Cooking

We had a treat today: Sam was allowed to cook a dish for lunch! I don't think our host family cared for it all that much (not enough oil or salt for Armenian tastes), but I thought it was delicious. It was really nice to be able to eat a meal that tasted like something we'd eat at home. It's not even that I dislike Armenian food- I don't- but it was just nice to eat something familiar for a change. 

Next to Sam's marvelous pasta dish, you can see what Alla was making while we (read: Sam) cooked. It's mostly celery with a little  bit of onion, and it's going to be pickled. 

People here grow most of their own food, and since Armenian winters are too cold for things to grow, that means that food must be put up for the winter. The two primary ways of doing this are by making them into pickles (called "tehtu" which translates literally as "bitter") or into a kind of lumpy jam called "murahbah".

In America, we'd usually have a strict vegetable-fruit divide between what's pickled and what's jammed, but this isn't the case in Armenia. Since our arrival, we've seen both pickled watermelon and eggplant murahabah (think giant eggplant flavored jelly beans and you'd be on the right track). I find the process of stocking up for winter fascinating. I'd love to be able to grow all my own food one day- although I think I'll skip the eggplant murahbah.