A IS FOR ARMENIA

Every Mediterranean culture (and quite a few of the ex Soviet block ones) has its version of stuffed things with rice. This Armenian dolma also has tomatoes, peppers and eggplants instead of grape or cabbage leaves which make it a little different. And it’s unbelievably good. The eggplant on it also looks so shiny and glistening, it reminds me of the snails of my childhood, who were everywhere in my grandma’s front yard in the south of Russia and you had to sprinkle salt on their little bodies to get rid of them. The writhing black muscles of the dying snails, the traces of glitter they left behind. My grandmother is not Armenian, but she lived in Gyumri for a while, in her childhood or adolescence, and now that she is old she looks so incredibly Armenian. It’s probably just the Turkish and Roma blood in her veins from all the war brides in our ancestry.

Almayass, “Lebanese-Armenian restaurant offering generations-old recipes”
24 E 21st St, New York, NY 10010