Flavors to savor
Armenians determined to keep traditional culture, cuisine alive

By Rosemary Ford
Eagle-Tribune

What exactly is Armenian food? It’s a question many people –
Armenians included – can find difficult to answer.

Armenia has been tested through the ages, and as a result, the
culture, including its culinary traditions, has at times become
convoluted.

The country lies at a crossroads between the Middle East, the
Mediterranean and Eastern Europe. Over the centuries, its people have
found themselves under the rule of various empires – Roman,
Byzantine, Arab, Persian and Ottoman.

The stories that accompany the takeovers are fraught with suffering,
most horribly during the Armenian genocide that resulted in the
deaths of more than 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 at
the hands of Ottoman Turkey.

The country finally gained independence – ultimately from the Soviet
Union, in 1990.

But before and after the genocide, many Armenians left their
homeland. The survivors and their relatives, including those who
landed here in the Merrimack Valley, have had to work to keep
Armenian traditions alive.

Among local immigrants is Sossy Jekavorian of Chelmsford, a member of
St. Gregory Armenian Apostolic Church of the Merrimack Valley in
North Andover, and a local general when it comes to marshaling the
troops to prepare Armenian food for church functions.

"Our lives haven’t been that easy, but we have done well,"
Jekavorian said.

Despite their tribulations, Armenians know how to celebrate, she
said. The fact was evident at a recent church festival, where about
350 people, some Armenian and some not, turned out to drink up the
culture through food and music.

"I am Italian and I am married to an Armenian, and I love the
food," said Maria Annaian of North Andover. "It reminds me of
Italian food, all the Mediterranean flavors and spices. And the
Armenians love to eat – just like the Italians do."

Rose Gentile of Salem, Mass., who comes from an Armenian background,
traveled to the North Andover church for the celebration.

"We were brought up on it," she said of the food. "We love it."

The staple of the festival, and of most Armenian tables, is rice
pilaf. But the pilaf’s form can vary greatly depending upon who is
serving it.

"It’s a competitive thing – they all have to have the best rice,"
Annaian said.

"It’s like potatoes to the Irish, or pasta to the Italians," said
Violet Garabedian of Methuen.

Jekavorian finds that traditional recipes, for Armenian grape leaves,
or tolma, for instance, vary from family to family, as they did from
village to village.

Some people make them with meat, others without. Some add pine nuts
or tomato paste. And some people use jarred grape leaves, while
others insist on picking their own.

"You learn from the older (cooks), and you make your own recipes,"
Jekavorian said.

Jekavorian took an Armenian recipe for a bean salad spiced with
lemon, olive oil and herbs, and added her own twist with fresh corn
and Chinese noodles. She often serves it to family and fellow
church-goers, with whom it’s a big hit.

Such evolving recipes that bring American influences into traditional
ethnic recipes aren’t unusual at all, according to Irina Petrosian
and her husband, David Underwood, authors of "Armenian Food: Fact,
Fiction and Folklore."

The Indiana couple spent more than a year in Armenia. Petrosian said
the people there still are trying to discover what Armenian cuisine
is, since so much tradition went by the wayside during the
occupations and genocide.

"Through food, they are trying to forge their own identity," said
Petrosian, who was raised in Armenia and has been living in the
United States for six years.

"They are trying to find what is Armenian, because what was Armenian
was lost."

For Underwood, the trip to Armenia was a chance to spend a year
eating great food, the kind he doesn’t taste too often in the
states.

"It reflects their ancient culture," he said. "These dishes have
been prepared and served since prehistoric times. It’s a real joy to
get their food. It’s all natural. It’s really tasty."

Underwood said its such natural flavors that make the food extra
tasty – and accounts for an unusual phenomenon.

"Children there eat cucumbers the way children here eat candy," he
said.

In "Armenian Food," Petrosian and Underwood offer recipes, stories
and legends about Armenian food, tracing certain traditional cuisines
to their origins with the help of ethnographers, historians and more
than a few Armenian grandmothers.

Such spoken and written words will help keep alive the
too-close-to-lost Armenian traditions.

"It is very important, especially for our young people," Jekavorian
said.

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