Origin The origin of filo is generally attributed to the
Turkic peoples of
Central Asia, who developed traditions of thin, layered flatbreads called
yufka during the
medieval period to suit their
nomadic lifestyle, while its paper-thin form is likely to have evolved later in the
palace kitchens of
Ottoman Istanbul.
Charles Perry argues that nomadic Turkic peoples had an “obsessive interest” in making layered bread, possibly in emulation of the thick
oven breads of city people. Homer's
Odyssey, written around 800 BC, mentions thin breads sweetened with walnuts and honey.
Ottoman period With the rise of the
Ottoman Empire, many argue that paper-thin pastry associated with modern filo was invented in the Ottoman kitchens of the
Topkapi Palace in
Istanbul. According to Priscilla Mary Işın, flatbreads and sheets of dough underwent a transformation in the Ottoman kitchens, where chefs constantly refined techniques for rolling and stretching dough into silky translucent sheets of filo. Sousanis and
Gil Marks similarly argue that Ottoman pastry chefs perfected a method for stretching the traditional
yufka into extreme thinness, using it to produce an array of baked goods, such as
baklava and
börek. Baklava appears to be the first dish made of filo.
Darra Goldstein notes that filo is traditionally rolled using a long, thin rolling pin known in Turkish as an
oklava. In the 19th century, Ottoman pastry chefs developed a faster method of rolling out walnut-sized balls of pastries into large circles, in which they rolled a dozen of starch-dusted layers simultaneously. Rolling filo was widely practiced among
rural Turks, according to a Turkish cookbook written in 1900 by the Ottoman army officer Mahmud Nedim, who advised unmarried officers that if they could not roll out pastry themselves they should ask one of the soldiers, “most of whom know how to make yufka”.
Popularization The Turks introduced paper-thin dough throughout the Ottoman Empire, including the
Balkans, where it became known as
phyllo (“leaf” in
Greek) and
fila in
Arabic. Following the Ottoman conquest of
Hungary under
Suleiman the Great in the 16th century, Hungarian sources began referring to a pastry known as
rétes, the first recorded name for
strudel, whose development has been influenced by the concept of
yufka. This dough became integrated in many local pastry traditions of
Europe, as well as its Asian and African colonies. Beginning in the 1960s, Greek immigrants began to popularize hand-made filo in parts of the
United States. With the invention of a practical filo machine in 1971, commercial filo dough was suddenly available frozen in American supermarkets, making it accessible to everyone. ==Preparation==