ArmeniaNow.com - Independent Journalism From Today's Armenia
 June 13, 2003 


A Meating Place: Armenia's "national" food isn't for vegetarians
   
Pity the person who is a vegetarian in Armenia. If there is a national dance, a national instrument and a national fruit, there surely is also a national food: "khoravats".

In Yerevan, there's a main thoroughfare called "barbecue" street, where the air is filled with an enticing aroma of smoke from curbside grills.

But in Armenian villages there is another way of preparation. Whet your appetite on this gallery.

Photos by Shant Khayalian
ArmeniaNow photographer

   

Armenia is a meat-eating country. There's an entire street in Yerevan, Proshian, called "barbecue" street. There, the air is filled with smoke over row after row of grills. But in villages,"khoravats" is sometimes prepared in a "tonir", the hole-in-the ground oven used for cooking bread.

First, the fire is prepared . . .
Grapevines make a good kindling.
After the meat has been prepared in a mix of onions and seasoning it is skewered with potatoes . . .
The prepared skewers are placed on a rod . . .
. . . and lowered into the tonir.
The embers cook the dripping meat and the walls of the tonir hold the smoke in for added flavor. Some cooks put pilaf in the bottom of the tonir to soak up the flavor of the meat drippings.
It comes out golden, with crispy edges, is wrapped in lavash . . .
. . . and is ready for the table.


 




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