Lavash
Lavash is a thin, soft flatbread of flour, water and salt, baked in seconds on the hot wall of a tonir, the clay oven sunk into the ground. It is the everyday bread of Armenian homes, and it also has a ritual life of its own. People lay it on the shoulders of a bride and groom, dry it in sheets for the winter, and use it as a plate, a wrapper and a spoon. UNESCO added the Armenian practice to its Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2014. In 2016 it added a separate, multinational flatbread tradition under the same name.
- Author
- Armat Editorial Team
- Updated
- Reading time
- 7 min read
In brief
Lavash is a thin unleavened flatbread made of wheat flour, water and salt. It bakes in under a minute on the inner wall of a tonir, the clay oven sunk into the floor of a traditional house. Fresh lavash is soft enough to tear by hand, and people use it to wrap cheese, herbs and grilled meat. Dried and stacked, it keeps for up to six months and softens again with a sprinkle of water, so a household could bake once and eat lavash all winter. Beyond the meal, the UNESCO file describes lavash being laid on the shoulders of a bride and groom as a wish for prosperity. UNESCO listed the Armenian tradition in 2014 and a separate multinational tradition under the same name in 2016. Each listing records a living practice, and neither grants ownership.
Key facts
- Kind of dish
- Thin unleavened flatbread
- Ingredients
- Wheat flour, water, salt
- Traditional oven
- Tonir, a clay oven set into the ground
- Baking time
- Under a minute
- Keeps for
- Up to six months when dried
- UNESCO
- Representative List, 2014, no. 00985
The dish at a glance
- Common ingredients
- Wheat flour, Water, Salt
- Traditional preparation
- Bakers knead, divide and roll the dough, then stretch it very thin. They spread it over an oval cushion and press it against the hot wall of a tonir, where it bakes in seconds and comes off still soft.
- Occasions
- Everyday meals, Weddings, Autumn baking for the winter store
- Known regions
- Throughout the Republic of Armenia, Armenian communities of the Middle East, Diaspora households, where it is usually bought, not baked
- Serving traditions
- Torn by hand and wrapped around cheese, herbs and grilled meat, or laid under other dishes to soak up their juices. Dried sheets are stacked and softened with water.
What lavash is
Lavash is an unleavened flatbread made from just three ingredients: wheat flour, water and salt. What sets it apart is the shaping and the oven. Bakers knead the dough and divide it into balls. They roll each ball out, then stretch it until it is thin enough to see light through. The sheet goes over an oval cushion, and the baker slaps it onto the inner wall of a tonir. It bakes in well under a minute and comes out still soft.
This bread behaves very differently from a loaf. Fresh, it is soft and bendy, and you tear it instead of cutting it. Dried, it stacks flat and keeps for months. Sprinkle it with water and leave it under a cloth, and it turns soft again. That is how a household could bake once and eat lavash all winter.
The word covers a whole family of breads. Sheets vary in length, thickness and colour from village to village and from baker to baker. Across the wider region, people use the same name for breads that an Armenian baker might not recognise as her own.
Its place in Armenian life
The UNESCO nomination file describes lavash-making as work that holds a household together. Women do the baking, and girls learn by helping. Men build the ovens and make the cushions the dough is stretched on, and they pass those skills on too. Baking days have to be a team effort: once the tonir is lit, the work is fast, hot and nonstop.
The bread also has meanings that have nothing to do with eating. The best known is a wedding custom described in the same file: lavash is laid on the newlyweds' shoulders as a wish for prosperity and children. The Smithsonian Folklife Festival's 2018 Armenia programme called the tonir itself one of the most sacred places in a traditional house. It is a sunken hearth at the centre of the home, and in some villages it can stand in for a church when a marriage is blessed.
In the diaspora, where few homes have a tonir, people buy lavash instead of baking it, and the rituals have survived better than the baking skills. Several dishes in this section show the same pattern: the customs travel more easily than the know-how.
History: what the sources say
The tonir is the oldest part of the story that can be checked. Sunken clay ovens like it have long been a feature of houses across the Armenian highland and the wider region. The bread and the oven go together: a flat sheet slapped onto a hot vertical wall is exactly what a tonir can bake.
Written accounts of lavash as a named tradition are recent, not ancient, and they come from official bodies. In 2014, on Armenia's nomination, UNESCO added "Lavash, the preparation, meaning and appearance of traditional bread as an expression of culture in Armenia" to the Representative List. In 2016 UNESCO added "Flatbread making and sharing culture: Lavash, Katyrma, Jupka, Yufka", a joint nomination from Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.
The two listings are best read together, because people often quote one or the other to prove opposite things. Neither makes anyone the owner of a bread. Each records a living practice in particular communities. The name appears twice because the bread is made so widely, and that is no contradiction.
Ingredients and preparation
The dough is flour, water and salt, worked until smooth and then left to rest. Bakers roll out each piece, then stretch it over the backs of their hands or on a board. The sheet ends up very thin and much wider than it was after rolling. The baker lays it on an oval cushion and uses the cushion to press it firmly against the tonir wall.
The oven does the rest. A tonir holds a strong, dry heat, and the bread blisters and sets in seconds. The baker judges it by eye and lifts it off with a hooked tool. Sheets meant for later are stacked and dried, then softened with water when needed.
A common Armenian version uses no yeast at all, and many bakers add nothing beyond the three ingredients. Richer and yeasted versions exist, and gas-fired and metal ovens are now common. The bread they make is still clearly lavash, and nobody treats it as second-rate.
Occasions and traditions
Lavash is not a festival bread. It belongs to ordinary days, and that is exactly where its status comes from: it is always on the table, and it is the first thing a guest is offered. The closest it has to an event of its own is autumn baking, when families make large batches and dry them for the winter.
Its role in ceremonies grows out of that everyday presence. At a wedding it stands for the household the couple are joining. At the table it stands for hospitality. Many families make a point of never putting bread down carelessly or throwing it away, and they show lavash the same respect.
Regional variations
Within Armenia the differences are mostly in size and handling. Some villages make sheets a metre long, others shorter and thicker ones. The dough may be a little softer or firmer, depending on the local flour.
Across the wider region, breads called lavash range from the very thin Armenian sheet to thicker, chewier breads that are folded instead of rolled. In Armenian communities of the Middle East, commercial bakeries have made the bread much more uniform.
In some regions bakers use the same tonir for other breads on the same day. Lavash goes in first, because it needs the fiercest heat.
Important dates
2014
UNESCO adds Armenia's lavash tradition to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, no. 00985.
2016
UNESCO lists a separate flatbread tradition under the same name, nominated by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey.
2018
Bakers demonstrate lavash in Washington at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival's Armenia programme.
Why lavash matters
More than any other dish on this site, lavash shows how a food can also be a technology and a way of organising a household. The bread depends on the tonir, and the tonir depends on the family that builds it, heats it and works around it. That is why the heritage listing describes a practice, not a product.
Lavash is also a useful reminder that a dish need not belong to one people. The same organisation has listed the same bread name twice, for communities in six countries. That takes nothing away from the Armenian tradition. It puts it in its proper place: one well-documented practice within a food culture the whole region shares.
Interesting facts
- 01Bakers stretch the dough over an oval cushion and slap it onto the oven wall, where it bakes in less than a minute.
- 02Dried lavash keeps for up to six months and turns soft again with a sprinkle of water.
- 03The UNESCO file describes the wedding custom of laying lavash on the shoulders of the bride and groom as a wish for prosperity.
- 04The same bread name has two separate UNESCO listings: Armenia's in 2014 and a five-country one in 2016.
- 05The nomination file describes the baking as women's work, while men build the ovens and make the cushions. Both pass their skills on to apprentices.
Sources
- Lavash, the preparation, meaning and appearance of traditional bread as an expression of culture in Armenia — UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, no. 00985, inscribed 2014 Visit sourceSubmitted by Armenia. The nomination file is the source for the tonir method, the six-month keeping and the wedding practice.
- Flatbread making and sharing culture: Lavash, Katyrma, Jupka, Yufka — UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, no. 01181, inscribed 2016 Visit sourceA separate, multinational inscription submitted by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey — cited here because the same bread name is inscribed twice, for different communities.
- Levon Abrahamian and Nancy Sweezy (eds.). Armenian Folk Arts, Culture, and Identity — Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2001 ISBN 9780253337047Hripsime Pikichian's chapter on festival and feast is the ethnographic source used across this section.
- Armenia: Creating Home — The Hearth — Smithsonian Folklife Festival, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 2018 Visit sourceThe 2018 Festival programme's description of the tonir, its dimensions and its place in the house.
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