Recipes of Musa Dagh, The

Description

The Armenian villages of Musa Dagh (Moses Mountain) were among the very few that resisted the 1915 Ottoman forced marches in Turkey. They decided to defend themselves on the heights of the mountain. Victoria Magzanian was 9 years old. She climbed the mountain with her village compatriots and awaited the rest of her family. They were too late to join her, cut off by the Ottoman army. She had to be smuggled down a secret trail to rejoin her family. Then, they all marched for seven days, arriving, near starving, in Hama, Syria. Many other family soon died. These are the recipes of Victoria who ultimately survived and learned the cooking of her beloved Musa Dagh homeland when she returned there after World War I ended, the Ottomans defeated. Her daughter Anna eagerly learned her mother's cooking over the many years they lived together until Victoria's death in 1988. Anna and her two sisters have teamed up to produce this wonderful cookbook, preserving the distinct cooking of Musa Dagh, and with it, many of the stories of the village where they lived.