Armenian

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Ghapama (Pumpkin Baked Whole with Rice, Dried Fruit and Honey)

An Armenian holiday dish: a whole pumpkin hollowed out, packed to the brim with rice tossed in butter, honey, dried fruit and nuts, lidded with its own top and baked whole. The rice goes in already cooked, so it does not swell, which is why the pumpkin can be filled right up; the oven time is all for the pumpkin wall. It is cut open at the table and served in wedges, wall and filling together.

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Harisa (Wheat and Chicken Beaten to One Paste)

Armenia's national dish: hulled wheat and chicken simmered together for hours and worked with a wooden spoon until neither one is recognisable. The aim is not tender meat but the destruction of the meat's fibre bundles into the grain, and it is finished with a pool of melted butter poured into the middle.

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Lavash (Paper-Thin Flatbread Dried for Storage)

An Armenian flatbread of flour, water and salt, rolled paper-thin and baked in under a minute against a clay oven wall. Most bread is best fresh; lavash is baked to be dried. Stacked until brittle, it is too dry for anything to grow in and keeps for months, then softens again under a sprinkle of water and a cloth.