Geometer's Maza, with Oil and Cheese
A thick flatbread of toasted barley flour, kneaded with water and olive oil, rubbed with fresh cheese and a few olives. The scholar's basic meal: nourishing, quick, without fire.
A thick flatbread of toasted barley flour, kneaded with water and olive oil, rubbed with fresh cheese and a few olives. The scholar's basic meal: nourishing, quick, without fire.
Approach, you who read, and see: just as a straight line carries the curve, this barley flatbread carries everything else. I ask of my table neither splendor nor long flame — ground barley, a drizzle of oil, water just enough, and the measure is made. On it I place a little cheese and three olives, and I return to my cones with a clear mind, for a simple belly leaves the thought straight. Keep yourself from excess: what nourishes the body without weighing it down is, like a beautiful demonstration, what removes the superfluous.
- •Slightly toasted barley flour — two handfuls (base of the flatbread)
- •Olive oil — a drizzle (binder and fat)
- •Water — as needed (kneading)
- •Fresh sheep or goat cheese — a piece (opson, relishes the bread)
- •Olives — a few (salty accompaniment)
- •Salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Geometer's Maza, with Oil and Cheese
A thick flatbread of toasted barley flour, kneaded with water and olive oil, rubbed with fresh cheese and a few olives. The scholar's basic meal: nourishing, quick, without fire.
Why this dish? Bent for entire days over his papyrus rolls drawing cones and sections, Apollonius ate like any studious Greek: a maza of barley quickly prepared, without oven or long cooking, drizzled with oil and brightened with a little cheese. The bread of the working mind.
Approach, you who read, and see: just as a straight line carries the curve, this barley flatbread carries everything else. I ask of my table neither splendor nor long flame — ground barley, a drizzle of oil, water just enough, and the measure is made. On it I place a little cheese and three olives, and I return to my cones with a clear mind, for a simple belly leaves the thought straight. Keep yourself from excess: what nourishes the body without weighing it down is, like a beautiful demonstration, what removes the superfluous.
Ingredients (period version)
- Slightly toasted barley flour — two handfuls (base of the flatbread)
- Olive oil — a drizzle (binder and fat)
- Water — as needed (kneading)
- Fresh sheep or goat cheese — a piece (opson, relishes the bread)
- Olives — a few (salty accompaniment)
- Salt — a pinch (seasoning)
Ingredients
- Barley flour — 150 g (base)
- Extra virgin olive oil — 3 tbsp (binder)
- Warm water — 80-100 ml (kneading)
- Fresh sheep cheese (like brousse or mild feta) — 80 g (topping)
- Pitted black olives — about ten (topping)
- Salt — 1 pinch (seasoning)
Method
- Dry-toast the barley flour in a pan for a few minutes until it smells nutty, then let cool.
- Mix the flour, salt, oil, and warm water to form a pliable but non-sticky dough.
- Shape into a thick flatbread about 1.5 cm thick and cook 4-5 minutes per side on a hot griddle or pan.
- Crumble the fresh cheese over the warm flatbread, add the olives, and finish with a drizzle of oil.
- Serve immediately, cut into pieces as one shares a theorem.
How it was made : Barley was the everyday grain of the Greeks, cheaper than wheat. It was often eaten as maza: toasted flour (alphita) kneaded raw or barely cooked, sometimes simply moistened with water and oil. Cheese and olives formed the opson, that which "accompanies" the bread.
The contemporary twist : Serve the flatbread on a slate engraved with a cone and its three sections — ellipse, parabola, hyperbola — to recall the master's work.
Apollonius of Perga · Charactorium