January 30, 2009
Armenian Restaurants
Armenia still distinguishes restaurants (formal sit-down affairs) from café’s (that can or cannnot offer hot meals) and bistros (sit down, stand up, take out, eat in– it’s hot, its there, and it’s usually fast). A “Fast Food Restaurant” is a misnomer to your average Armenian, still conditioned to the old days when restaurants were the harbingers of waiting for hours while surly staff sat idly by and sipped their tea, or selecting from menus dripping with indecipherable lists of food (and a little grease from the kitchen), not a single one of which was available except for the party at the next table.
While restaurants are much improved, they are also expensive; typical meals may run to $30 or more per person for the unsuspecting diner in Yerevan. Restaurants outside Yerevan are a little cheaper, but you need to figure on spending an average of $7-10 per person for full course meals with wine. Restaurants have tablecloths, printed menus, and serving staff to take orders and serve food. They often have live bands that play a variety of light muzak to Armenian traditional music, and customers often erupt into traditional dance as the evening continues.
January 26, 2009
Best Armenian Fruits
If you arrive in Armenia in summer season you might be given to taste the best Armenian fruits like grapes, peaches and apricots.
But if you appear in Armenia in winter times most likely you will be invited to go for khash-a masterpiece of Armenian cuisine made by cows’ feet, stomach and Armenian ingenuity. Khash is a unique experience for any foreign visitor, and whether they like it or not (and many don’t), almost all enjoy the ritual of a khash party.
Khash is a gastronomic ceremony, a combination of ritual and lively heart-to-heart talks in the flavor of garlic and raddish.
To cook totikner (this is how Armenians call cows feet) for cooking it must be stripped of hairs and clean until it turns opaque.
Then, the cow feet are boiled all night until the ingredients give its juice and piquancy to water and the flesh flakes off the bones.
Usually Armenians go for khash in the morning on weekends, because after a khash party, participants are happy, but also heavy with sleep. And typically not smelling. So sociably acceptable. It might not be the cow feet which make a person sleepy; rather the vodka, that, real khash professionals assures is good for digestion.
Besides vodka, a proper khash should have six components: mineral water, greens, raddishes, yellow chili pepers, lavash and garlic. Minced garlic and salt – lots of both — is put into khash right before the eating. Dry lavash is soaked in the soup until it becomes like a sponge. Hardcore khash eaters use only their fingers for consuming the odd meal, and they recommend that participants abstain from eating, early on the previous evening.
January 24, 2009
Armenian Grilled Meat
* Khorovats (or khorovadz) is the Armenian term for barbecued or grilled flesh (the generic kebab in English), the most representative diet of Armenian recipe eaten in restaurants, family gatherings, and as fast food. A general khorovats is chunks of meat grilled on a skewer (shashlik), although steaks or chops grilled without skewers can be also included. In Armenia itself, khorovats is often prepared with the bone still in the meat (as lamb or pork chops). Western Armenians outside Armenia generally make the meat with bones taken out and call it by the Turkish name shish kebab. On the other hand, the word kebab in Armenia points to uncased sausage-shaped patties from ground meat grilled on a skewer (called losh kebab or lule kebab by diasporan Armenians and Turks). In Armenia today, the most common meat for khorovats (including losh kebab) is pork due to Soviet-era economic heritage. Armenians outside Armenia generally prefer lamb or beef depending on their background, and chicken is also popular.
* Gharsi khorovats – slivers of grilled meat rolled up in lavash, similar to the Middle Eastern shawarma and the Turkish doner kebab; this “shashlik Ghars style” takes its name from the city of Kars (Armenian: Ghars) in eastern Turkey, close to the Armenian border.
January 21, 2009
Armenian Food History
Armenia is a tough, cold and mountainous region. Russia, the Ukraine and Georgia are to the North, Azerbajian on the East, Iran, Syria and Iraq on the South and Turkey on the West. Armenia has been occupied and divided by Russia, Greece, Turkey and Persia and thus has a cuisine that is confusing by name and ingredients. The truth that Armenia was the first Christian country on earth and totally surrounded by Muslims and nomadic tribes affected the food of its people not only as related to farming methods but also as to religious belief. An agrarian civilization spanning 2600 years, Armenia was the crossroads of the world between East and West, “The silk road”. It’s diet reflects that fact by similarities in recipes from Europe to India.
The meat staple of the nation was lamb and to a lesser extent chicken and beef. No pork was consumed in the Armenian food due to biblical belief that only animals which chewed their cud were to be consumed. Seafood was mainly lake or river fish and sturgeon and its caviar. No salt water ports border modern Armenia.
January 18, 2009
Armenian Grilled Shish Kebabs
Late summer indicates Lamajun or shish kebab; the latter made out on the backyard grill with pilaf tomato/parsley salad on the side. Summer food are always accompanied with Tahn (a yogurt drink served icy cold) or an iced tea which is more like a tea punch, mixed as it is with the freshly squeezed juices of oranges and lemons, with enough sugar to sweeten it well. Hot summer evenings might also call for cold bulghur wheat and vegetable salad called Tabbouleh; lots of fresh fruit and cheeses, special oil-cured Greek olives or, possibly, a gentle soup made from the insides of the zucchini used earlier for dolma.
By winter, shish kebab evolves into Tass kebab (that is basically a steamed version of the grilled lamb dish), with Persian Pilaf, or another sort of bulgur and vegetable dish, served piping hot, rather than the cold summer version. Fresh fruits give way to dried fruits, like dates and figs and apricots.
In the Fall, Fasoula ( a kind of lamb, tomato and green bean stew), served generally with a pilaf and the ever-present flatbread, as well as Yogurt or Greek Lemon soup, Pasterma and Eggs, and casseroles like Mousakka or Sou-Berag.
Wherever Armenians have settled, the taste and style of the cuisine never ceases to be Armenian. That is primarily a result of the unique blend of traditional spices and seasonings which thread throughout the cuisines.
January 15, 2009
History of Armenian Food
Armenia is a very old Aryan cultures which most probably originated in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers many years ago, settling eventually high in the Caucus Mountains, bordered by the Black, Caspian and Mediterranean seas., as well as in the Cilicia region of modern day Turkey.Armenians have long been wanderers of the world while traditionally not nearly as nomadic as many Middle Eastern tribes. Armenians have tended to maintain a strong ethnic identity wherever they have found themselves
So, spring means picking young in Armenian kitchens all over the world, tender wild grape leaves and rolling them into platters of sarmas coming out of the kitchen, made when the wild grape leaves used to wrap the fragrant rice and lamb filling were at their very best.
The dolma season comes next as the tomatoes, peppers and zucchini ripen in the backyard garden… Whole meals are constructed from dolmas, served warm with dollops of cold, fresh madzoon (yoghurt), Armenian flatbread, and maybe a salad of tomatoes or cucumbers on the side. Dolmas taste best when the vegetables used for stuffing the lamb/rice mixture are right off the vine… ripe…. but not as large as the produce becomes further into the season
January 12, 2009
Fresh & Tasty Armenian Food
To enjoy the full variety tt does take some knowledge of Armenian food, and you need to understand that dishes are cooked seasonally, with the freshest meats, vegetables, fruits, herbs and spices available.
Incredibly fresh and tasty fruits and vegetables are grown in Armenia. The variety is astonishing, beginning with apricots and peaches, both of which originated in Armenia, through cherries, apples, grapes, figs, pomegranates, pears, quince, plums, oranges, lemons, an incredible variety of melons, squash, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, cabbage, onions, potatoes, carrots, peas, beans, walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts—the list is almost endless, and each region has it’s own special variety and type that are mouthwatering just to look at.
Herbs and spices include cinnamon, cardamom, clove, cumin, nutmeg, garlic, thyme, rosemary, parsley, sage, as well as wild salad herbs (called greens), which include water cress, lettuce and spinach. Wild rice and wheat still grow much as they did 15,000 years ago, when mankind first began to cultivate them.
January 9, 2009
Armenian Yogurt
Yogurt is not the mild or heavily sugared concoctions in America, but rich and pungent custard made from scratch. It requires yogurt to prepare yogurt. That’s not so much of a problem today since plain yogurt from the supermarket gives the essential bacterial starter. But that was not before.
Getting the first yogurt starters into the USA in the 19th century was no easy being an organic substance. For the immigrants, there was absolutely no way to simply bring their needed starter through American customs. But American customs agents greatly underestimated Armenian ingenuity.
The required ingredient for converting milk into yogurt is a complex set of bacteria which basically takes over the medium (milk) and converts it. Under less than ideal circumstances, the bacteria can thrive for a period of time. This piece of knowledge is important because, knowing it; savvy Armenian émigrés would dip some fresh white handkerchiefs into a mixture of water and yogurt before they sailed for America. The handkerchiefs were then line dried and neatly folded into their luggage. Once they were safely through Customs and settled into their new homes, they would simply soak the linen in some warm milk, reactivating the culture, and make their yogurt!
January 6, 2009
Best Food In Armenia
Like anywhere, the top most recipe in Armenia is home cooking. The Armenians create lavish attention and extraordinary dishes in their kitchens which no restaurant can begin to compete with. It is considered an affront to refuse to taste everything and the table often groans under courses served at the same time. The cook often considers it a bad reflection on her culinary skills.
You will have limited opportunities to enjoy dinners at home as a tourist, but if you are invited, by all means you must go! You will think what happened between the home hearth and restaurants forever thereafter. Armenian cuisine developed over thousands of years of multi-ethnic recipes and has now been reduced to grilled meat and vegetables at almost very venue in the country. Most tourists rave about the succulent grilled pork, beef and chicken till they have had the same menu every day they are here. Expats most often complain about the same ole same ole, one even calling the food bland (This from someone whose national cuisine is meat loaf).
January 1, 2009
Armenian Recipes
Armenian recipe is not so much a static set of traditional cuisines as it is an attitude and approach to food and to cooking. This is due to the fact that a standard mixture of seasonings called as chaimen- flavors most prepared dishes.
Besides the chaimen, onions, garlic, peppers, cinnamon, lemons, oregano, mint, tahine which is a sesame seed paste, mahleb which is a ground cherry pits, available in Middle Eastern specialty stores and olive oil round out the rest of the Armenian seasoning cupboard.
Lamb is also a basic ingredient, with its unique flavor forming the basis for hearty soups and stews (abours), as well as a wide variety of other dishes while vegetables, fruits and grains tend to take center stage in a meal.
In Armenian food all over the world, spring indicates picking young, tender wild grape leaves and rolling them into platters of sarmas coming out of the kitchen, cooked when the wild grape leaves used to wrap the fragrant rice and lamb filling were at their very best.
