Sangak is a plain, rectangular, or triangular Iranian whole wheat sour dough flatbread

Flatbread

A flatbread is a simple bread made with flour, water, and salt and then thoroughly rolled into flattened dough. Many flatbreads are unleavened: made without yeast or sourdough culture: although some flatbread is made with yeast, such as pita bread....

. It is considered to be Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

's national bread.

Its name consists of two parts: 'Sang' in Persian

Persian language

Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...

 means stone or pebble and 'sangak' means little stone. The reason for this goes back to the way this bread has been traditionally baked: on a bed of hot tiny river stones in an oven. There are, normally, two varieties of this bread offered at Iranian bakeries: the generic one which has no toppings and the more expensive variety which is topped with poppy seeds

Poppy Seeds

Poppy Seeds, released in 1971, was the second and final studio album from Vancouver, British Columbia band The Poppy Family. The album has yet to be released on modern formats and remains a rare vinyl....

 or sesame seeds.

A very similar bread called 'Kaak' is made in Balochistan

Balochistan

Balochistan or Baluchistan is a region which covers parts of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. It can also refer to one of several modern and historical territories within that region:...

 province of adjoining Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

. Kaak is normally served with whole roasted lamb or chicken called Sajji

Sajji

Sajji is a native dish of the desert province of Balochistan, Pakistan that is popular in Balochi cuisine. It consists of whole lamb, in skewers , marinated only in salt, sometimes covered with green papaya paste, stuffed with rice, then roasted over coals. Sajji is considered done when it is at...

 and is a staple of the cuisine.

History

Sangak bread was traditionally the bread of the Persian army. Each soldier carried a small ksuntaft of pebbles which at camp was brought together with the "sangak oven" and formed to cook the bread for the entire army. It was consumed along with lamb kabab.

See also

• Barbari bread
  Barbari bread
  Barbari Bread is a type of Persian flatbread in Iran.Barbari means "of or related to Barbars" in Persian. Barbars are a group of people living in Khorasan near eastern borders of Iran...
  
  , Iranian leavened white bread
  White bread
  White bread is made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ have been removed through a process known as milling. Milling gives white flour a longer shelf life by removing the bran which contains oil, allowing products made with it, like white bread, the ability to survive storage and...
  
  
• Lavash
  Lavash
  Lavash is a soft, thin flatbread popular in several countries of the northern parts of the Middle-East and the southern parts of the Caucasus.Traditionally the dough is rolled out flat and slapped against the hot walls of a clay oven....
  
  , a common unleavened bread in Iran
• Taftan
  Taftan (bread)
  Taftan is a leavened flour bread from Persian cuisine, Cuisine of Pakistan and Uttar Pradeshi Cuisine, with saffron and small amount of cardamom powder baked in a clay oven.-See also:* Lavash, another Iranian bread very similar to Taftan, but thinner...
  
  , an Iranian bread very similar to Lavash, but thicker