Don’t call it a “baklava.” That is a deliciously sweet Middle-Eastern pastry. People will laugh at you and you’ll feel stupid. Trust me on this.
But why, oh why, do we call these things balaclava?
According to the all knowing Wikipedia, the term dates to the Crimean War, a 3-year territorial conflict that began in 1856 between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French, British and Ottoman empires.
During the war, knitted helmet liners were sent to British Troops fighting in Crimea, Ukraine, for which the war was named.
A battle was fought near the Crimean port town of Balaclava, which included a tragic charge by British cavalry against overwhelming numbers of Russian soldiers that was immortalized in Alfred Tennyson’s poem The Charge of the Light Brigade.
And we still call the hoods “baklava” today.
Photo by Jon Olav
