Cooking channel causes outrage online for calling roti, naan ‘balloon bread’
By Bryan Ke
Cookist Wow, a project owned by an Italian media group, drew online outrage after calling roti, pita or naan “balloon bread” in a recipe video posted on social media last week.
Controversial post: The recipe, which was shared on Cookist Wow’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, teaches people how to make “balloon bread” using all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, milk and yeast, according to News18.
- The Instagram video soon became viral, with over 10 million views at the time of this writing.
- Many South Asian and Middle Eastern social media users immediately corrected Cookist Wow for the “Westernization” of the bread. Some of them said the recipe is for either roti, pita or naan.
Different origins: Naan, a type of flatbread commonly found in India, was first invented around 2,500 years ago after the arrival of yeast from Egypt, according to The Indian Express.
- The flatbread was first mentioned in the notes of Indo-Persian poet Amir Kushrau in 1300 A.D. The bread was served as a popular breakfast food of the royals in 1526.
- The invention of naan gave way to the creation of two other commonly consumed types of bread in India: roti and kulcha, which later became more accessible to both the masses and royalty.
- Pita, known as the “oldest bread in the world,” is a type of bread that was first invented in the Middle East around 14,000 years ago, 4,000 years before humans started farming. In July 2018, archaeologists found what appeared to be charred bits of the flatbread inside an ancient fireplace in Jordan, Quartz reported.
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