Khorovats
Khorovats is meat cooked over an open fire. The word is a form of the Armenian verb meaning to roast or grill, and it names the method, not a single recipe. In practice it is also an occasion: a fire lit outdoors, one person tending the skewers while everyone else waits, and a table built around whatever comes off. It was one of the dishes the Smithsonian Folklife Festival presented in 2018 as staples of the Armenian feast. It is close to an older communal meat meal called madagh, but it is not the same thing.
- Author
- Armat Editorial Team
- Updated
- Reading time
- 6 min read
In brief
Khorovats is meat cooked over an open fire. The word is a form of the Armenian verb meaning to roast or grill, so it names a method, not a recipe. Large pieces of pork, lamb, beef or chicken are salted and left with onion and herbs, then threaded onto long flat skewers and cooked over embers instead of flame. Seasoning stays light. Aubergine, sweet pepper and tomato grill alongside, then are peeled and chopped into a dish of their own, usually called khorovats salad. The meat is often slid straight off the skewer onto lavash. The gathering matters as much as the food: a fire lit outdoors and an afternoon spent around it. Because it needs no tonir, khorovats has held on strongly in the diaspora. It is not madagh, though the two follow a similar pattern.
Key facts
- Kind of dish
- Meat grilled over open embers
- Name
- From the Armenian verb meaning to roast or grill
- Common meats
- Pork, lamb, beef or chicken, depending on region and community
- Cooked on
- Long skewers over wood or vine embers
- Usually eaten
- Outdoors, in company, straight off the skewer
- Not the same as
- Madagh, the communal meal from an animal offered and shared
The dish at a glance
- Common ingredients
- Pork, lamb, beef or chicken in large pieces, Onion, salt and herbs, Aubergine, sweet pepper and tomato for the accompanying grill, Lavash, to take the meat off the skewer
- Traditional preparation
- The meat is salted and left with onion and herbs for some hours, then threaded onto long skewers and cooked over embers, not flame, turned by hand until done. Vegetables grill beside it.
- Occasions
- Family gatherings and outings, Holidays and celebrations, Meals following commemorations
- Known regions
- Throughout the Republic of Armenia, Armenian communities of the Middle East, more often with lamb, Diaspora gatherings, where it needs no special equipment
- Serving traditions
- Slid off the skewer onto lavash and eaten at once, with raw onion, herbs and the grilled-vegetable salad alongside.
What khorovats is
Khorovats is meat cut into large pieces, threaded onto long flat skewers and cooked over embers, not flame. Beforehand the meat is usually salted and left for some hours with onion, herbs and sometimes wine or sparkling water. The seasoning stays deliberately light, because the fire is the point.
Vegetables go on alongside: aubergine, sweet pepper and tomato. Once blackened, they are often peeled and chopped together into a dish of their own, usually called khorovats salad.
Because the name describes a method, it stretches. The same word covers lamb skewered over vine cuttings in a village and meat cooked on a metal grill on a city balcony.
Its place in Armenian life
Khorovats is the outdoor counterpart to the tonir. Ethnographic studies describe bread-baking at the hearth as women's territory. At a family gathering, by contrast, the fire and the skewers are usually handled by men, and whoever tends them holds a recognised role for the afternoon.
The gathering is more elaborate than the food. A khorovats is an excuse to spend several hours somewhere — a garden, a riverbank, a mountain road — with the cooking spread across the whole afternoon instead of kept to one mealtime. Much of the eating happens standing up, as each batch comes off.
In the diaspora it is one of the most lasting Armenian customs, because it needs no special equipment and no tonir. A grill, skewers and lavash are enough.
History: what the sources say
Nobody can put a date on grilling meat over fire, and no serious source tries to. What we can describe is the practice as it is recorded today, and how it relates to older rituals of eating meat together.
The useful scholarship here is on madagh. In her study of the practice among Armenians, the anthropologist Susan Paul Pattie describes madagh as a meal from an animal offered and shared. It is often translated into English as "sacrifice", a word she shows to be misleading, and she traces how differently communities understand it. In the Republic of Armenia and in the Middle East, the public slaughter of the animal is still ordinary. In much of the diaspora it is seen as backward, and the meal carries on without it.
Khorovats is not madagh. But the two follow the same pattern: meat cooked in quantity and eaten together outdoors, by a group larger than one household. Today's secular gathering has taken on some of what the older ritual carried.
Ingredients and preparation
The meat is cut into pieces large enough to stay juicy, salted, and left with sliced onion and herbs. Many families add nothing else. Others use wine, sparkling water, or a little pepper and paprika.
The fire is built and left to burn down. The skewers go on only when there is a bed of embers and no flame. Where they can be had, vine cuttings and fruitwood are prized for their smoke.
Cooks turn the skewers by hand and judge them by eye. The meat is often slid straight off onto lavash, which soaks up the juices and is eaten with it.
Occasions and traditions
Khorovats belongs to holidays, family outings, weekends and any time a group of people has an afternoon together. It is the usual way to celebrate a birthday or a visit home, and it travels more easily than almost any other dish in this section.
It also turns up at gatherings with a religious purpose, such as after a baptism, a commemoration or a pilgrimage. There the line between an ordinary grill and a madagh can blur, and families themselves explain the difference in different ways.
Regional variations
The most visible difference is the meat. Pork is very common in the Republic of Armenia. Lamb is more usual in Armenian communities of the Middle East, where it also carries echoes of the ritual meal. Beef and chicken are ordinary everywhere.
In some regions the meat is cooked in large pieces on the bone; in others it is cubed. Some cooks grill the vegetables first and keep them warm, while many families do the reverse.
There is also a version cooked in a covered pot with vegetables, away from any fire, and in everyday speech it goes by the same name. The word describes what is done to the meat more than where it is done.
Important dates
2018
Khorovats is cooked in Washington as one of the staples of the Armenian feast, in the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's Armenia programme.
2022
Susan Paul Pattie's study of madagh appears in Food, Culture & Society. It shows how differently the communal meat meal is understood in Armenia and in the diaspora.
Why khorovats matters
Khorovats is the least ceremonious dish in this section, and that makes it one of the most revealing. It has no heritage listing, no fixed recipe and no origin story worth defending. Yet it is the form an Armenian celebration most often takes.
It also shows how a ritual can leave its shape behind after the ritual itself has faded. The communal meat meal of a madagh and an afternoon of grilling in a garden are different things, and it would be a mistake to confuse them. But the garden grill clearly comes from a world in which madagh was ordinary.
Interesting facts
- 01The word is the past participle of the Armenian verb for roasting, so it names a method, not a recipe.
- 02The vegetables grilled beside the meat are peeled and chopped into a separate dish, usually called khorovats salad.
- 03Skewers go on only after the flame has died down. Cooking over embers instead of fire is the part of the technique cooks argue about least.
- 04Meat is often slid off the skewer straight onto lavash, which is eaten with it.
- 05Madagh, the communal meal from an animal offered and shared, is a different practice. Susan Paul Pattie's study found that its visible slaughter is ordinary in Armenia and the Middle East but widely rejected in the diaspora.
Sources
- Armenia: Creating Home — Foodways — Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 2018 Visit source
- Susan Paul Pattie. This is not a sacrifice: interpretations of the Madagh among Armenians — Food, Culture & Society, vol. 25 no. 5, pp. 783–794, 2022 Visit sourceThe anthropological account of madagh, the communal meat meal, and of how differently it is understood in Armenia and in the diaspora.
- Levon Abrahamian and Nancy Sweezy (eds.). Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity — Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001 ISBN 9780253337047
- Irina Petrosian and David Underwood. Armenian Food: Fact, Fiction & Folklore — Yerkir Publishing, 2006 ISBN 9781411698659
Related articles
Harissa
Wheat and meat stirred together for hours until they become one. The dish appears in a tenth-century Baghdadi cookbook, and Armenians cook it every September to commemorate the Musa Dagh resistance.
Lavash
The thin flatbread baked on the wall of a clay tonir. UNESCO listed it in 2014 for how Armenians make, share and use it, and listed it again in 2016 for five other countries.
Dolma
Vine leaves and hollowed vegetables filled with rice, herbs and often meat. The dish is made across the whole region, which is exactly why this section does not name a single owner for it.