If you're ever in Takoma Park, Maryland, don't bother going to the Middle Eastern restaurant there; don't go, that is, if you love madzoon! (Yogurt, for those of you who aren't Armenian!) Recently, having ordered "Kufte" with a side of yogurt, Marash GIrl was dismayed to find that the side of yogurt served her was mixed with hamburger relish! Yikes. Overlooking this faux-pas, Marash Girl realized that the kitchen must have real yogurt, and thus, to avert her disappointment, she decided to order a glass of Tahn (Irahn). (For directions on how to make tahn at home, go to http://marashgirl.blogspot.com/2012/02/tahn-marash-girls-favorite-drink.html.) The waitress brought her a bottle of "Yogurt Drink". Oh. With preservative? No. Thinking she was being helpful (both to herself and to the kitchen), and really longing for a good, old-fashioned glass of freshly made, ice, cold tahn, AND having confused the young waitress completely, Marash Girl decided to walk to the back of the restaurant and talk to the owner/cook/chef/whoever she could scare up, which turned out to be the owner and the cook. Explaining her desperate need for a glass of ice, cold tahn, AND explaining how simple it was to put together, they replied, "We don't have any!" "But how is that possible?" Marash Girl queried. "You have yogurt for the side that goes with the Kufte!" "Oh, that," they replied. "We've already mixed all of our yogurt with hamburger relish!"
Your writing about Armenian food takes me back 45 or 50 years - after graduation and before I left Boston. I ate in many Armenian and Middle Eastern restaurants, and missed them when I moved west. But I never did come across yogurt with hamburger relish!
ReplyDeleteThis is hysterical!! Which country was all this supposed to be from?
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