Armenia
Smoke off the khorovats, wafer-thin lavash, and brandy from the land that may have invented wine.
Weekends in Armenia smell of khorovats: pork, lamb or whole vegetables charring over vine cuttings while someone stands guard with a long fork and strong opinions. The barbecue is less a meal than a ritual, wrapped in sheets of lavash — the paper-thin bread baked against the wall of a clay tonir, UNESCO-listed and used as plate, napkin and spoon all at once.
The pantry is herbs, wheat and apricots. Try dolma, rice and meat rolled tight in grape leaves; midwinter khash, a fortifying broth of trotters eaten at dawn with garlic and vodka; and baked ghapama, a pumpkin stuffed with sweet rice. Wine country runs through the Areni valley, beside a cave that held the world's oldest known winery, and no meal really ends without a glass of amber Armenian brandy and a sticky knot of sujukh, walnuts dipped again and again in grape must.
- Khorovats (Armenian barbecue)
- Dolma (stuffed grape leaves)
- Harissa (wheat & chicken porridge)
- Lavash (UNESCO flatbread)
- Ghapama (rice-stuffed pumpkin)
- Sujukh (grape-walnut candy)
- Armenian brandy
