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Syriac, Assyrian and Armenian Foodways in Syria

Community

⚠ THREE COMMUNITIES, NOT ONE, AND ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE AND CHURCH ARE NOT THE SAME AXIS — which the spec is explicit about. SYRIAC and ASSYRIAN Christians speak Neo-Aramaic languages — TUROYO in the Tur Abdin tradition, ASSYRIAN NEO-ARAMAIC in the Khabur villages settled by refugees from Iraq in 1933 — and belong to several distinct churches. ARMENIANS in Aleppo, Kessab and Damascus are a separate people speaking WESTERN ARMENIAN, most of whose presence in Syria dates from the 1915 genocide and the reception of survivors at Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor. The foodways: for the Aramaic-speaking communities, wheat and bulgur, KUBBA, lentil, the fasting foods of long Lenten and Advent seasons, and the feast breads; for the Armenians, an Anatolian kitchen carried whole into Aleppo — SOUJOUK and basturma, MANTI, topik, lahmajoun, cheese and sweet boregs, and a documented influence on Aleppian cooking in both directions. ⚠ FASTING SEASONS ARE RECORDED AS EXISTING AND AS VARYING BY CHURCH; no single calendar is asserted for all of them.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Syriacs community documented
  • Assyrians community documented
  • Armenians community documented

Languages: Turoyo, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, Western Armenian, Armenian, North Levantine Arabic

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

Recipes

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