I once had a friend who was Armenian. By faith, she was an Armenian Orthodox but, there being none of those churches in our corner of Western Washington, she settled for the Episcopal Church. And that is how I came to know her.

For potlucks, she would prepare a wonderful dish of nuts and walnuts and sugar and way too much better, nestled between sheets of fillo dough. She insisted, in her staunch Armenian way, that this was "paklava" and defended that pronunciation against those foolish enough to suggest that she had made "baklava" -- which, she explained patiently, was a poor Greek imitation of the original Armenian dish.

What reminded me of her was the dish I prepared earlier this week -- Mughlai Murg Dum Biryani. As I told (bragged to) people about this dish, some lucky recipient of my culinary bulletin told me that this is a Persian (Iranian) dish. "Whoa," sez I, "I am working on expanding my East Indian cooking skills, not my (nonexistent) Persian ones."

Sure enough! The word "biryani" is of Persian origin, meaning something like "fried", and apparently migrated to India ... or was it the other way around? Or is this just another Armenian dish about which my friend forgot to tell me?

As I said in a 'nother post - please share these recipies!

I can't stop the watering of the mouth!

Sounds luscious!

Rm

for a while when out of college, my son lived in Astoria (the queens, NY one) --a neighborhood well known for its greek population.

benjamin is content to live anywhere where there are 24 hour coffee shops. (he doesn't often go out at 4 AM for coffee, but he sleeps better knowing he can)

a bit of trouble maker, he would frequently go into greek coffee shops, and ask for 'turkish style coffee'.

the greeks always insisted greek style was better..

when he found the odd turkish coffee shop or restaurant, he always asked for greek coffee--and was met with the same indignation--and the claim turkish coffee is better.

(he claimed there was no difference)

i personally can't tell the difference between most turkish dishes and greek ones.. or armenian ones for that matter--even many syrian dishes are very similar. the names don't change much either. some are bit sweeter, some a bit spicier, but its hard to tell if the cook or a national difference.

(benjamin is a natural born vegitarian who disliked meat as an infant--near eastern foods became a popular family choice because of the mix of fish, lamb and vegetarian choices available--every one in family could find something they liked.)

aside from an odd word or two, what i know most about different cultures is the food.

I think the word "Mughlai" shoulda oughta tipped you off, Your Honour. Mughals, the Muslims who set up the famed eponymous empire, developed the heavily Persian-influenced language that is Urdu, built the Taj Mahal, and gave us Mughal-e-azam. It would not surprise me to learn that they brought biryani to bharat, but it is now very clearly at home there. Hyderabadi murg biryani is, as they say, to die for.

I thought they were the Moghuls, or more properly, Moguls? (There ain't no danged h in yogurt, neither! The stuff doesn't hurt--it's not sentient. So there!)

In reply to:

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I thought they were the Moghuls, or more properly, Moguls? (There ain't no danged h in yogurt, neither! The stuff doesn't hurt--it's not sentient. So there!)

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mughal

If you get the chance to see Mughal-e-Azam, please do! A beautiful movie, that took nearly ten years to make.

As for the "h" in yoghurt, once again another reminder the US is not part of the Commonwealth, since practically every other English speaking country, as well as Australia, spells it the aspirated way.

spells it the aspirated way.

I once frequented a little restaurant on The Aspirated Way. It served ham hocks with either hollandaise or horseradish, haggis, herring hoagies, and haddock and halibut on Fridays. The waitress' name was Honey.

and it was hot...

> English speaking country, as well as Australia

LOL! M or S, whatever your name, the delightful wit's the same :)