos in Greece to describe a baklava-type dessert of layered pastry leaves containing crushed nuts that is baked and then covered in honey. Muhammad
Baklava is not well documented, its current form was probably developed in the imperial kitchens of the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. The Sultan presented trays of baklava to the Janissaries every 15th of the month of Ramadan in a ceremonial procession called the ". There are three proposals for the pre-Ottoman roots of baklava: the Roman placenta cake, as developed through Byzantine cuisine, The oldest (2nd century BCE) recipe that resembles a similar dessert is the honey covered baked layered-dough dessert ' of Roman times, which Patrick Faas identifies as the origin of baklava: "The Greeks and the Turks still argue