Anoush Abour

Anoush abour (Anoush Abour, Anushabur, անուշապուր) is an Armenian sweet dish of wheat simmered slowly in water and finished with dried fruit and nuts. Anush means “sweet,” and apur means “soup.” When you dip in a spoon, you find a thickened cooking liquid filling the spaces between the soft, swollen grains. In English it is also called Christmas pudding, but in form it is closer to a sweet porridge spooned from the bowl.

The flavor of the wheat is layered with the sweetness of dried apricots and raisins, the crunch of nuts and the tartness of pomegranate. Made from the New Year through Christmas and shared with family and friends, this dish carries both the wish to welcome a bountiful year and the memories of home held by people living far away.

Drawing Out Thickness While Keeping the Grains Whole

In a recipe (ingredient proportions and method) handed down in an Armenian church in the United States, gorgod, the ingredient used, refers to wheat grains with the outer husk removed. Unlike wheat flour, which mixes with water all at once, the grains are given time to absorb water right to their core.

In the method included in the cookbook of St. John Armenian Church in Michigan, the wheat is boiled briefly and left overnight. The next day it is simmered over low heat for about an hour and a half to two hours, by which time the grains have softened and the cooking liquid has thickened. Sugar is added only after that. Dried fruit and nuts are then added to this porridge-like base, in which the white grains remain, to finish the dish.

Some New Year methods for anoush abour wrap the pot of cooked wheat in a blanket and leave it overnight so that the grains swell considerably. The next day, a small amount of wheat flour, sugar, raisins, nuts, rose water and other ingredients are added, and it is cooked again. This method, in which the dish is transferred to bowls and sprinkled with cinnamon, is also recorded in Armenian dialect research that touches on the festive foods of Istanbul and Gyumri.

The combination of simmering and resting times differs from household to household. In the method that Armenian American Katherine Gagliano inherited from her grandmother, the wheat is first simmered for an hour and then rested for five or six hours, or overnight. The next morning, the dried fruit and sugar are added together and the mixture is cooked down, and finally rose water is stirred in. Crushed walnuts and cinnamon are sprinkled on to finish, adding fragrance to the pale porridge.

Households That Keep It White, Places That Sweeten It with Honey

When the fruit is added also affects how the dish looks. In the method from the church cookbook mentioned above, the dried fruit, pistachios and pine nuts are simmered in a separate pot, drained and cooled before being mixed into the wheat. This technique keeps the color of the fruit from transferring to the wheat and preserves a pearly whiteness. Because the dish thickens as it cools, it is thinned with syrup as needed.

The anoush abour handed down in the Palu region uses a different sweetener. According to a food culture record based on a 1932 account of life in the region, hulled wheat was combined with walnuts, almonds and raisins and sweetened with honey. In place of honey, concentrated grape juice or manna, a sweet substance collected from tree leaves, was sometimes used. Wheat has been paired not only with the combination of sugar and dried apricots commonly seen today, but also with sweeteners available locally.

The method by Silva Keonjian, published by an Armenian cultural organization in London for its 2020 New Year cooking event, includes, in addition to wheat grains, the option of using polished barley (pearl barley). The kinds of dried fruit and nuts and the level of sweetness are also left to the cook. Here too, the grains are cooked the day before and left to rest, and the fruit is combined with them the next day.

Whether the nuts are simmered in or scattered on top also changes the impression of each mouthful. Nuts that have mingled with the cooking liquid are soft, while those added just before eating keep their crunch. Garnishing with fresh pomegranate sets the red seeds off against the pale wheat and adds a juiciness different from that of dried fruit.

A Table That Runs from New Year’s Day to Christmas

The season for anoush abour spans the New Year and Armenian Christmas. The Gagliano family celebrates Armenian Christmas on January 6, separately from a family gathering on December 24. They reportedly make anoush abour during that one week starting on New Year’s Eve and eat it for breakfast as well. The sweet of the special day carries over to the next morning’s table.

January 6 is a feast day of the Armenian Apostolic Church that celebrates the birth and baptism of Christ together. The Armenian communities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, on the other hand, follow the old calendar, and in today’s common calendar they keep Christmas from an eve on January 18 into January 19. The City of Bethlehem’s Christmas booklet also introduces this wheat sweet as a dish through which the Armenian community recalls the festivals of its homeland. The wheat expresses a wish for prosperity, and its sweet, fragrant flavor a wish for happiness throughout the year, and it is shared with loved ones.

For Armenians from Istanbul, it is also a sweet set out after the meal on New Year’s Eve. In a story handed down in the Kunadjian family of Chicago, Noah’s party, having survived the flood, pooled their remaining grains, dried fruit and nuts into a single pot. The colors of pomegranate, apricots and almonds are likened to the rainbow after the flood. This family puts its gratitude for survival into the dish it makes on New Year’s Eve.

The diaspora practice of making homeland dishes in the places where people have settled is not limited to the year-end and New Year season. Holy Trinity Armenian Church in Pennsylvania called for anoush abour to be prepared for a June 2019 gathering titled “Remembering the Armenian Foods of Our Childhood.” It was an event held after the Sunday liturgy to enjoy the dishes of earlier generations together with the younger generation. A dish that marks the turning of the year also becomes a shared taste connecting generations.

Neighboring Grain Sweets

Turkey’s aşure is also a sweet that combines wheat, dried fruit and nuts in a single pot and is linked to the story of Noah. While aşure is closely tied to observances in Muharram, a month of the Islamic calendar, the New Year and Christmas table holds a major place for anoush abour. Sweets made with similar ingredients are prepared and shared according to the calendar of each community.

Glossary