Talk:Pastitsio

First comment

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

Custard and béchamel?

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)

Etymology

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"

Cinnamon?

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)

Merger proposal

Pastitsio and Pasticho derive from the same greek word (παστίτσιο). I don't see much difference between the two. --beefyt (talk) 05:07, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Just go ahead and merge to Pastitsio (the common English spelling). These are clearly redundant. --Macrakis (talk) 08:10, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

The spelling popularized by Waitrose in the UK is Pastichio, chosen perhaps to look more Italianate Xcrivener (talk) 16:26, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Bucatini?

The article says bucatini, which are like thick long spaghetti with a small hole down the middle; but the picture shows some kind of pasta corta, maybe rigatoni, as would be more usual for any pasta al forno type of dish. Is there a good source for the use of bucatini in this dish?
Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 17:35, 30 April 2011 (UTC)