On 27 April 2011, the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev fired the first salvo by stating<\/a> at the annual conference of his country\u2019s Academy of Sciences that: \u201cif you ask an Armenian what \u2018dolma\u2019 means in their language, they won\u2019t be able to answer. It\u2019s like \u2018Karabakh\u2019 for them \u2013 a meaningless word\u201d. A few months later, Armenia responded by holding its own \u201ctolma\u201d (not dolma) festival as part of the \u201cGolden Apricot\u201d international film festival. The festival organisers, the \u201cSociety for the Preservation and Development of Armenian Culinary Traditions\u201d explained<\/a> (link to Armenian language site):<\/p>\n \u201cThe aim of the festival is to popularise traditional Armenian dishes and the idea of tolma as part of our national cuisine, contrary to the received opinion that it has Turkish roots. After our organisation held its tolma festival, which was reported on CNN<\/a>, the Azerbaijanis fell silent \u2013 we had dealt them a knockout blow\u201d.<\/p>\n The debates over the \u201cnationality\u201d of dishes had been developing over many years before the outbreak of the \u201ctolma war\u201d. A rise in ethnic consciousness, an overemphasis on national culture and issues around national identity and anything that might threaten it are all hangovers from the colonial (in this case, Soviet) past.<\/p>\n In the Soviet years, cookbooks based on regional cuisines defined the borders of their cultures and encouraged culinary nationalism. Cookbooks, as structured collections of the directions post-Soviet dining should take, have become the main weapons in the South Caucasus culinary wars. It is true, though, that while no one argues about what country a national anthem or flag belongs to, there is no consensus on the provenance of certain kinds of food.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s conflicts provide a multitude of examples of culinary wars in areas with unresolved border issues. One of the best known and most studied regions in this context is the Balkans, where disputes over its Ottoman legacy are still active. And there is the more recent example of the \u201chummus wars\u201d<\/a> being fought between Arabs and Israelis.<\/p>\n An analysis of Armenian-Azerbaijani culinary clashes shows that this conflict itself is leading to an exacerbation of the spilt in national gastronomic traditions, where each side insists that it has the historic right of \u201cownership\u201d of a given dish.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The rules of engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2011 I began looking at the Armenian-Azerbaijani national food war and received a grant from the South Caucasus branch of the Heinrich B\u00f6ll Foundation to pursue my research further. I began to realise that culinary wars also have their own rules for attack and defence, as well as their generals and troops and, depending on the outcome of their battles, dishes that have fallen on the field of battle or been taken prisoner.<\/p>\n The South Caucasus culinary wars have been going on for many years and on all fronts. In 2011, for example, on the eve of a visit to Armenia by the then President of Georgia Mikhail Saakashvili, there were articles in the press about Georgia-Armenian \u201cculinary appropriations\u201d and mutual recriminations. Their headlines themselves reflected their subjects: \u201cIn Yerevan, will Saakashvili try to stand up for khachapuri cheese bread and Saperavi wine?\u201d, \u201cWill Saakashvili discuss the questions of churchkhela [a traditional sweet of nuts encased in a dried fruit paste \u2013 ed.] and khachapuri?\u201d and so on.<\/p>\n In this case the Georgian-Armenian conflict was more about brand names and marketing, as well known delicacies were involved \u2013 Georgian varieties of wine and churchkhela, which is popular in both Armenia and Georgia. And in general, Georgian-Armenian culinary arguments are sporadic and rarely go beyond media altercations (and chiefly on social media at that).<\/p>\n On the Armenian-Azerbaijani gastronomic front, passions are more unbridled, and have long since strayed into the real political arena. In Azerbaijan, the war is waged directly from government offices, while in Armenia the media and the third sector are mainly focused on their neighbour\u2019s \u201cculinary appropriations\u201d.<\/p>\n Azerbaijan, for example, has a \u201cNational Culinary Centre\u201d<\/a>, whose CEO Tahir Amiraslanov actively promotes publications devoted to Azerbaijan\u2019s national cuisine and an analysis of alleged Armenian pretentions and takeover attempts in the culinary sphere. His organisation, which receives government funding, publishes material accusing the Armenians of stealing Azerbaijan\u2019s national cuisine. He told one interviewer that \u201cSince 1989, the issue of Armenian pretentions towards Azerbaijan\u2019s culinary traditions has been discussed at the highest level, by specialists and academics, many times. Every pan-Turkish, Islamic dish, including those from Azerbaijan, is claimed as Armenian \u2013 they are trying to prove that an Armenian culinary tradition exists.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Armenia is busy working out a defence. There are a number of forces engaged in this exercise: its \u201cSociety for the Preservation and Development of Armenian Culinary Traditions\u201d; its academic community, represented by both nutricians and ethnographers, and its media, which often fuel public demand for incisive debates on the \u201c Armenian-ness\u201d of various dishes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Historical tolma<\/strong><\/p>\n The main dishes affected by the culinary wars are those with a clearly symbolic ethnic significance: tolma\/dolma, lavash [flatbread], harisa [a thick, meaty porridge], kofta [meatballs], pahlava [a sweet dessert based on filo pastry] and other dishes with a ritual or celebratory history.<\/p>\n The tolma\/dolma dichotomy is still at the centre of gastro-nationalist discussion in both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The involvement of well known international cultural heritage organisations such as UNESCO has intensified the zeal on both sides. Azerbaijan\u2019s Ministry of Culture, in answer to \u201cArmenia\u2019s attempt to lay claim to lavash\u201d, in 2016 fired off a request to UNESCO (entitled \u201cThe culture of the preparation of dolma and its classification as a marker of culture identity\u201d) to have the dish included in the organisation\u2019s intangible cultural heritage list<\/a>. The request will be considered by UNESCO at its meeting in November.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Armenia has been celebrating its annual tolma (not dolma) festival. It is telling that the choice of location for the festival always has a symbolic significance. The first one, in 2011, took place at the Sardarabad memorial complex \u2013 the site of a battle in 1918 that halted an attack by Turkish troops and laid the foundation for the independent, and short-lived, Democratic Republic of Armenia.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a place that symbolises self-defence\u201d, Sedrak Mamulyan, one of the festival organisers, said in an interview. \u201cOur national cuisine is where we can develop this self protection. It\u2019s is among the oldest and most famous in the world, and acted as a donor for our neighbours: all our neighbours have adopted Armenian dishes\u201d.<\/p>\n In 2017, Armenia\u2019s Ministry of Culture chose the village of Hnaberd, near the site of the country\u2019s medieval capital Dvin, as the venue for the tolma festival. Chefs prepared a 60 metre long tolma (the usual length is 10cm), while bands and dance groups in national costume entertained the public \u2013 the festival is a hit with locals and tourists alike. Pastry cooks also constructed a model of the ancient Temple of Garni (the only standing Greco-Roman colonnaded building in the former Soviet Union); Mount Ararat, sacred to Armenians although situated in modern Turkey; the fertile Ararat valley and other historical symbols \u2013 all out of tolma. And they also demonstrated their expertise by combining tolma with another \u201cconflicted\u201d dish \u2013 the kebab.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Down the grapevine<\/strong><\/p>\n Why is it dolma\/tolma, lavash and harisa porridge that have become the symbols of national discord? It is because they represent territorial aspirations: as the tolma festival organiser explains, \u201cThe roots of an indigenous people and their right to the territory they occupy is inextricably linked with their national cuisine. And tolma is a typical dish of a settled, and therefore indigenous people\u201d.<\/p>\n Azerbaijanis are equally convinced that their national dishes prove that they are indigenous to their lands. Azerbaijan\u2019s reaction to a \u201cKarabakh Cuisine\u201d festival held in Moscow was, not surprisingly, chilly. In an article entitled \u201cKarabakh separatists have decided to introduce Moscow to \u2018Karabakh Cuisine\u2019\u201d, the CEO of Azerbaijan\u2019s National Culinary Centre wrote that \u201cKarabakh is an Azerbaijani territory, so any dishes developed there are part of our heritage. The Armenians settled in the area later and learned how to cook from us.\u201d<\/p>\n How, then, can you disprove national belonging through food? The Armenian side\u2019s main argument is that to make tolma you need vine leaves, which is evidence of early agricultural development: there is also clear archeological evidence for viticulture and wine-drinking in ancient Armenia. Another stumbling block for the Azerbaijani side in this context is the fact that dishes based on wheat are a sure sign of cereal production, which in its turn points to a settled people. The thick, meaty porridge harisa is a very popular dish in Armenia (a similar dish known as keshkek is widely eaten in Turkey).<\/p>\n In Armenia, the inclusion of keshkek in UNESCO\u2019s intangible cultural heritage list has provoked hot debate, in the course of which the organisation has been pilloried and accused of involvement in \u201ccaviar diplomacy\u201d. There\u2019s been discussion of the apparent incompatibility between Turkic nomadic traditions and authentic wheat-based dishes: \u201cdishes made of wheat can only have been created by people living a settled way of life \u2013 and therefore must be Armenian.\u201d<\/p>\n Debate on the way lavash is baked in a \u201ctonir\u201d \u2013 a clay oven sunk into the ground \u2013 has provoked arguments<\/a> (link to Russian language site) around territorial rights: \u201cLavash was only ever baked in a tonir, and a tonir is a characteristic of a settled society, but not of a nomadic one like the Turks\u201d. Discussions like this on the culinary-political claims of their neighbours can end up looking like direct threats to Armenian indigenous identity: \u201cthe next thing will be claims that the Turks always used tonirs\u201d<\/a> (link to Russian language site).<\/p>\n In 2015, another discussion on the \u201ctakeover\u201d of lavash by the Azerbaijani side \u2013 as part of a multi-national request to UNESCO to recognise traditional flatbread \u2013 drew attention yet again to the contrast between settlement and nomadism, seen by Armenians as a lower stage of development. The main thrust of the Armenian media discussions was that Turks and Azerbaijanis only sought to claim the dishes of \u201csettled\u201d societies, apparently showing how keen they were to conceal their nomadic existence\u201d.<\/p>\n These debates echo a developmentalist tradition of demonstrating a settled population\u2019s apparent superiority over a nomadic one \u2013 a mode of thinking which developed in the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods. State\u2019s policy boiled down to an official adoption of this position. Nomads, as a rule, were seen as \u201cdestroyers of advanced civilisations\u201d \u2013 hence evidence of ancient agricultural development is cherished by nationalists on both sides.<\/p>\n It is hard here to avoid quoting the famous anthropologist Mary Douglas: \u201cnational food cultures become a blinding fetish which, if disregarded, may be as dangerous as an explosion\u201d.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The proof is in the pudding<\/strong><\/p>\n Tolma or dolma \u2013 these forms are also not just variations on a single word, but a long road back into history, and another turn in the discussion about settlement and nomadism.<\/p>\n Back in the 1960s, the historian Suren Yeremyan, studying the origins and development of Armenian food culture, was already looking at early settlement and agricultural practice in Armenia through the meaning of the word \u201ctolma\u201d: \u201cIn Armenia we can still find wild grape vines, known as \u2018toli\u2019 (from the Urartu \u2018uduli\u2019 \u2013 grape), and many are still producing fruit\u201d. The word \u201cuduli\u201d was chosen as the name of the annual tolma festival because it was a good fit with the philosophy behind the event: to show Armenian cuisine as authentic, ancient and the result of unbroken cultural continuity.<\/p>\n In contrast, Azerbaijani sources point to words of Turkic origin: \u201cthe name dolma comes from the Turkish verb \u2018dolmag\u2019, which can be translated as \u2018to fill up\u2019\u201d. There is a clear link between the Turkish version of the word and the way the dish is made. The Azeri language also contains the verb \u2018dolamag\u2019 \u2013 \u2018to roll up\u2019.<\/p>\n It can also, however, be used in the context of making dolma, as Tahir Amiraslanov of Azerbaijan\u2019s National Culinary Centre explained while discussing a book about Armenian cuisine<\/a> (link to Russian site). These discussions are repeated, almost word for word, on media platforms and in forums, where there are passionate discussions about the \u201cauthentic\u201d way of preparing the dish: the tolma is a rice and\/or rice mixture wrapped in vine leaves, whereas the dolma is vegetables stuffed with a similar mixture.<\/p>\n The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has certainly left its mark on the development of a discourse around food in both Armenia and Azerbaijan. The present Armenian-Azerbaijani food wars are the legacy of an indigenous, historical, linguistic and cultural continuity. They continue a process of incorporating the past into the present \u2013 though tastes and smells of which the very mention evokes strong sensations.<\/p>\n Serving as a means of consolidating and mobilising internal public and ethnic sensibilities, the food wars act as a barrier to the formation of a common historical narrative \u2013 along with a common present and future. They intensify the polarisation of the two sides, as exemplified by a famous line in the 1970s Soviet cult film comedy \u201cMimino\u201d: \u201cyou don\u2019t know how to make dolma here.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n *Ruzanna Tsaturyan is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Armenian Academy of Sciences.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By RUZANNA TSATURYAN* Translated by Liz Barnes Open Democracy How national cuisines became yet another battlefield in the enmity between Armenia and Azerbaijan. \u0420\u0443\u0441\u0441\u043a\u0438\u0439 Is [more >>>]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-conflicts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2449,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447\/revisions\/2449"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covcasbulletin.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/covcasbulletin-info.hhd.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/Dolma.jpg\")
<\/a>Is the popular dish consisting of vine leaves stuffed with rice and\/or meat called dolma or tolma? You may think this is a purely culinary question, but you\u2019d be mistaken. Presidents, politicians, ministers, community organisations and the media are all engaged in a heated debate over the preparation of tolma\/dolma in the South Caucasus, and particularly in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has hit the kitchens.<\/p>\n