Forbes: Armenia emerging as next food and wine travel destination

PanARMENIAN.Net - In a fresh article published on Friday, October 29, Forbes argues that Armenia is emerging as the next food and wine travel destination. The author, Ann Abel, was among the guests invited to the final dinner of "an audacious project at an audacious restaurant in Armenia".

Veronica Joy Rogov, a hospitality and wine consultant for Michelin-star restaurants, had flown in from the U.S., along with chef Mads Refslund—a cofounder of the original, wildly influential Noma in Copenhagen—and a team of other restaurant geniuses. They immersed themselves in all things Armenian for a month, learning traditional recipes and meeting purveyors, and then worked with the staff at the new Tsaghkunk Restaurant to create and serve a series of unforgettable dinners.

Their mission—along with providing a whole lot of pleasure to diners who made the journey—was to help one of the oldest countries in the world develop its future contemporary culinary language. That meant a thorough exploration of this unique but forgotten (or misunderstood) land at the crossroads between Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and then a deep sharing of knowledge.

The project was a collaboration between Hrachya Aghajanyan, the former Armenian ambassador to Sweden and Denmark, and his friend Kristian Brask Thomson of Bon Vivant Communications, whom he used to introduce as the Ambassador of Pleasure because of his work organizing dining extravaganzas that connect people from around the world. (Food being the most enjoyable kind of diplomacy.) That’s what they’re doing here, not just with the Refslund collaboration but with the restaurant (whose resident chef, Susanna Guckasyan, and team were fantastic even before they gained inspiration and know-how from the foreigners), and with a spotlight trained on Armenian food and culture in general.

"As Rogov said, Armenia makes an impact on anyone who visits. (It was country number 100 for me, and it still managed to leave me struggling to find comparisons.) There is, as she also said, a certain heaviness to it, thanks to sheer weight of its millennia of history," Abel writes in her piece, choosing to focus on Yerevan, with its European-ish vibe and lively nightlife, the kindness and generosity in the country, the smiles and the joy.

"And then there’s the intellectualism. I felt that in so many of my conversations. Chess is a national sport. Gregory the Illuminator is known for establishing Christianity in Armenia, in the year 301, making it the first Christian country in the world. But “illumination” in its more modern meaning continues to be a value. Displayed in the museum complex of the Matenadaran are old printed books, precious bindings, manuscripts, colorful book illustrations and miniatures from the organization’s collection of 23,000 manuscripts. It says a lot about the Armenians that during the genocide perpetrated against them by the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, they chose to protect their beautiful books."

Abel believes the new generation is trying to position education, the illumination of knowledge and technology as exports.

"Like any cuisine, Armenian food is varied, but a few patterns emerged. There are lots of fresh herbs and pomegranate seeds, rather than spices. Lamb, eggplant, yogurt and various fresh and salty cheeses are recurrent. There are always copious amounts of lavash, the flash-baked flatbread that’s such an integral part of Armenian culture that it’s on UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage list. There’s often aveluk, an indigenous wild sorrel, which is delicious. Sometimes there’s lake trout," she says.

"There is also the strangest cooking technique I’ve seen anywhere in the world. It appeared on my itinerary as “satellite trout.” The fish is placed in a glass baking dish with apricots and fresh walnuts, and then the whole thing is suspended above an enormous mirrored structure that looks like a satellite dish. The mirrors reflect the sun’s rays into the baking dish, where their heat evenly cooks the fish."

It sounds like a gimmick, but it’s the opposite. Engineers donated their time to design the structures, which were set in the garden at Machanents House, a tourism and art social enterprise in the holy capital of Ejmiatsin. It’s an experiment in sustainable cooking, as it doesn’t require electricity, any other fuel or cooking oil. There are hopes of making it scalable, building more and setting them up in remote mountain villages.

"I felt awe at the history of the Orthodox (called Apostolic) churches that have stood for centuries upon centuries, from the 9th-century monastery complex of Sevanavank in the north to the 13th-century Noravank (“new church”) in the south. The most moving of all is Etchmiadzin, outside Yerevan, built in 303AD and often considered the Vatican of the Armenian Apostolic Church," the author says.

"There was plenty of awe at the natural landscapes too. Some 80% of the country is mountainous. There is beauty everywhere, especially the high-altitude Lake Sevan and the rugged and wild terrain of the south (including stretches of the actual Silk Road). Indiana Jones and James Bond comparisons flew as we rode over a long, bumpy road to the mountains of the Syunik Province, high up with hostile land on both sides.

"There, the Wings of Tatev, the longest double-track cable car in the world, takes visitors on a stunning, five-kilometer ride over mountainous terrain—sometimes it’s 1,000 feet up—to the Tatev Monestery, whose restoration is in progress. It’s another project to develop the right kind of tourism and create new jobs in the area.

"Granted, those experiences aren’t available to everyone. Nor were the dinners with Refslund, which are over now anyway. But they show the level of investment that some dreamers are making in Armenia—and that the country is ready for the attention."