![]() The dish is often offered to friends and family before they travel. “Gata is baked during the wedding and later, broken over the head of the couple as a blessing of good luck.” Given gata’s sweet affiliation, it’s also used in Armenia as a symbol of good luck at weddings. ![]() From then on the bread consumed, known as gata, became associated with the sweetness of liberty and freedom.” As people started practicing Christianity more freely in Geghard, they started adding sweetness inside the bread. “Years passed and Christianity later became recognised as a state religion of Armenia. She explains that the concept of bread in Christianity is linked to the Last Supper, hence its popularity as a food by the early Christians in Geghard. The church became a secret place for the Christians to pray – from the outside, you couldn’t even tell it was a church.” “The church was carved inside the rock because, at the time, Christians were being persecuted. Iskikian, however, tells a modified version of the same story, as told to her by a school teacher in her youth. No one knows how but it soon became a tradition for vendors to sell gata outside the monastery. Gregory the Illuminator, the church was built after Christianity was first adopted as a state religion. Source: Jeanette Madden Sweet freedom, lucky breadĪs history dictates, gata’s origins are closely linked to the creation of the monastery. “These women with beautiful wrinkles sell gata with great passion,” says Iskikian, who recently visited Geghard and tasted gata made by the famed vendors.Īrpy Iskikian, a caterer and cook from Sydney’s Armenian community, poses with a woman selling Armenian delicacies near Geghard. Lining the walkway towards the rocky church in Geghard, elderly women man stalls and spruik locally made gata to visitors. According to UNESCO, the Christian church surrounded by cliffs and defensive walls was first carved into living rock around the start of the 4 th century AD. Situated in the midst of Armenia’s Upper Azat Valley, you’ll find gata being sold near a grand sculpture emitting natural beauty: the monastery of Geghard. The most famous version of gata is a round bread loaf marked with decorative motifs or the word ‘Geghard’, an edible representation of the Armenian village of the same name. Source: Jeanette Madden The sweet bread of Geghard monastery “The combination of the outside and filling together should taste a bit crumbly but moist.”Īrmenian women selling gata near the monastery of Geghard. “The filling is made of flour, clarified butter (ghee), sugar, a bit of vanilla and Armenian cognac or rum,” Iskikian tells SBS. The one consistent between the two varieties, Iskikian says, is that gata is always filled with the same style of sugary goodness. But generally, it can be made as a buttery, croissant-like pastry using baking powder and bicarbonate soda or as a more traditional loaf of bread made with a raising agent like yeast. But truth be told, there’s no one rendition of the regional dish. Depending on where you are in Armenia, gata comes in many forms. If gata were as simple as a standard serve of bread, you’d describe it as a loaf with a sweet filling. They use milk from their farms and put their own unique spirit into it.” “Although gata is made throughout Armenia, the gata that the locals in Geghard make tastes different to gata from around the country. “Gata is popular in every city in Armenia and almost every family that can still make it at home.” “If you’re someone who likes an uneven taste of sweetness in one bite, you’ll enjoy gata,” says Arpy Iskikian, a caterer and cook from Sydney’s Armenian community who learned to make the dish from extended family in Armenia five years ago. But when you learn the story about gata, an Armenian bread-like treat that’s worth hunting down even if it’s just to taste once in your lifetime, you’ll realise that culinary simplicity can be shrouded in beautifully complex roots. Bread is meant to be one of life’s most simple, edible treasures.
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