Armen Mehrabyan Armenian Food Guide for Tourist
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ARMEN MEHRABYAN ARMENIAN FOOD GUIDE FOR TOURIST FOREWORD The food began to have so great value for existence, formations, and developments of the person that turn into the cores of cult in humans’ community development history. The element of material culture outgrown in a component of spiritual culture, the food became the natural link of tradition preservation that gives the chance to open ethnic aspect of history of the people. Today as never the man requires studying of history of society cultural development in connection with application of food as a complex that formed traditions. The food culture creates the communication between the man and the nature, live and the beyond, terrestrial and space. Therefore, defining a role of food in ceremonial culture of Armenians, we find it not only as a livelihood, medicinal and magic product, but also as the communicative form that connecting social groups. The function of food as communication tools that creates contacts between the man and a society, the man and a family, the man and the nature, the individual and friends, shown in its ceremonialism. The sense of ceremonial food can be perceived as material invariant of the ceremony. The ceremonialism of food, that accompanied by different crazes and spells, expressed by process of its preparation. The ceremonialism of cooking includes a certain place and time of action, participants to whom the meal is devoted, verbal formulas, and the spiritual chanting accompanying all process. It is interesting not only ritual technologies of cooking, but also its functionality of preparation. Traditional character of food culture defines the power supply system of particular ethnos, since during the cretin period of time it includes an event of daily life and articulates the point of transformation of individually-personal passes into the collectively-public phenomenon’s where each participant divides customs of the general. As the power supply system food implied not as a something that people eat or as they cook, but as a aspect of particular behavior of food application and consumption which is shown by the household, social, public, material and spiritual phenomena and reflect mutual relations of people in a society in connection with their ethics and an aesthetics. Having generated by thanks of urbanization and an advanced civilization, Armenian culinary culture, has started to filter gradually from high social classes into lower - country layers that in the subsequent has built such assortment and type of dishes that have influence to the classification scheme of the eating system. Armenian cuisine considered as one of difficult and labor consuming in dishes preparation. However, the most important detail of all eating or diet system of Armenian food culture is an intelligent using of food. Attentively looking at a meal of Armenians, we will see how food intake most depended on consciousness of food acceptance. It proves to be true that during acceptance of the food people did not talk, loading itself extraneous thoughts, and concentrated on food intake only, chewing the food slowly and well, having allowed to feel more taste. Recognizing that the human history is a part of history of the nature, and the history of the person is a part of history of a civilization, the concept of food culture is natural communication part of livelihood. Food culture entitled as application of the foodstuff reflecting to household aspect of food and behavioral aspect of their function. Armen Mehrabyan, Ethno-agronomist, PhD on Food Technology All right reserved by Armen Mehrabyan ©2001 ARMENIAN MEAL To classify of Armenian healthy food diet system, we consider the basic types of a foodstuff that divide into two main categories: vegetative and mammal. At the base of vegetarian foodstuff, we have wild collection and agriculture and as a base mammal food, we have hunting and cattle breeding. As reception of food important for food system classification, as climatic conditions important for seasonal prevalence for food consumption. In this connection, there is a definition of food application бы zon, such as: valley, hilly and mountainous. By classification of the food supply system, we consider the basic types of an applied foodstuff at allocation of model or a food pyramid. We do not concentrate on the content of the foodstuff basic caloric and it’s used, but our attention addresses on something another, that have been accepted as conditionally minor factors which have been allocated from the general complex of a food pyramid. It’s a Vitality of food that made nutrition’s of food during its reception and preparation in connection with behavioral aspect of its application. The food supplies not only substances necessary for normal physiological functioning, but also feeds with energy. “Livelifull only the food in which the life existed” proverb may be prove not only philosophically, but also from the scientific point of view (A.Megrabyan, «Influence of food on consciousness, behavior and character of the person» personal archive notebook #3, page 56). Today we precisely know about how many calories, vitamins, fibers, fats, carbohydrates, etc is necessary for the normal functioning of the body, but it is necessary to consider, that we forget that very powerful arguments contradicting to the food content acknowledgement. It has confirmed that if the person in the diet used all necessary elements for its body, it doest mean that its organism functions normally or he is healthy. That has a point that during scientific researches we have ceased to consider a life as FORCE that combined with certain kinds of a matter may provide the LIFE. Unfortunately, in the centre of our attention we had only the form of that exists as a product-matter. meal MEAT Monthly Honey and Sweets Sauces and Pickles Poultry Fish Weakly meal Eggs, Butter Macun (Yogurt) & Dairy Fruits Products Cereals and Vegetable oil meal Beans Reshta (spaghetti) Chess and Vinegar eryday Bread Wild Herbs/Greens and Water Ev Salt Cultivated vegetables Characteristic lines of Armenian food culture that have developed for millennia remain up to nowadays. Based on study of written and verbal sources as well as field investigation, we have found expedient to design and illustrate character of Armenian food culture via introduction of Armenian food pyramid. As a basis for Armenians food pyramid, we do not take quantity and percentage of calories of an applied foodstuff in the diet ratio, and take the frequency of using and proportion of the food serving, considering most useful food as desirable. The purpose of drawing this pyramid has evident to demonstrate what is applied as a food and in what frequency definitively, which meanwhile will make possible to understand the dialogue in between what we eat and who we are. All right reserved by Armen Mehrabyan ©2001 Rediscovered Armenian Food Culture The history of food culture bring us back to the Neolithic period and sown the development of the food culture in the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture began in 8000 BCE then after we discovering the development of cuisine in ancient Mesopotamia1 where the “test creation” started. As a part of antique civilization Ancient Armenia was one of the centers of culture exchange, where Sumerian, Acadian, Aramaic and Hettetian split over. This tradition of gathering and cultural exchange passed from generation to generation and reached us trough manuscripts, ethnographical researches and just small part of this food culture Armenian were able to keep is their nowadays ethnic cuisine. That’s why importance of introduction of re-discovered food culture as a part of social gathering and fine dining today is essential as never. Today’s Armenia with 29,000 sq.km area is a small country in compare to the Ancient Armenia Major where 700,000 sq.km covered area from Black Sea to Mediterranean and Caspian seas. The geographical location of modern Armenia with multi-elevation biodiversity and natural conditions of its location and weather, are major contributors to the scrumptious legumes and cereals, delicious fruits and vegetables and famous grapes and grains found within its borders. Knowledge of the history of Armenian agriculture and horticulture can be gleaned from the archeological record supported by surviving written Armenian, Assyrian, Sumerian and Egyptian documents, temple inscriptions, as well as commentaries from antiquity including those of the Greek historian Herodotus (484- 425 BCE), the philosopher Theophrastus (372-288 BCE), and the books of Genesis and Exodus in the Hebrew bible. To explain the unknown the Armenians created a complex and bewildering theology that drew on the sun and the sky, the four elements and man, as well as every form of life, that was included a pantheon of human gods and goddesses in pagan time. Their beliefs greatly influenced the ancient world and have been incorporated into many ancient religions such as Zoraostriszm and Manuizm. This remarkable experience of the ancient agricultural practices of grandfathers that creating a renaissance in the culture of food in the Land of Noah and passed from generation to generation trough centuries and millennia’s. Unfortunately this tradition of harmonic agriculture and balance traditional foods and food processing are damaged by modernization of “civilization” and mechanization. Soviet system destroy even memory of harmonic agriculture and after the collapse of Soviet Union in 1991, Armenia was left without an infrastructure. Industrialized farming almost vanished because of the lack of funding to repair and maintain farm and processing equipment. Packaging and distribution of food products were forced to revert to non- mechanical techniques. Many people, because of the circumstances, learned farming practices from their elders who still remembered the methods of the pre-Soviet era. Today tradition of agriculture is alive because of the ethnic knowledge were passed from generation to generation and rural people return to tradition.