Food Entry #1: Khash

  

Khash (rhymes with posh) is more than a meal, it's a process.  You don't step out for khash.  This is a planned event, which will likely take the better part of the day.

Khash checklist:

1.    Winter - you only eat khash when it's cold, preferably with snow on the ground

2.    Friends and family around a table

3.    Heaps of garlic

4.    A bottle of vodka

5.    A post-khash nap

All of these requirements imbue khash with a special quality.  Khash is a food you do, and even if it gets the best of you, which if often does, you love every second.

Crumbling dried lavash

Khash is beef stock made from cow legs and feet.  It's served in a deep bowl with a floating section of bone.  I identified the cleavage of a hoof on my bone portion, but the hours of boiling rendered the bone into a soft white mass.  You take the bone out when you eat khash, and place it under lavash to keep it warm for gnawing on later.

To khash you add salt, fresh garlic that is soaking in more khash, and crumbled dried lavash.  I was instructed to add enough dried lavash to turn the stock to a porridge-like consistency.  And if you really want to eat it properly, you tear off a piece of lavash and use it as an oven mitt to scoop khash into your mouth. 

Every few bites eat a parsley sprig, a cheese square, or a green onion spear and join in the toast.  After cleaning your bowl, there's the warm bone mass waiting for you under the lavash!

My Armenian friends tell me that khash was once a peasant dish.  Someone else told me it's historically a wealthy person's meal, so I'm not sure whom to believe.  Suffice it to say that now, khash is a festive winter meal enjoyed all over Armenia.

Saturday morning khash bash

In the end, I really liked it.  Khash is good.  Tasty garlic beef broth, with all the fresh lavash you can eat.  What's not to love?  But the nap and de-garlicing period is crucial.  I crashed the second I got home.    

The End