Similar to other double-layered flat or pocket breads, pita is traditional in many Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisines. It is prevalent from North Africa through the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula, possibly coinciding with either the spread of the Hellenistic world or that of the Arab expansions under the banner of Islam.

In Greek cuisine, pita may refer to thicker breads made with yeast, for example souvlaki pita.Fact: date=March 2008 It may also refer to foods using many layers of dough of thickness less than 1mm, usually with many different ingredients in between, forming savoury pies such as tyropita and spanakopita or sweet pies such as baclava.

The Indian flatbread form of roti is sometimes referred to as "Indian pita".

Etymology

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first mention of the word in English was in 1951, with references to Balkan, Greek, and especially Arab cuisine in the next three decades. The American Heritage Dictionary traces the word's origin to modern Greek for "pie," "cake," or "bread"; Webster's Unabridged Dictionary attributes it to the Hebrew פת (pat), for "loaf" or "morsel". The word pita (as פיתא) exists in the Aramaic of the Babylonian Talmud, referring to bread in general. In Serbian it means pie in general. Another possible etymology is from a Romanian archaic word for bread, pită. An alternative etymology traces the word to a cognate for pine pitch, which forms flat layers that may resemble pita bread, which in turn may share an etymological origin with pizza (Italian for "pie"). The word spread to Southern Italy as the name of a thin bread. In Northern Italian dialects pita became pizza, now known primarily as the bearer of savoury toppings but essentially still a flat bread. Indeed in some parts of southern Italy, there are pastries called Pita, which are filled with spicy fruit and nuts. Thus confirming the view that the word Pizza and Pita would have been interchangeable had it not been for the ultimate success of the neapolitan pizza in claiming the word!

Origin

Pita is now the western name for the Saudi Arabian bread called khubz (ordinary bread), other breads of Arab, Egyptian, or Syrian origin, or kumaj (a Turkish loanword properly meaning a bread cooked in ashes), all baked in a brick oven. It is slightly leavened wheat bread, flat, either round or oval, and variable in size. The tenth-century Arab cookery book, Kitab al-Tabikh by ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, includes six recipes for khubz, all baked in a tannur, which is like the modern tandoor oven, in its Chapter 13. However, it is safe to assume that its history extends far into antiquity, since flatbreads in general, whether leavened or not, are among the most ancient breads, needing no oven or even utensil for their baking. However the first signs of flat breads occur in and around Amorite Damascus.Fact: date=February 2008 In the early centuries of our era, the traditional Greek word for a thin flat bread or cake, plakous, had become the name of a thicker cake.