B15 Village Life
Nadia Aloverdova من Guylasar, Armenia في Guylasar, Armenia
Our Assyrians who were living here before, we had cattle, they kept cattle and sheep. In the morning the herd went out and came back in the evening. They milked the cows. With this milk they produced cheese for themselves. They leave a large proportion of the cheese for winter, because in the time of winter there is nothing to eat, they make do with the cheese. Apart from salted cheese we have buried cheese. Say ‘How do we make this cheese?’ You milk the cow, while (the milk is) warm you put pepsin into it. We call it rennet, rennet. In the old days they used to make rennet with the intestine of a sheep. They made rennet with that. We used to set cheese with that. Now we put pepsin in cheese, in very warm milk we put pepsin. It sets, like butter, it resembles yoghurt. You separate it so that its water comes out. We strain it with a strainer. We squeeze it and the water comes out. Then we put salt on it , so it becomes hard. After that we take salt water, we take salt water with an egg, the egg of a chicken. It must be thus, so that the egg appears on the surface like a kopeck, so that it is not over-salted nor insipid, so that the cheese does not go bad. We put the salted cheese in salt water. If we want to keep it for the winter (we made) buried cheese. With milk we cooked jajəc. We boil the milk. You boil yoghurt buttermilk. The milk curdles. You put salt in it. The buttermilk, let’s say the buttermilk curdles. We strain it and it becomes fine. We mix it with cheese. We break up the cheese and mix it with this jajəc. We bring thyme from the mountains. We gather this thyme in the summer and dry it. We mix the dry thyme in the jajəc, in the cheese. We squeeze it all into a pot. They make the pot with clay and fire it. They bury with it, we say. Squeezing it all in this pot, you put a white cloth on its top containing holes, we say gauze. In the old days our women used to tie it on their head. They used to make it into a headscarf, gauze, a bandage with which they bind their hands. From that piece you make four folds and put it on the cheese. (On this) they put unwashed wool. The cloth prevents dirt from going in. After that, you tie it with another cloth. You turn it upside down. You put ash in a place. The ash, when you burn wood, you put the ash in a pile. You invert the pot in the ash so that all its water drains. The wool draws the water. It draws all the water in this way from the cheese and it goes into the ash. You cover the pot thus so that half of it is covered in the ash so that air does not enter. In winter you open it. You take off the wool and so forth. Buried cheese, very tasty—with this the community subsists. They bake flat bread. Our bread is flat bread. We bake it in the oven. Many people are not able to bake flat bread. They used to make loaves. Still other than loaves we used to have what they made with beans. What do they call them? ⁺jallə. They bake ⁺jallə. In these they put onions, red beans. They put them on the oven. They were very tasty. Now our young people have forgotten all these. My grandmother used to make harisa (meat with crushed boiled wheat) in a pot . She put it in the fire, in the oven. She used to cover it with fire. The pot had a lid like this, which covered it. They smeared it with mud so that the water, when it boiled, would not spill. Well, you see they make harisa with chicken and they make it with grain, with husks. They pound the raw grain and they take off its husk. Wheat, they beat wheat, its skin comes of and it becomes raw grain. We do not cook it, what we cook is the grain, but as for the raw grain, you put in some chicken meat, you chop it up and put it in it. You put in water, you cover its mouth and put it in the oven. It cooks and it becomes like porridge. It becomes thick like that. You take it in a spoon; when you take it, it stretches out like this. They call this harisa. It is very tasty. Again in the pot we used to cook red beans. As for red beans, we used to put water on them. Whoever had walnuts would crush walnuts and put them in it. A little oil, again they cover its top with soil and smear it, then put it on the fire. They cover it with fire. As soon as it boils, the thing opens and we know that it is cooked, we took them out, we scraped them out of it (the pot). Then we made ⁺ġabama. We take a pumpkin and we clear out its inside. They fill it with rice, honey, if they want to make it with something sweet, they put raisins in it. They cover its top and again cover it (and put it) on the fire. It cooks. It draws everything inside it and becomes pulp. There are some who eat the pulp with oil, there are some who put milk on it and eat it. When they cut the pumpkin, and it is in layers, in the middle part there is rice, you eat it, it is very tasty. We call this ⁺ġabama. I do not know whether you now do it or do not do it, I do not know. Well, various things, let us say we make dolmə of vine leaves, vine leaves. We roll vine leaves into a dolma, there are also cabbage as well as vine leaves. They put dill in the vine leaves, but in cabbage dolma they mix all the herbs into the pot, they put in various types of herbs. But in that one (dolma of vine leaves) they put a sprig of dill together with coriander, they do not put in anything else.