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UNESCO DECISION HELPS START A TURKISH-ARMENIAN FOOD FIGHT
Yigal Schleifer
EurasiaNet.org
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64639
Dec 6 2011
NY
DIsputes over who was the first to cook a certain dish are not a new
thing for Turkey and its neighbors. Of course, there is the ongoing
argument over whether it was the Turks or the Greek Cypriots who
invented baklava, or about who was the first in the neighborhood to
stir coffee and lots of sugar in a pot of boiling water and serve it
up in a demitasse.
Now it appears that UNESCO may have inadvertently helped start a whole
new regional food fight, this time between Turkey and Armenia. Along
with Korean traditional tightrope walking and Mexican Mariachi music,
the UN body recently voted to add keskek, a traditional Anatolian stew
usually served on the morning of weddings, to its "Intangible Heritage"
list. The porridge-like stew, made of lamb or chicken cooked with
wheat berries, is cooked in large cauldrons that can feed hundreds
of hungry guests.
While Turks were probably firing up big pots of Keskek to celebrate
UNESCO's decision, Armenians were crying foul. As ArmeniaNow.com
reports:
One of the most popular dishes of the Armenian ethnic cuisine ~V
harisa ~V has appeared this week on the UNESCO list of world heritage
as a Turkish national dish called Keshkesk. The news has outraged
many in Armenia.
Sedrak Mamulyan, heading Development and Preservation of the Armenian
Culinary Traditions NGO, says harisa can absolutely not be Turkish.
~SWe have had two kinds of harisa: the harisa itself and kashika,
which has been transformed by the Turks into keshkesh. Kashika is
cooked in a tonir (cylindrical clay oven), and the fact that only
Armenians have had in-ground tonirs excludes the possibility of this
dish being Turkish. Turks never had tonirs,~T he says.
Like most of these regional food fights, a resolution to the
keskek/harisa dispute is probably not anywhere on the horizon
(especially considering both Greek and Iranian cooking feature a
similar dish). Meanwhile, in the video below (taken from YouTube's
surprisingly large library of Turkish villagers making keskek),
check out the residents of Uckoy making the dish for the masses:
Yigal Schleifer
EurasiaNet.org
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/64639
Dec 6 2011
NY
DIsputes over who was the first to cook a certain dish are not a new
thing for Turkey and its neighbors. Of course, there is the ongoing
argument over whether it was the Turks or the Greek Cypriots who
invented baklava, or about who was the first in the neighborhood to
stir coffee and lots of sugar in a pot of boiling water and serve it
up in a demitasse.
Now it appears that UNESCO may have inadvertently helped start a whole
new regional food fight, this time between Turkey and Armenia. Along
with Korean traditional tightrope walking and Mexican Mariachi music,
the UN body recently voted to add keskek, a traditional Anatolian stew
usually served on the morning of weddings, to its "Intangible Heritage"
list. The porridge-like stew, made of lamb or chicken cooked with
wheat berries, is cooked in large cauldrons that can feed hundreds
of hungry guests.
While Turks were probably firing up big pots of Keskek to celebrate
UNESCO's decision, Armenians were crying foul. As ArmeniaNow.com
reports:
One of the most popular dishes of the Armenian ethnic cuisine ~V
harisa ~V has appeared this week on the UNESCO list of world heritage
as a Turkish national dish called Keshkesk. The news has outraged
many in Armenia.
Sedrak Mamulyan, heading Development and Preservation of the Armenian
Culinary Traditions NGO, says harisa can absolutely not be Turkish.
~SWe have had two kinds of harisa: the harisa itself and kashika,
which has been transformed by the Turks into keshkesh. Kashika is
cooked in a tonir (cylindrical clay oven), and the fact that only
Armenians have had in-ground tonirs excludes the possibility of this
dish being Turkish. Turks never had tonirs,~T he says.
Like most of these regional food fights, a resolution to the
keskek/harisa dispute is probably not anywhere on the horizon
(especially considering both Greek and Iranian cooking feature a
similar dish). Meanwhile, in the video below (taken from YouTube's
surprisingly large library of Turkish villagers making keskek),
check out the residents of Uckoy making the dish for the masses: