Feast From Fire

[gamavor]

Feast from Fire

Any occasion will do for an Armenian barbecue

 

Bronwyn Dunne

Saveur Magazine, no. 87 (October)

"Fare," p. 28

http://www.saveur.com

 

My introduction to the Urartu fire god occurred last year while my husband

and I were living in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia. A new friend,

Yulia, announced one day that we were going on a picnic to experience the

national food and outdoor event known as khorovats. The word is Armenian

for barbecue--typically a spread of grilled skewers of lamb or pork served

with vegetables, lavash (flat bread), and ample helpings of vodka--but it is

also Armenian for birthday party, wedding anniversary, or any other

celebration you have in mind. If the weather is beautiful or your cousin

has just bought a new car or your two-year-old has just lost a tooth, then

you have an excuse for a khorovats.

 

Khorovats also celebrates something far more ancient: fire. Looking up at

Mount Ararat, a peak looming nearly 17,000 feet over Yerevan, you can

imagine the importance of fire when the winter winds blew down the

mountain's lofty flanks and swept over the shepherds guarding their flocks

below--so it's no wonder that a principal deity of the Urartu, an ancient

Armenian civilization dating to the 13th century B.C., was the one concerned

with flame. It was an Urartu tradition that the men would build a fire

after they'd returned from the hunt and pray to the gods for another day of

good luck.

 

The first stop on the morning of our picnic was at the apartment of one of

Yulia's friends, Armen. He was to be the chef and manager at our event. We

watched with a mixture of alarm and admiration as Armen packed his

Soviet-era Lada with all thenecessities for our meal--blankets, trays of

marinating pork, a heavy iron coffeepot, skewers as long as swords, bottles

of vodka and water, and plastic bags full of peppers, eggplants, tomatoes,

and potatoes--along with his wife, twin daughters, and young son. Then our

little band caravaned off to the highlands north of Yerevan. We forded a

stream almost too deep for our cars to cross and drove through the rural

countryside on challenging wagon roads until the ideal site was found.

 

Armen, his friend Tigran, and the other men--men are always responsible for

the cooking at a khorovats--built a fire in the grill and then gathered

around, beers in hand, looking a lot like their suburban American

counterparts. Our food was cooked in a specific order: first the skewers

threaded with the whole vegetables, then the skewers of seasoned ground pork

and of alternating chunks of pork and potato. The lavash bread, which we

would use in place of utensils, was baked in a tonir, an oven dug in the

ground.

 

Peeling the cooked vegetables was a ritual overseen by the women. We

stripped the skins with our fingers and then sliced them into a bowl filled

with onions, salt, and pepper. Our fingers became so black from the charred

skins that there was much laughter over the mess that we were making.

 

Once everything was ready, the vodka was poured, and, with raised paper

cups, we made a toast to our Armenian friends. They wished us good health

in return, and then we broke bread in the shadow of Mount Ararat, just like

the shepherds of old.

 

 

PS: If you want your meat tender: Marinate the pork! These guys were professional.

[Sip]

Gamavor, you da man. All this recent "apple cleanse" talk and what not was starting to depress the hell out of me.

 

[MosJan]

Pahh Pahh Pahh es inch lav Topica

 

11.32pm - i need some khorovats my self

[MosJan]

Gamavor, you da man. All this recent "apple cleanse" talk and what not was starting to depress the hell out of me.

 

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Sip jan your not the pnly one