ՀԵՐԻՍԱՅ

[Arpa]

ՀԵՐԻՍԱՅ Հարիսա, Քէշկէք Կասկ, Քաշք.

Herisa/Harisa, Keshkeq/kask/kashk

Yes, Ajarian spells the word as Herisa/Հերիսայ.

 

I had all but given up on the word when I decide to look up “keshkek”.

 

First an anecdote.

I may have already told this story before, please bear with me.

Those of Marash ancestry may already know it. How about it Boghos?

 

There was a big wedding, and as it is the tradition a big portion of keshkek and ddmapur/դդմապուր (pumpkin stew, of course Turkish speaking Marashtsis call it by another name) were prepared. The party was bigger than anticipated and the food was quickly depleted. Mind you a Marash wedding is not a wedding without the said dishes.

Time cam when the groom is supposed to take his bride and go on their hineymoon. The groom was nowhere to be found. They searched high and low and they finally spotted him on top of tall tree. When asked to come down and claim his bride he answered; “ I am not coming down, I Am not claiming my bride, I had no keshkek ddmapur,, whoever ate the last dish can claim the bride and have her” :)

 

So you see, a wedding is not legal without keshkek, just as commemoration of the Musa Leran Herosamart is not complete without herisa/harisa.

All we need now is duduk, zurna and dhol. :)

 

The Marash keshkek is meatless, just korkot as opposed to harisa, it is supplemented with other meat dishes such as ddmapur. While Armenians to the east of Marash, like Kharberd etc. use the word keshkek as a substitute fot harisa where red meat (the chicken variety is a new fad).

 

When one looks up “herisa” Ajarian will also redirect us to “keshkek”, which in turn will direct us to “kask/kashk” which according to the source simply mean barley, գարի, the reason being that keshkek /harisa were originally prepared with barley, while nowadays it is prepared with beaten and hulled wheat, korkot*.

A to the origin of word “herisa/harisa“, just as I suspected Ajarian claims it to have reached us via some semitic languages like Assyrian, Arabic etc. arsa,, arsi etc. where, once again it means hulled barley, կճեպը հանուած գարի..

 

BTW. Ajarian also says that in some Armenian dialects beer is known as kaskajur/կասկաջուր

 

*As to Korkot կորկոտ, hulled ans beaten semi cooked wheat, once again we fall in that trap when we try to invent new words for it, like tsetsats /ծեծացsimply a translation from the Turkish “doevme”. If we only knew that we already have words for most of our staples foodstuff. If we would only learn and use Armenian instead of the damned language.

 

PS. Many of our neighbors have borrowed the word Keshkek from us.

Edited January 31, 2006 by Arpa