Hey, Dear Ghapama
It’s stuffed gourd season, and with this festive dish, ancient traditions and Armenian flavors grace holiday tables around the world.
By Ani Duzdabanyan
Photos by Joyce Lee
Prop styling by Aneta Florcyzk
Food styling by Caroline Hwang
It’s fall again, and my mother-in-law, Gohar Manoukian, is humming the folkloric song of ghapama in her kitchen while carefully making the eponymous dish by stowing a mixture of rice, dried fruit, and walnuts inside an autumn-gold pumpkin she got at the farmers market.
“Hey, dear ghapama,
Delicious, sweet ghapama…”
The song tells the story of the making of this ancient Armenian dish by playfully describing how many guests are arriving to the party to taste ghapama, which became a staple of the diasporan holiday table. Far away from home, the aromas and flavors of a simple food become more significant, as if trying to prove the community’s identity. Ghapama traces back to the pre-Christian era when Armenians worshipped pagan gods and sacrificed the first yield of harvest to them. After the ceremony, farmers would gather and celebrate the occasion with a feast of many delicious dishes, including ghapama, which means “cooked in a closed container.”
Gohar used to sing the song of ghapama when my son was a baby, and he happily jumped on Grandma’s lap to the joyful melody. Now he joins the singing, while watching her carefully place cubes of butter inside the steaming cloud of rice, drizzle it with honey, close the pumpkin with the previously cut lid, and put it into the oven with a little prayer on her lips.
Gohar inherited her culinary skills from her maternal grandmother, Ashkhen, a survivor of the Armenian genocide who fled the Western Armenian village Nor Mets Gyux (New Grand Village) in 1915, finding refuge in France. When the Great Repatriation started in 1936, Ashkhen moved back to Armenia with her two daughters to fulfill a promise she’d made to her dying husband. After encountering hardship in the postwar Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, as many fellow repatriates did at the time, Ashken found solace in preserving traditional ways of cooking and passing the recipes on to her granddaughters. Gohar followed her lead as a little girl, refining her skills many years later when immigrating to the United States with her own family.
Though Gohar enriched her home menu with diverse culinary experiments by following the recipes of famous Food Network chefs, she dreamt of opening her own restaurant, where she could offer traditional Armenian dishes, inspiring people from all around the world to share her passion. Such a public-facing space has yet to materialize, but she was able to found a small home-based food business, fulfilling a variation of her vision. And ghapama, festively decorated with scarlet firethorn branches from her garden, became one of the most in-demand items during the holidays. For seven decades now, Gohar’s grandmother’s prayer has continued to quietly vibrate in the air: “O, dear God, Saint Garabet!” The hope for a perfectly cooked dish with every opening of the oven.
Serves 8-10
Gohar Manoukian’s Ghapama
Ingredients
1 medium-size pumpkin (about 4-5 lb. / 1.75-2.5 kg)
½ cup / 118 ml + 2 Tbsp. honey
Vegetable oil, for brushing pumpkin’s exterior
2 cups / 390 g short-grain white rice
Salt to taste
8 Tbsp. butter cut into cubes, divided
2 cups / 150 g dried fruit (raisin, apricots, prunes), cut into small cubes
½ cup / 110 g grated carrots
1 cup / 100 g coarsely chopped walnuts
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 350° F / 177 C° and arrange the middle rack low enough to fit your whole pumpkin inside.
Carve the pumpkin around the stem to create a removable lid, like a jack-o’-lantern; set the lid aside. Remove the pumpkin’s insides without damaging the walls.
Spread 2 tablespoons of honey over the interior pumpkin walls, put the lid on, and brush the outside of the pumpkin with vegetable oil. Bake for 30 minutes or until slightly softened.
Meanwhile, bring a pot with 3½ cups / 828 ml of water, salted to taste, to a boil. Add the rice and boil until it’s half cooked (al dente), about 10-12 minutes.
Strain the rice and transfer it to a large bowl. Mix it with 2 tablespoons of butter, the dried fruit, carrots, and walnuts.
Stuff the pumpkin with the rice mixture, evenly distributing the remaining cubes of butter throughout it. Drizzle the top with the remaining ½ cup of honey, and cover with the lid. Bake for 1 hour or until the rice is fully cooked.
To serve, transfer ghapama to a big plate. Remove the lid and cut the pumpkin into wedges so that it opens up like a flower. Plate each wedge along with the rice filling.
