Alani

Alani (Armenian: ալանի) is an Armenian sweet made by stuffing pitted dried peaches with crushed walnuts, sugar and spices. The outside keeps the tartness and chewiness of the fruit flesh, while the inside is packed with small pieces of walnut. Instead of a wheat-flour casing, the fruit itself encloses the filling. A distinctive feature is that a peach that has shriveled during drying is filled and shaped so that it becomes plump once again.

Filling the peaches partway through drying

In one method of making alani, the peaches are filled partway through drying. In the method handed down in Gegharkunik Province in eastern Armenia, which surrounds Lake Sevan, the peaches are pitted by hand, threaded on string, hung up and dried in the sun. After several days, they are filled with a mixture of walnuts, sugar, cinnamon and cardamom, then hung up again to continue drying. Drying and shaping are divided into two stages, and even after filling, the fruit flesh and filling are given time to settle.

Each peach differs in size and ripeness. To fill the space where the pit was without tearing the flesh, the maker must adjust the pressure to suit each peach. This handwork, which leaves the flesh like a pouch and fills it, preserves the round shape. The way the filling is enclosed differs from simply putting together halves of dried fruit.

Adding walnuts brings fat and a granular texture that the fruit flesh alone cannot provide. Because the spices are mixed into the filling, one first bites into the fruit flesh, and the aroma spreads as the walnuts break apart. Methods using cinnamon and cardamom are known. Makers differ in how they balance the sweetness of the fruit, the sugar in the filling and the strength of the spices.

A sulfur-fumigation method recorded in a 1960 cookbook

The 1960 book “Armenian Cuisine” describes a method in which the peaches are peeled, fumigated with sulfur and then dried in the sun. The walnuts are pounded in a mortar and mixed with sugar, cinnamon and cardamom. The peaches are partially dried before the pits are removed; the filling is then placed in the cavity, the fruit is pressed lightly to shape it, and it is threaded on string for the final drying. The point at which the pit is removed differs from the method recorded in Gegharkunik, in which the pit is removed first.

In the method preserved in this cookbook, fumigation is part of the process of making the dried peaches. This preparation of the fruit is not apparent from brief descriptions that simply say the peaches are dried and then filled. This method has not necessarily continued in every current product; alani has been handed down through methods that differ in how the fruit is treated before drying and in when the pit is removed.

Fruit-growing regions and preservation techniques

Alani from Gegharkunik is part of a food culture in which harvested fruit is dried to preserve it. Dried fruit is a preserved food that can be eaten even in seasons when it is difficult to keep fresh fruit for long periods, and alani is a sweet that adds walnuts and sweetening to it. Unlike fruit cooked down into a single mass, it is a preserved sweet that retains the shape of a whole peach.

The name alani, however, is not limited to sweets made with peaches. Some producers in Armenia today stuff figs, persimmons, cherries and other fruit with walnuts and treat them as alani. Today the name is used not only for peach versions but also for a group of sweets made with other fruit.

A report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe examining Armenia’s trade challenges cites alani as an example of a product made by a women-owned business. It is recorded as pitted dried peaches stuffed with crushed walnuts and sugar. Fruit preservation techniques have become not only part of the household table but also the basis of one of the products made by businesses.

A gift in a 19th-century novel

In Khachatur Abovian’s novel “Wounds of Armenia,” there is a scene in which travelers share alani that they had been carrying inside their clothing with children. Alani is named alongside sujukh, pears, apples, oleaster berries and dried fruit, and the children are delighted by these unfamiliar gifts. A food associated with the festive season of Barekendan is depicted as something shared with others while traveling.

The novel was published in 1858. In the story, a dried-fruit sweet small enough to carry inside one’s clothing becomes a gift given to children along the way.

Alani wrapped in fruit flesh, sujukh coated in juice

In Armenia, sujukh is also made by coating walnuts threaded on string with thickened fruit juice. Like alani, it combines fruit and walnuts, but its structure is the reverse. In alani, the filling is placed in a cavity in the fruit flesh, while in sujukh, a coating of juice is built up over a row of walnuts. The fruit is used in a different place, and with alani, one bites into the peach flesh itself.

The traditional methods of making alani face challenges in being passed on as quick drying processes and refrigerated storage become more widespread. What needs to be safeguarded is not only the finished product, the dried fruit. It also includes the series of decisions about when to fill the fruit, how to keep its shape and how long to dry it. The glossy outside of the peach and the walnuts packed inside its cut surface show how fruit growing and preservation have come together in a single sweet.

Glossary