Tracta (dough)

Tracta, tractum (), also called laganon, laganum, or lagana () was a kind of drawn out or rolled-out pastry dough in Roman and Greek cuisines.
What exactly it was is unclear: "Latin "tracta"... appears to be a kind of pastry. It is hard to be sure, because its making is never described fully"; and it may have meant different things at different periods. "Laganon/laganum" was at different periods an unleavened bread, a pancake, or later, perhaps a sort of pasta.
"Tracta" is mentioned in the "Apicius" as a thickener for liquids. Vehling's translation of "Apicius" glosses it as "a piece of pastry, a round bread or roll in this case, stale, best suited for this purpose." Perry compares it to a "ship's biscuit".
It is also mentioned in Cato the Elder's recipe for placenta cake, layered with cheese.
Athenaeus's "Deipnosophistae" mentions a kind of cake called , "known as ", which uses a bread dough, but is baked differently.
Some writers connect it to modern Italian lasagne, of which it is the etymon, but most authors deny that it was pasta.
There is a modern Greek leavened flatbread called "lagana", but it is not clear when the name was first applied to a leavened bread.