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How to feast this Christmas, Lebanese-Armenian style

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  • How to feast this Christmas, Lebanese-Armenian style

    Al-Bawaba
    Jan 6 2014

    How to feast this Christmas, Lebanese-Armenian style


    There's no right way to cook for Armenian Christmas. The Armenian
    diaspora are now spread everywhere from their eponymous state in the
    east, down into Syria, Lebanon and Egypt. There are also Armenians
    scattered across Western countries who are now two or three
    generations removed from the ancestors who first emigrated from the
    Ottoman Empire.

    This range of new host countries is reflected in Armenian culinary
    traditions, and Christmas dinner varies accordingly.

    Glazed ham, for example, is popular holiday fare in Armenia proper but
    a rare find on the tables of Armenians living in the Levant and North
    Africa, where majority Muslim populations make pork difficult to find.

    Lebanese foodies tend to agree that many Armenian staples have become
    essential components of the local Lebanese mezze: basterma, sujuk and
    itch, for example.

    But that culinary diffusion goes both ways and Lebanese food has also
    had an effect on the local Armenian Christmas feasts.

    At Badgeur, an Armenian cultural center in the heart of Burj Hammoud,
    Arpie Mangasarian and her team of seasoned homemakers cooked up a
    private Christmas Eve dinner for several dozen friends and neighbors
    Monday night.

    While many Armenians in the surrounding streets roasted a turkey for
    the main fare, Badgeur's menu was a basic lineup of Armenian mezze
    with some Lebanese additions such as kibbeh nayeh, Mangasarian told
    The Daily Star Sunday.

    `We will sing and we will make music with the supporters of our
    delicacies,' she said.

    Their Christmas mezze spread included stuffed carrot - which is
    hollowed, filled with rice and spices and boiled in a broth; sujuk -
    sausage flavored with garlic, allspice, cumin, chili, coriander and
    salt; and basterma - cured flank steak turned scarlet with the help of
    a bright red pepper paste.

    Some items are standard across most Armenian Christmas tables:
    cookies, baklava, nuts and dried fruit are all used to feed the many
    friends and family members who visit each other over the holiday.

    A traditional salad made from cracked bulgur wheat, called itch, was
    also on Badgeur's table.

    Though the salad's name is not especially appetizing in English, itch
    (pronounced each) is one of the dishes that make Armenian cuisine
    worthy of a central place on the Lebanese table, according to cookbook
    author Barbara Abdeni Massaad.

    `Even if this is not a traditional Lebanese mezze staple, it soon will
    be one, if I have anything to say about it - and I do! Armenian food
    culture is here to stay,' Massaad wrote in her most recent cookbook
    `Mezze,' published in November.

    A couple of years ago, Massaad filmed an Armenian Christmas episode
    for her LBC show `Helwe Beirut.' In it, an Armenian homemaker in
    Antelias made a traditional barley and yogurt soup with labneh and
    dried mint that was briefly sauteed in butter. In Armenian the soup is
    known as spas.

    Massaad's host also called omelets a staple of Armenian Christmas
    lunch. Massaad offered a recipe for them in `Mezze' that includes
    fennel, though it can be substituted for other vegetables such as
    zucchini or made without any at all. The fried patties are more like
    eggy fritters than your typical breakfast omelet.

    One of the crowning comfort foods of Armenian cuisine that will
    undoubtedly find its way onto tables across town this Christmas is a
    white, cheesy lasagna called sou boreg.

    As in most unwritten food traditions, sou boreg is not a precise
    science. An adapted recipe by food blogger Joumana Accad calls for
    mozzarella and string cheese or ricotta. On the Christmas episode of
    `Helwe Beirut,' it was a three cheese sou boreg with akkawi, halloumi
    and majdouleh. Like knafeh, sou boreg is cooked on the stove, not in
    the oven.

    Mayrig, an Armenian restaurant in Beirut, hosted its own Christmas
    meal with a brunch over the weekend including kibbeh bi-laban and
    roasted lamb with rice - two dishes found throughout the Levant in
    Arab and Armenian kitchens and further proof of the continuous
    marriage between two culinary dynasties.

    http://www.albawaba.com/editorchoice/lebanon-armenian-christmas-545336

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