Home Again: Armenian Recipes from the Ottoman Empire

Home Again combines a collection of Armenian recipes from the Ottoman Empire with a memoir of a family of immigrants who kept certain recipes close to their hearts as a means of preserving their cultural heritage. The author examines the relationship between history and cuisine, between displacement and memory, between the individual and their ancestors. Working over 10 years to collect authentic recipes from the descendants of Armenians who fled their homeland, the author brings forth a book that aligns some rare recipes with history and personal anecdotes of dozens of Armenian cooks. Reworking and testing recipes kept safe in family memories, this book brings them to life for the contemporary cook. Deftly combining her grandmother's recollections of daily life in the Ottoman Empire with the personal recollections of others, from different villages, Firkatian describes the recipes and experiences of those communities in loving prose. The book revives a lost world and invites the reader to imagine being a guest in her grandmother Iskouhi's home. The author has studiously preserved the ancient roots of the recipes while presenting them in a modern context. In addition to Armenian standards like stuffed grape leaves, there are many unique recipes. Stuffed mussels. Baked carp. Fruit leather. Potted meats. Bird's nest desserts. Author Mari Firkatian includes over 175 recipes and contextualizes them by sharing fragments of first hand recollections from the chefs themselves, the heirs to the culture. She punctuates the text with anecdotes, songs, personal experiences, and historic contexts to the particular regions she has highlighted. She has sourced the recipes of her grandmother's home village, outside modern day Bursa, as well as recipes from other Armenian towns. With a focus on over a dozen select Armenian regions in the Ottoman Empire this is a must have book for cooks eager to explore hidden treasures preserved by family cooks. The recipes are contemporary versions with simple instructions for any cook to follow and savor the dishes at home thereby visiting the past one bite at a time.