Demonstration record
Anahit Petrosian
Անահիտ Պետրոսյան
Home cook · b. 1954 · Yerevan
Bakes lavash and stuffs pumpkin for the new year in Yerevan.
Petrosian family kitchenStories
Demonstration record
Stories
Pumpkin for the new year
Anahit Petrosian’s ghapama is a pumpkin that has become a bowl. Rice, dried fruit, honey, butter, a little cinnamon. In Yerevan it comes to the new-year table whole, then is opened so the steam stands up like a blessing nobody wants to name too loudly. She bakes lavash the day before, slapped to the tannur wall, thin enough to fold around herbs. The bread is for every day. The pumpkin is for the day the year turns. A Georgian guest once said the stuffing was a cousin of something at home. Anahit said: then sit, and we will see how close.
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Demonstration record
Oral history
The thin bread of the tannur
Lavash is not a recipe so much as a temperature. Anahit knows the oven is ready when the wall is too hot for the back of the hand and not yet angry. The dough is flour, water, a little salt. A handful until it feels right. She drapes it over a cushion, then onto the wall. Seconds. If you wait for a timer you have a cracker. She has seen thin breads in other places with other names. She does not collect names. She collects the moment the bread comes off in one piece.
Recorded by Archive demonstration
Dishes cooked
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