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W
hen I hear the words lavash – yukha, I am imme-
diately overwhelmed by childhood memories.
I remember women living next door kneading
dough together with my mother, aunt and grandmother.
They put the dough to mature, and then divided it into
round pieces “kunda”. One or two of the women prepared
the tandir or saj (concave circular iron plate). The saj was
plastered with shira (a mixture of ash, clay and manure)
on the underside. While the women were engaged in all
this, we, the kids, prepared firewood in order to heat the
tandir or light the fire under the saj.
And here begins the solemn performance: Women
rolled paper-thin lavash with the “okhlov”, a thin and
pointed rolling pin, on a round wooden yayga. The
okhlov also helped to turn the lavash on the saj and make
holes in the bubbles. If it was prepared on the saj - it was
called “lavash”, “yukha salmag” – to spread the yukha and
lavash on the saj, and if it was prepared in the tandir -
“yavash yapmag” – to attach the lavash. The thing is that
the lavash had to be attached to the hot inner walls of
the tandir. To do this, it was first rolled out on a special
tool called rafata (rяfяtя). The rяfяtя is elongated and re-
sembles the raf (rяf) – a shelf on which something is put,
and the word ata means throwing (at - throw). After that,
the lavash was wetted with water from above, otherwise,
it would not stick to the hot wall of the tandir. Interest-
ingly, the first lavash often fell on the ashes. This formed
a folk idiom. Ilk lavash kut geler (İlk lavaş küt gяlяr) - “the
first lavash is always a blob”. Interestingly, a similar event
and culinary thinking exists in Russian cuisine “The first
pancake is always a blob”, which once again proves the
psychological closeness of our peoples.
And now the first hot lavash is ready. As long as it is
hot, kids crumbled it into the flour with butter – they
prepared “doymaj” (döymяc); This simple dish was so tasty
that it is difficult to describe it. Some gourmets crumbled
(motal) cheese or cottage cheese into the doymaj.
Here kids did their best to help and behaved politely.
Everyone knew a story about how “The moon was a small
child. When his mom was preparing a lavash, he merci-
lessly fooled around. Mom could not stand it, slapped
the moon across the face and said: “Get out of my sight.”
And God heard the words of his mother and raised the
moon to the sky. But traces of the slap still remain on
the face of the moon. So he secretly glances longingly
at his mother at night. He may ask her to caress him.” You
cannot misbehave when lavash is being prepared. Nor
is it impossible to fight in the presence of lavash as the
popular proverb says “Galdi lavash - bitdi savash” (“When
Following tradition
About lavash
Tahir AMIRASLANOV,
Professor
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35
lavash comes, fighting ends”). There are a lot of people’s
ideological statements about lavash “Yavash-yavash-
pendir-yavash” (“Quietly (slowly) - cheese and lavash”) or
“Khamrali hash - bagrina bas” (“Khamrali (kind of bread)
is clean – stick it to your breast i.e. lavash - eat slowly”).
Lavash is used to make popular sandwiches in the form
of a roll - durmek. In villages, children were supplied with
such sandwiches when they ran out to play or went to
school. Inside durmeks – rolls, they put butter and jam,
cheese, cottage cheese and butter, cheese with herbs,
potatoes, boiled eggs, etc.
And at funerals, they always serve flour halva wrapped
in lavash. And no wedding is complete without lavash.
Lavash has formed the habit of eating with hands.
We break the lavash with clean hands, put it on a piece
of meat and then place it in our mouth. Or we keep the
meat by the bones and then eat it, and in the end, we
send it into our mouth. To eat soups, we wrap pieces of
lavash as a spoon, scoop the soup and instead of the
spoon, we place this spoon in the mouth. For centuries
people have crumbled lavash in liquid dishes, milled dry
lavash into flour and taken it for a long journey. And in the
journey, putting it in milk, diluted gatig (sour milk) and
something else, they quickly prepared tura. Such flour
is used in Gabala to prepare stuffing for Gabala baklava.
The basic book “Armenian cuisine”, published in 1960,
on which several dozen doctors, academics (historians,
biologists, engineers, etc.) of Armenian origin worked,
which was approved by the board of the Academy of
Sciences of the Armenian SSR and the Culinary Council
of the Ministry of Trade of the Armenian SSR and which
is still copied by all Armenian authors, mentions the “Ar-
menian” lavash and matnakash for the first time. (1)
Let’s look at historical sources. Adam Oleary (17th
century) wrote about Azerbaijani bread: “There are dif-
ferent kinds of bread made of wheat such as komach
(komatsch) - biscuits as thick as three fingers and as
long as half an elbow; lavash (lawasch) – round bread
half an inch in thickness; peasekeshe (peasekesche) – as
long as the elbow, they attach it to the house furnace
or tenur and make furrows of five fingers on it; sengek
(sengek) – whisked on round cobbles that are used to
4(23), WINTER 2015
36
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make furnaces, which is why this bread is humpy; yukha
(jucha) - thin biscuits, almost like paper, with a length of
the elbow and almost with the same width.” (2)
“The Tartars also prepare lavash (lyavyash) and bak
lavash.” (3)
N. A Kislyakova and A. I. Pershitsa note that in Turkey
“they also bake flat cake lavashes in the villages.” (4) I. A.
Agranovich said in 1876: “In Azerbaijan in Lankaran dis-
trict, they bake lavashes from it” (5). Fine dried fruit marsh-
mallow sticks are called “lavashana” in Azerbaijani, which
entered old Slavonic cuisine. Domostroi (14th century)
calls it “Levashniki” and gives a precise technology of its
preparation, which is no different from the present one. (6)
The cooking of different thinly rolled breads that have
no great thickness is characteristic of Azerbaijani cuisine.
For example, yukha (in Turkish - yufka), lavash, sangak (or
shatir), takhtag and others. Different travelers who visited
Azerbaijan write about these thin breads. For example,
Baron Fyodor Korf: “Servants came in, carrying a plu-
rality of bread-like pancakes on their shoulders and giving
a portion to each person.” (7);
L. F. Bogdanov: “A slice of very thin white bread is a
little thicker than our pancakes and is called stone bread
because it is baked on small hot stones. The bread also
serves as a tissue substituting a soup spoon to a certain
extent.” (8);
Gaspard Drouville: “The servants first bring bread con-
sisting of large foot-wide cakes as long as two or as thick
as three lines called tegeyrag.” (9);
Tkeshelov: “He gets a bite of bread (chorak) ... bread
called yukhla, thin tissue-shaped bread” (10);
Muscovite Kavkaz: “Kebab… wrapping it in pieces of
thin lavash pancakes ... they prepare every minute fresh la-
vashes exterminated by the crowd in large amounts” (11);
Adam Oleary: “In Shamakhi at the khan’s place, the
stolnik was followed by a royal carver with a wooden
dish full of cakes or pancakes, which were the size of half
a cubit and as thin as parchment. These cakes are called
yukha (Juche)” (2);
Tekodander (1602): “(In Lankaran) ... and then they put
Following tradition
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37
a big, round thin cake made of rice, replacing bread, and
a plate in front of each of us.” (12);
G. N. Kozbek says in the book “Three months in Turkish
Georgia” (1876): “In Ardebil there are 12 bakeries ... In the
villages, people eat bread (lavash and churek made from
wheat flour mixed with barley)” (13).
The fact that thin breads were invented by Turks is
proven by the American explorer Charles Perru. (14)
Some Azerbaijani dishes, especially national sand-
wiches “durmek”, are prepared only with this kind of
bread. Azerbaijanis remove kebab from the rod (ram-
rod), and again with the help of these breads, as if wrap-
ping the “kebab” in the meat, and they serve “lula-kebab”
mostly in the form of “durmeks”.
The word “durmek” retains the form of “durma” in the
Lak language as one of the names for dolma in leaves
and is explained as a Turkism, which means “wrapping”.
Vladimir Dal also gives the words “dulma” and “durma”
together in one context. In Azerbaijan and Turkey, the
famous “shah pilaf” and “parda pilaf “, etc. are made in la-
vash. (15)
Thus, the people who created this bread also created
appropriate products and methods of using these breads
in their cuisine.
Thin sheet bread was mentioned in the 11
th
century
by Mahmud Qashgari in his “Dictionary of the Turks”
(“Lugat-it Turk”), calling it “kevrяk” (16); as a synonym of
the word meaning gentle, fragile, Turkic peoples use the
words “yukha”, “yufka” and “lavash”.
At the same time, in the 11
th
century, Yusif of Balasa-
gun mentions lavash in the book “Gutadgu Bilik” (Fertile
Knowledge). (17)
In the 12
th
century, the great Azerbaijani poet Nizami
Ganjavi wrote the following lines in the poem “Seven
Beauties”:
“He set a good table when he was hungry.
He ate white lavash and yellow gogal” (word-for-word
translation T. A.) (18)
In the 15
th
century Iranian poet Bushagi Etim writes
about lavash in the cookbook “Kenzul Ishtiha”, (19), which
is indicated by the translator of “Kenzul Ishtiha” (from Per-
sian into Turkish), Ahmad Javad, in the 18
th
century. (23)
G. A. Dubovis, who was in love with Armenia, writes
in the dictionary “Armenian Cuisine”: “White lavash is flat
bread made from unleavened dough (Turkish flat bread
lavash)” (20).
Renowned Armenian scientist Sevan Nishanyan
writes in his Etymological Dictionary of Turkish (Türkcя
Etimolojı sözlük): “Lavaş - fars. Lavaş, yassı яkmяk, yufka.”
(Lavash - Pers. Lavash is flat bread, yufka). (21) That’s to
say he attributes the word “lavash” to Persian, identifying
lavash breads with Turkish yufka bread (“yukha” in Azeri).
And the Armenian scholar and linguist E. V. Sevartyan
write in the book published by the Russian Academy of
Sciences, “The Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Lan-
guages. Common and Inter-Turkic bases on the letters
l, m, n, n, s” (22):
“L
I. LAVASH Turk. Tur. Tur. DIAL. Ko.Yem. 310 az., Az.dial.
DSAz. 287, kim., kaz., uz. Dial. HSHL 167 RIII 741 (OSM.,
Al., Chag.), Bud. II 192 (kazan., az); lav’ash R III 741 (kazan.,
ktat.); la:vash uz.dial.ShL 95; Lяvяsh tat., P III 751 (kazan.);
II. LAVASHA az., az.dial. DSAz.287, RIII 741 (Osm.).
Only uz.dial. the long a is indicated: - in Oguz dialects
of Khorezm, the reference to length in the Turkic lan-
guage here seems wrong;
aI. 1. Lavash is bread of thin rolled dough, a kind of
cake - Turk., az., tur., tur.dial.tat., kum., kaz., uz.dial. HSHL,
SHL; Round thin bread in the form of pancakes and cakes,
also serving as a tablecloth - R III 741 (Az.), Bud.;
2. Round flat cakes with raisins, marshmallow sticks or
jam baked in oil - tat., Bud., R III 751 (kazan);
3. Puff puns- tat. Dial. (TRS 354);
4. Thin cake from wheat - R III 741 (osm., chag.); a kind
of pastry - R III741 (kazan., ktat.);
5. Jam of acidic fruits (plum, etc.), dried cakes - az.dial.
DSAz.; marshmallow sticks -az.dial.DSAz.;
II 1. Sour marshmallow sticks, dried jam of sour fruit
with thin layers - plum, dogwood and other. - az., az.dial.,
DSAz.;
2. A thin, flat piece of silver- R III 741 (Osm.).
In semantics, it is necessary to emphasize an impor-
tant component that is present in almost all usages -
that the small thickness of the product and the rounded
shape (flat cake, pancake) are mandatory. In a number
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38
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of languages, it is a sweet product or with sweet filling
belonging apparently to delicacies. In the Azerbaijani
language and its dialects, the form of the product served
as the basis for the name of dried fruit jam, if, of course,
lavasha is regarded as a variant of lavash.
The concept of thin and flat is preserved in Turkish
lavasha, compared with silver.
There is no recognized etymology here. The initial l-
gives reason to see a borrowing here, at least of the first
element of lav-ash. M. Resenen indicates that TT VII 14
mentions a pair word liv-i as-y “his (sacrificial) food”. “The
possibility of rapprochement between the pair words
liv as and lavash was first noted by R. Arat during the
publication of this text. He suggested that “liv should be
synonymous to as - ‘sacrificial food’” (See. TT VII 67). The
combination of liv as is noted in “Kutadgu bilig”: liv as tergi
– a set table; table laden with refreshments (DTS 333). The
word liv is used separately here (DTS 333- QBK 140). In
the DTS, liv is close to Armenian ‘food, pudding’, which
is possible, but not definite. J. Clawson sees a borrowing
from Chinese word li - grain
in combination with as it acts as the determinant of the
form (sacrificial) food - ‘made from cereals (rice, wheat,
etc.) (Cl.763). In principle, the origin of the word from East
Turkestan - given the first reflection of other Uighur texts
and QB – is very likely. Meanwhile, the Chinese word for
grain is unlikely to be a full definition, as liv as behaves
like a typical pair word.
As for the second element ash, one of the oldest of its
meanings is recognized as “food” (“ESTYA [1974] 210-211),
and there is also the meaning “feast”. Thus, we can assume
that the pair word or composite * liv+as, which means
originally the type of food from cereal grains (flour?),
later became the name for a round baked product. E.
V. Sevortyan interprets the form of Azerbaijani lavash as
a diminutive of lavash formed by the indicator -a (Sev.
AI 168).
The word lavash as a borrowing from Turkic, noted
by dictionaries, entered into many Caucasian languag-
es: for example, Ossetian Lawyz/lauz/lawsi - a thin flat
cake, pancake (Ab.II 15.49). About lavash in Russian, see
Ship.218, about levash and levakha ‘cake’, see Fas.II 412,
which, referring to F. Mikloshich, speaks about the Turkic
origin of the word.
As we can see, Sevortyan, referring to famous linguists
and dictionaries and the opinion of scientists at the Rus-
sian Academy of Sciences, claims that “the word lavash,
as a borrowing from Turkic, entered into many languages
of the Caucasus”.
From the work of Sevortyan it is necessary to empha-
size several points.
1. Lavash is used in many Turkic dialects. Turkish, Azeri,
Kumyk, Kazakh, Uzbek, Ottoman, Karachay, Tatar, Kazan-
Tartar, Oguz and ancient Uighur.
2. Lavash in its semantic meaning includes the idea
of a “thin sheet”.
So the author people must have several grain prod-
ucts like such a thin sheet, which is not observed in the
culinary culture of the Armenians. As we noted above,
thin bread like lavash and products made of them are
common among the Turkic peoples.
3. The word “lavash” is found in the “Kutadgu bilig” as
Liv aş tergi – a set table; table set with refreshments.
It must be noted “Kutadgu bilig” is recognized as a
historical monument of Turkic peoples and was written
in the 11
th
century by Yusif Balasagunlu. (17)
In addition, the round low table on which a thin sheet
is rolled out for lavash also served as domestic item and a
table, which can be seen from a variety of miniatures, and
is still used in many homes and ethnographic restaurants
by almost all Turkic peoples.
4. Sevortyan, citing sources, suggests that the word
lavash is formed from the Chinese word Liv - grain and
ash (food in general Turkic) and rightly believes that la-
vash is a pair word.
Indeed, the word lavash is a pair word and is derived
from a combination of the words “alov” and “ash” (“fire”
and “meal”). Both words “alov” and “ash” have common
Turkic roots. Alovash, with the further loss of the first
vowel “A”, became “lavash”. The loss of the first vowel is
typical of our language, for example, the word “Rossiya”
sounds like Rusiya or Rusiet in Azerbaijani, and before,
and even now, in many areas it is pronounced as Яrяsey,
Following tradition
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39
Urset. Also, Russians used to be called “Urus” not “Rus” as
today, or the word “stakan” sounds like “istakan” in Azer-
baijani, “Ravan” - “Iravan”, the word “Ulduz” (star) - “yulduz”,
the word “rafiqa” (girlfriend) - “irafiga” and so on.
The formation of the word “alovash - lavash” corre-
sponds to rules of forming culinary terminology in the
Azerbaijani language. For example, bread baked in burn-
ing ashes (köz - in Azeri) is called kozlamach (sh), and
bread baked in the ashes (kul) is called kullamash (ch).
That is to say the names of these breads are linked with
the name of the environment. This is what we are seeing
in Persian. Thin shatir bread baked on stones is called
“sangah” - “stone” (from Persian). Bread baked on the walls
of the tandir comes into direct contact with “alov” (fire).
Hence the name of the bread alovash, lavash.
In some Turkic dialects, for example, in Turkey, the
word “alov” sounds like “yalov” and the word “lavash”
could initially sound like “yalovash” followed by the loss
of the letter “y” and then the letter “a”. We have seen this
in the formation of the word “ulduz” (star), which earlier
sounded and still sounds like “yulduz” or “yildiz” in Turkish.
Hence, the Azerbaijani idiom “aj-yalavaj” - hungry,
without lavash. The name of the Azerbaijani villages “Ya-
lavash” is probably also connected with lavash.
To be continued
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