TRADITIONAL ARMENIAN DELICACY | Unique food experience in Gyumri, Armenia

Welcome to Gyumri, the cultural capital of Armenia. We're here in Gyumri for a specific reason. We're trying a local delicacy that's only cooked in this particular region of Armenia. Before we get on with the cooking part and of course the eating part of this video, the owners of the restaurant here in Gyumri invited us to their farm to help us understand the entire process involved in making kala. This is a family business. They have their own farm, restaurants, butchers, as well as a picnic spot just outside the city. The owners of the Golden Cow are three brothers and they're very hands-on with every stage of their business. They have over 30 employees, majority of them are actually family. And by the way, they requested to stay off the camera. We arrived at the farm first where they told us that they only keep male cows and only to age of two. They buy them really young, look after them, feeding them with organic grains. They also have pigs and a massive garden where they're growing apples, pears and cherries. Never had a cherry from a cherry tree, like straight from the tree. And also they have their own beehives with 100% organic honey. Now we will be shown how to make a proper Armenian lavash. While the dough is resting, let's have a look around their picnic site. So we got the chance to try the freshest lavash you can ever get. It's just so beautiful. Feels really warm. Tastes delicious. You can really see and understand why they do it the way they do it, with the wood and the cow stuff. It's just amazing. They were just asking lots of questions and basically they told us that they make the dough the night before and they leave it overnight to prove and grow. And then the next day, they start their day at six in the morning and they prepare everything. So divide the dough, weigh it, shape it and then leave it to prove for another 15 minutes because it's a flatbread, it doesn't need much. And then they make the lavash, like roll it out and you see the whole process. And they finish their day about midday. And it is definitely hard work because you see this oven, so they use the wood and the dried cow's poop for the best flavor of the lavash and everything is organic. They use the poop from the cows, their own cows that they know that they feed with organic food. And you can, I don't know, you can really taste it, that it's natural, that it's fresh, that it's just made right there. And it gets incredibly hot, like you see in this oven. So they put all the wood in there and the cow's poop and they wait for the flame to go down and then they start baking the lavash because it only needs literally like a minute, if so, to cook through because it's so thin. And yeah, they just, they told us that they basically, they make the lavash for their restaurants, for their chain, but they're planning to like grow and get bigger and start selling it. And for me, it may sound cringy, but like, I know the video, like the main video is not about that, but to me, I don't know, to me this is magic that people share these things with you. One of the ladies told us that she's been making lavash for 30 years all over Armenia. She's been working in Russia and she still loves it. I don't know, I find it hard to put it into words, but I just find it, find it really, really special and really grateful that they shared such experience with us and that we're able to share such experience with you as well. So Ashot's just grabbing some bread and then we're heading back to Gyumri. We actually arrived in Gyumri last night because we were invited to see the whole cooking process. To be honest, ever since the day we filmed, we've been stressing over how much footage to include. Of the whole cooking process and made a decision to keep the more graphic details out. Look, for some, of course, the thought of eating a cow's head may sound shocking, but as meat eaters, which many of us are, it is almost more respectable to use the entire animal as opposed to just a select few parts. Back in the day, cow was actually a poor man's dish. Rich people would have the best part of the meat and the head with the bones would be left to the poor people. And eventually they found a way to make it delicious to such an extent that nowadays the tables have turned and not everyone can afford to have cow. After removing the skin, they wash the head really thoroughly for around 10 minutes. Apparently, there are over seven different flavors in cow. The guys were joking that every person prefers the part that they themselves like. For example, if you're not very chatty, you'll prefer the flavor of the tongue. Some people, however, would prefer the brain. I don't need to tell you why. You can't cook cow in any old oven. As you might imagine, you might struggle to fit it in your home oven. By the way, the wood inside adds to the smoky flavor of the meat, which is essential to the cooking process. So once they've washed the cow's head, then they just cover it in salt and then about one and a half liters of water and that's literally all it cooks in. Like a bain-marie. Yeah, exactly. After all that, cow is left to cook in the oven overnight. All right, we're in the restaurant waiting for them to bring out the color. We're all getting very hungry. And we definitely need our appetite for that because it's gonna be huge. So the chef started chopping the meat up. He's just chopped the tongue up for us and the cheek. And we're gonna get some of the tongue cooked in a sauce, which is separate. But we've got a little bit here to try separately on its own, as well as a bit of the cheek. So let's dig in. Cuts really easily. Is it your first tongue? I mean, I suppose second, because I've got one in my mouth, but I've bitten that a few times. It's really nice. It's not dry at all. It falls apart in your mouth. It's like almost a texture of liver, you know. It's like a really really soft texture. Such a meaty taste. That is so nice. The lady that's working here, she's so sweet and kind. She basically took the head and she's going to cook all the separate parts to how they should be served. She's going to bring everything back. But we're just trying the meat on itself to get the flavor of it. I'll try the tongue. I'm going to go ahead for the cheek and pretend like I didn't just try it. It's so delicious. It just falls apart. The flavor of it is really meaty. You wouldn't really know what part of meat it is. It's just very meaty. It doesn't have any weird or peculiar flavor to it. It's just beautiful, really well-cooked, delicious piece of meat. We're just waiting for them to do the omelette with the brain and the tomato sauce with the tongue and we've just been tucking into the meat. It is just so good. The best thing for me is the crackling. It looks delicious and it smells even better. So let's try it. That is incredible. The sauce itself is so fragrant and so fresh. It's got tomatoes in there and it's just so wonderfully spiced. You can taste all the fresh herbs as well. That is one of the tastiest dishes I've ever tasted. It's really nice. So the texture of the brain isn't much different to the eggs of the omelette. So it's the same sort of texture. It falls apart but you can just get a slight meaty hit, like meaty taste along with the eggs. Is it going to be fat? I don't know to be honest. You can't really taste like fat as in like you would on a meat. It's very similar to the eggs. That's actually really nice, really nice. I'm going to eat all of it. I'm not even just saying that for the camera. I'm going to try them too. It's good. It's just the idea of what I'm eating. We were talking about it earlier that it's a bit annoying that we're not sort of used to eating the whole part of the animal, because I eat meat anyway. But why is it not normal to eat the brain, you know? Anyway, I'm just prolonging it. It's very unusual. The flavor of it is incredibly unusual and I do believe that it's all mind over matter. The texture of it is not as, you know, chewy sort of as meat is. It's not a muscle as we just said. It's quite creamy and there's meat that is similar to egg in some way but the flavor of it, the flavor I can't compare to anything. You can get this sort of meaty hit, can't you? Yes, you know that it's kind of, it's a meat but it doesn't taste similar to any other fish. It's definitely, it's very rich and incredibly unusual. I'm just trying to, trying to think what I can compare it to. It's certainly interesting to try. I don't think I would have it on a regular basis but as I said, probably because we're not used to it but it's certainly very interesting. We are finished and the waitress has packed us up. A load to take home with us. I think we're going to have enough for about three more days, for the three of us. So yeah, we're going to make going to finish the video last night but we ended up getting back to Yerevan a bit too late. So we're doing it this morning. Hopefully you found this video interesting. It certainly was for us and it was very, I don't know, special to see all different traditions within Armenia. There are so many, Armenia is such a small country and there are so many different traditions and customs. It seems like in every single region so that was definitely unique and special. Thanks for watching this video. Stick around for more videos coming from Armenia and beyond and see you in the next one. Hey, brick shitter. Yeah, well called.