Talk:Pastitsio

Is the cheese mixed with the meat or the noodles to bind them together? --Gbleem 16:01, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

It is not really a cheese. It is bechamel. It is put on top. It holds the noodles together. UserTwoSix (talk) 23:05, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

A recent edit claims that pastitsio sometimes has custard and béchamel. I don't think I've ever encountered it, and it seems peculiar on its face: two white sauces, one on top of the other? Do you have any sources for this? Cookbooks? --Macrakis 21:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

The restaurant I go to has some kind of egg based yellow stuff on top. Someone else said bechamel is sometimes poored on top so I thought that meant the bechamel is poured on top of the yellow stuff. Maybe the yellow stuff is bechamel? --Gbleem 18:58, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I looked at the edit. It seems Chowbok thinks the custard is always there but I found a recipe on the internet (lovely source that internet) that just had the sauce. The picture made it look like the sauce was like a custard. I'm so confused. --Gbleem 19:05, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

The white sauce used for pastitsio (and also moussaka etc.) varies anywhere from a pure Bechamel-type white sauce (just flour, butter, and milk) to a custard-type sauce (eggs, butter, milk), but is usually somewhere in between, with both flour and eggs. --Macrakis 20:17, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

NOOO! LOL! It's just the same cream used on the top layer of it. The cream you buy at your local store. I think it's light cream.(unsigned edit by User:71.172.62.151 2007-04-27T20:08:53)

Um, that wouldn't work. It has to be thickened with flour, eggs, or both. --Macrakis 20:18, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Macrakis is spot on, and the one thing never used would be cream. you need a really developed bovine dairy industry to traditionally cook with cream, especially in the quantities needed for a common dish like this!Hotspury (talk) 14:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not custard - most probably the souce looks yellow because cheese, or spices or egg yolk might have been added to the sauce for the top layer. However I have looked up "custard" and you get savoury custards as well, so maybe you need to define custard. 12.39 11 Sept 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.40.34.111 (talk) 11:41, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well it is a custard because it is thickened with eggs, in my understanding thats the definition, and eggs in the bechamel are very very important to a good pastitsio!Hotspury (talk) 12:24, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

This says “Pastitsio takes its name from the Italian pasticcio”;
but Pastiche says “ pastiche is the French version of the greco-Roman dish pastitsio or pasticcio”.
So isn’t it the other way around? Moonraker12 (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

-Please excuse my hamhanded interruption, I'm not familiar with wiki etiquette but the Turkish name was written in the wrong order so I changed it. "Fırında" means "in the oven" and "makarna" means "macaroni" but because Turkish is a suffix only language with person-noun-verb syntax, the "fırında makarna" is the name of the dish while "makarna fırında" means "macaroni (is) in the oven"

I saw the article mentioning adding cinnamon as "typically Greek", but I don't remember ever having seen pastitsio with cinnamon. However, I do remember having eaten some foods with cinnamon in the Peloponnese, which is but a specific area of Greece.

To make sure I don't just remember wrong, I searched three very representative cookbooks:

1. Nik. Tselementes, "Ta Kathimerina A'", editions H. Maniatea

2. Chrysa Paradeisi, "Megali Mageiriki - Zaxaroplastiki", editions Foibos

3. Vefa Aleksiadou, "Elliniki Kouzina - Mageiriki", editions Vefa Aleksiadou

1 and 3 suggest nutmeg, but there is no mention of cinnamon anywhere.

Aiviv (talk) 12:11, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

This is ultra late, but I'll post nevertheless, cinnamon is sometimes added to Pastitsio by people influenced by what's known in Greece as Politiki cuisine, ie cuisine influenced by Asia Minor and Constantinople/Istanbul refugees. It's not "traditional" but it is acceptable, if not common. Marhenil (talk) 15:17, 26 June 2023 (UTC)