Armenian cuisine - one of the oldest cuisines in Asia and the oldest in the Caucasus. Its characteristic features are formed, at least a millennium before Christ during the formation of the Armenian people, and remain largely over three thousand years before the present day. One must bear in mind that the Armenian people until the Great October Revolution and the establishment of Soviet Armenia was in very poor conditions, deprived of its statehood, territorial unity.

The fact is that the situation in the VI. BC. Oe. Armenian state already in II, in. BC. Oe. divided into western and eastern parts of the test and was initially dependent on the Romans, Persians, Byzantines, Arabs, and since VII. Mr. Oe. for several centuries been subjected to alien conquests, including Arabic, Mongolian, Turkish and Iranian. From XVII to the beginning of XIX century. Armenia was divided between Turkey and Iran. During this period the economy of Armenia, its human and material resources have declined, but the spiritual and material culture has not changed, not lost and Armenian cuisine. On the contrary, the Armenians have contributed to the kitchen to the Seljuk Turks, so that many truly Armenian dishes were later known in Europe through the Turks as an alleged Turkish cuisine (eg, dolma).

Moreover, not only in Armenia proper, but in numerous colonies established in Asia and Europe to settle there by the Armenians, that is far from a foreign country, the Armenian cuisine, as well as other national peculiarities of the Armenian people, has retained its typical features.

Tradition and continuity in Armenian Cooking appear quite diverse - in the use of old kitchen appliances and cooking technologies, and in the composition of food raw materials, and in the preservation of flavors, and type of favorite dishes.

Type of focus (tint) and type of dish (clay), originally adopted by the Armenians, spread all over the Caucasus, influencing the very nature of the dishes. Tanning has led to the specificity of cereal products and some meat dishes and soups. It is baked vegetables soar porridge, smoked fish and poultry. The names of many dishes of Armenian cuisine is not connected with the composition of products, as is customary among European nations, and with the name of dishes in which they are made ready. Such, for example, putuk, kchuch, Tanaka - all kinds of pottery and also the names of soups and dishes.

This Armenian tradition carried over to the neighbors the Armenians - Georgians and Azerbaijanis.

As for Armenian food preparation technology, it is usually difficult and in some cases, labor-intensive. Preparation of large quantities of meat, fish and vegetable dishes of Armenian cuisine is built on stuffing, batter, pureeing and sufleobraznyh masses, time-consuming and labor (kololik and kololak).

Another characteristic feature of the Armenian cuisine, as well as other Eastern, is the separation of operations and then combine the different parts of the dish, multiple shift operations.

Both of these traits manifest, for example, when preparing the Armenian pastry. Thus, time-consuming, as a rule, the process of rolling multi-layer test (r a t a, n and r have to), a long and arduous preparation of sweet fruit and nuts (it sometimes tensile-etsya into several stages and lasts sometimes a crescent). In this technological methods for sweets are very imaginative and has had many operations in which even a simple vegetable raw materials - eggplants, green tomatoes, pumpkins, and unripe walnuts, watermelon rinds - are transformed into original, exquisite flavor and even texture confectionery, products.

The variety of technological methods are quite clearly evident in the soups: here and soups with sour milk-egg basis (God, chestnut), and separately cooked bozbash, and complex types of noodles (Tarhan), and finally entering into the broth, and broths of many components of cooked outside of these concoctions.

The main purpose of these technological methods is to provide a purified product (food), which taste as a result of a long and complicated process and make the mass of additional components significantly enriched. Hence the proliferation of dishes with minced meat, to which are added other components as in the hammer position. These are chopped to, shtorats, dolma, etc.

In Armenian cuisine, of course, there are dishes and made from natural meat, such as the Armenian shish kebab, pastynery, meat kchuchi, as well as dishes from the entire poultry, but they are, first, more ancient origin, rarely used in modern kitchens and are now more simple and secondly, and in their meat, while preserving the natural form also boasts a new flavor.

Thus, the Armenian cuisine has a variety of composition courses, different complex, rich, one might say, even subtle flavor and aroma range. This scheme, of course, does not only come as a result of unique processes, it is largely due to the very composition of food raw materials. Armenian food raw materials is stable over many centuries, it is entirely due to natural conditions of the Armenian highlands and the Ararat Valley. The earliest development of pastoralism in the Armenian highlands, led gradually to the extraordinary diversity of cultivated species of livestock and poultry. The Armenians were bred and bred cows, sheep, buffaloes, pigs, turkeys, chickens, geese and ducks. They use and game. In Armenian cuisine can be found extremely rare for other cuisines mix of different types of raw meat in one dish. For example, one of the oldest dishes - arganak combines chicken and venison (the latter is cooked in chicken broth).

Livestock was also the source of a variety of dairy products - mostly pitchers and burdyuchnyh brine cheese and dairy products, which are derivatives of yoghurt, or its combinations in different proportions with sladkomolochnymi products.

These by-products of milk play an important role in the Armenian cuisine and are used not only in its pure form, but also includes either as a basis, or as a component in the composition of a number of dishes.

In the diet of Armenians a prominent place cheese.Developed homemade cheese is distinguished not only a rich assortment of cheeses, but the original "use of whey and buttermilk, and their further processing. So, from the whey from yoghurt or buttermilk make curd zhazhik and dry buttermilk Chor Tan for prolonged storage. All these dairy products belong to the permanent, indispensable and revered by the people food, along with bread.

They are eaten mostly in the morning, and, in addition, also at lunch.

Early emergence of agriculture in the fertile valleys of Armenia led-established Millennium use a wide range of crops in the Armenian kitchen (emmer, millet, barley, wheat, rice) and legumes (beans, beans, lentils, peas, mining), and, as a rule, not separately from each other (as, for example, in Russian cuisine), and in combinations.

For example, soup zernushka consists of several types of beans and cereals. There are also various corn-bean porridge. Typically, these dishes are dishes of winter cuisine.It should be emphasized that the Armenian kitchen for cereal dishes and soups use pre specially processed cereals pshenich-WIDE: dzavar - rump of lightly cooked and then dried grains, released after, peel, or korkot - cereal grains from a little tarnished, then oshelushennogo and dried. As you can see, there is also the case complicated technology, which affects the taste of grain. Therefore, reproduction Armenian dishes without the original Armenian food raw materials is very difficult.

The main flour products, occupying a large proportion of the diet, is pita - a special bread.

To prepare pastry flour is used not only to a few species, but also different grinding, by up to a dozen.

The incidence of wheat flour, but sometimes it is combined with potato or corn starch.

The original Armenian flour is a flour made from toasted wheat - pohindz.

From ancient national dishes prepared from wheat flour dough without dressing, it should be noted hashil and asuda resembling flour to the butter buttermilk or grape juice.

In the main wheat flour is used to make pastry and bread of different sorts - Lavash and matnakasha.

Important role in feeding the Armenians are vegetables and fruits. Like everywhere in the Caucasus, they are used raw, dried, pickled and marinated, in addition, they are a necessary component in the prepara-lenii soups and dishes.

This not only vegetables but also fruit (quince, plum, lemon, pomegranate, raisins, apricots) are widely used in the cooking of meat and fish, which gives them (especially the fish dishes), a peculiar taste.

In Armenian meat soup along with potatoes and onions are often apples, quinces, apricots, walnuts, and in fish - dogwood; a mushroom - plum, prunes, raisins.

It is self-vegetable dishes prepared in Armenia less. In this case the basis consists of eggplant, pumpkin, or legumes (peas, lentils, beans), which added to other fruit and vegetable components, spices, milk or butter. Vegetable set of Armenian cuisine is common in the Caucasus. Perhaps more applicability in Armenia than in the neighboring republics, only the okra. Vegetable diet is supplemented, in addition, wild herbs - some three hundred - and spices, of which the favorite is the black pepper, coriander, mint, tarragon, basil, thyme, and of course the garlic and onions, and for confectionery products - cinnamon, cardamom,cloves, saffron and vanilla to some extent.

The range of spices is somewhat different from the Georgian and Azerbaijani, and not so much in composition as the ratio of components used. Look, for example, applied consistently and in significant quantities, while the garlic - moderate, with more and more frequently pickled, not fresh.

In Armenian cuisine using local fish and raw materials, for which developed its own technology. The main type of fish - trout, whose meat is tender taste differs. This determined the technology Armenian fish dishes - pripuskanie, which always remains the most delicate texture of fish.

Finally, we should say a few words about the use of fats in Armenian cuisine. The vast majority of dishes are cooked on ghee. It's going to soups, to extinguish and frying meat, poultry, fish and vegetables, as well as confectionery. Since ghee is prepared in Armenia from yoghurt and yoghurt primarily from sheep's milk, it has a characteristic sour flavor and aroma, and transferred to a dish, in which oil is introduced. In the absence of oil from yoghurt for cooking Armenian food appropriate to apply the peasant or amateur butter. Vegetable oils are used in Armenian cooking rarely - for cooking fish and some vegetable dishes (beans, eggplant). Moreover, a traditional sesame oil, also replaces the olive, and recently sunflower.

On the taste of Armenian Cuisine significant imprint impose and how they heat treatment. Typically, this complex forms of thermal processing of meat, poultry and vegetables. The same dish or food raw materials, such as meat, may be subjected, and roasting and boiling, and fire. In this case we can say that the quenching and as the final process in naplitnom cooking and as an independent type of heat treatment (quenching in an oven or tonyre) predominates. So many dishes of Armenian cuisine and a pleasant soft consistency (that is, melt in your mouth) and not particularly sharp sour-spicy taste and aroma.