itself a descendant of placenta, the classical baked layered dough and cheese dish of Ancient Roman cuisine. The dish was a popular element of Ottoman cuisine, and may have been invented at the Ottoman court, though there are also indications it was made among Central Asian Turks; other versions may date to the Classical era of the eastern Mediterranean. One alternative etymological origin that has been suggested is that the word comes from the Turkic root bur- 'to twist', but the sound harmony for this proposal would dictate the suffix "-aq", and Turkic languages in Arabic orthography invariably write with an ك not an ق, which weighs against this origin. Regional variants Even though borek is very popular in the cuisines of the former Ottoman Empire, especially in North Africa and throughout the Balkans, it originated in Anatolia. Borek is also part of Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish traditions. They have been enthusiastically adopted by the Ottoman Jewish communities, and have been described—along with boyos de pan and bulemas—as forming "the trio of preeminent Ottoman Jewish pastries". Turkish variants The word "börek" in Turkish can be modified by a descriptive word referring to the shape, ingredients of the pastry, or a specific region where it is typically prepared, as in the above kol böreği, su böreği, talaş böreği or Sarıyer böreği. There are many variations of börek in Turkish cuisine: Balkans In the former Yugoslavia, burek, also known as pita in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is an extremely common dish, made with yufka. This kind of pastry is also popular in Croatia, where it was imported by Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albanians. In Serbia, Albania, Kosovo, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Slovenia, burek is made from layers of dough, alternating with layers of other fillings in a circular baking pan and then topped with a last layer of dough. Traditionally it may be baked with no filling (prazan, meaning empty), with stewed minced meat and onions, or with cheese. Modern bakeries offer cheese and spinach, meat, apple, sour cherries, potato, mushroom, and other fillings. It is often eaten along with a plain yoghurt drink. Zeljanica is a spinach borek common in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Albania In Albania, this dish is called . In Kosovo and few other regions byrek is also known as "pite". Byrek is traditionally made with several layers of dough that have been thinly rolled out by