On Eating

I’ve started recording the phrases I use most often in Hayastan and they are as follows:

“No, thank you, I’m not hungry.”

“No, I already ate.”

“Ok, just fruit then.”

“No, no meat please.”

“The meat was very tasty, thank you.”

I usually have this conversation at least two times a day.

Feeding people is how old Armenian women show love. It’s how lots of people show love, but old Armenian women are especially good at it. And by good I mean aggressive.

From the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep, my host grandmother, is asking me if I’m hungry and, regardless of my answer, is feeding me. She becomes genuinely displeased if I refuse food and makes a point of telling me that it hurts her when I don’t eat.

Remember that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Tula tells her aunt that her fiancé doesn’t eat meat? And her aunt makes a scene and then says “That’s okay, that’s okay… I make lamb.”? It’s like that. It does not matter what excuse or explanation you give an Armenian woman, she will find a way to feed you, even if it’s completely disagreeable to you. And that’s love. Forcing a vegetarian to choke down lamb kebab is love.

I had a nasty stomach bug recently and had no desire whatsoever to ingest anything, but had to eat to avoid passing out. I tried to explain this to my host medzmama.

“Please,” I begged her, “just some bread and water, really, no really, just bread and water, that’s it.”

“No meat?”

“No, thank you.” 

I’m sitting at the kitchen table clutching my stomach.

“No cheese?”

“No, thank you.” 

I can barely keep from crying.

“No fruit? You must eat fruit, you like fruit.” 

Her voice raises an octave every time she suggests something and with each octave her eyebrows inch closer to her hair line until they practically disappear. She looks like she wants to cry. She gives me a heaping plate of lavash, thin, flaky bread that comes in yards folded upon itself, and a cup of water.

“Ger.” She says listlessly. Eat.

I mumble my thanks and force lavash into my mouth. Before I can finish one sheet, she slides a plate of grapes and apple slices in front of me. She does it with a swiftness that suggests she thinks that if she does it fast enough, maybe I won’t notice and will somehow be fooled into eating the fruit.

Perhaps she is banking on the fact that, in order not to be disrespectful, I will not leave food on her table. Or perhaps she has figured out that I will be wracked with guilt if refuse her generosity. Whatever the reason, she is more than willing to manipulate me into eating.

She really loves me.