Aubergines and Tallow from the Rump of a Fat-Rumped Sheep (Blog 2, 10-27-10) Updated and Illustrations Added, 12-21-10.

     As the Pleistocene Epoch (the last great ice age) was drawing to a close ca 10,000 years ago, early man was depending more and more upon horticulture and agriculture for his food supplies.
     Horticulture was based  upon the domestication of plants for a stable carbohydrate supply.  However, one significant problem was developing--lack of enough fats in the diet.  This may seem curious to many of us in modern societies where "fat" has taken on an odious connotation, almost evil in our conceptualization.  We tend to forget that fat is an essential conveyor of certain vitamins and minerals as well as a reserve store of energy in times of hunger and famine.
     In hunting and gathering societies, that preceded the rise of horticulture, there was apt to be a better balance in the food intake.  What the heck, if the system supplied only 75% of the calories required for survival, the Saber Tooth was probably going to get you anyhow?
     Still enough of our ancestors survived to force the issue.  If one ate enough carbs without sufficient fat, the craving for the latter would become insatiable.  Hence a spur toward agriculture, a combination of plant and animal domestication.  In colder climates carbs often came from tubers, but one of the fat supplying animals was swine.  Unfortunately, swine sometimes carried the parasite, trichinosis.  Climate along with cultural adaptations in meat preparation allowed a symbiotic relationship between mankind, tubers and swine.
     In warmer climates, particularly those with distinct wet and dry periods, as in southwest Asia, agriculture came to depend upon seasonal small grains.  No doubt gregarious swine were experimented with, but the temptation to eat the meat without thorough cooking led to disastrous results.  Food taboos originated early on so that pigs along with dogs became "unclean."   Fortunately trichinosis was not a problem with ruminants.  So cattle, camels, goats and sheep comprised "clean" sources of animal protein and fat.
     Domestication of sheep came early on in the Near East as well as in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.  The need for fat appears to have pointed the course toward selective breeding of fat-rumped and fat-tailed varieties.  The Armenian wild sheep Ovis gmelini may have been the ancestor of the Karakul and other breeds of fat-rumped sheep found in the Transcaucasus and Central Asia.

Mount Ararat Symbol of the Armenian Homeland, Traditional

 Landing Spot for Noah's Ark

     On September 12, 1963, the American component of the Soviet-American Scientific-Technical Exchange Program spent a full day observing Soviet Armenian irrigation projects along the Sevan-Razdan Cascade.  This included some of the seventeen large sovkhozy (state farms) served by the Arak-Sevan Canal System.  Interestingly the Eghvard Sovkhoz produces rose oil, a very uncommunist like product.

Arznie-Shamiramaoskaya Canal, Mount Alagez,

Armenia's Highest Peak in Background

                                               

Lake Sevan Dominates the Shaded Topographic Map of Armenia

                            

An Autumnal Cloud Bank Above Lake Sevan

                               

     Through much of the day R. Bagramyan the Armenian Minister of Water Resources was our host and guide.  Late that afternoon, he took us to the shore line of beautiful Lake Sevan.  There among the willows next to the beach a seven-course banquet was being prepared for us.

A Seven Course Banqut on the Shore of Lake Sevan,

Minister Bagramyan in White Shirt at Left

                                
                         
     Seven courses?  To me, meat, potatoes and a dessert were just fine, but in that long ago and far away setting, was there any significance to seven courses?  The best the "www" could do was suggest that the courses represented "Seven Cardinal Virtues"--chastity, temperance, charity, diligence, patience, kindness and humility.  But in a Communist Setting?  Well forget that.
     Then from our lovely setting I look out along Lake Sevan.  There on a peninsula, that was an island before Stalin decided to lower the water level of Sevan, was Sevanavank (Monastery of Sevan) with its ancient church, Surb Arakelots (Holy Apostles) built in 874 AD.  Sevanavank was the place where wayward monks from Echmiadzin, the Vatican of the Orthodox Armenian Church, were sometimes sent for reformation.

The US Exchange Delegation Visits Echmiadzin, Center of the

Armenian Orthodox Church

                                                         

Echmiadzin Shows the Classic Armenian Church Architecture

                               

Interior of Echmiadzin, to Heighten Appreciation

for the Sacred Mystery of the Ancient Church, I

suggest Listening to Alan Hovhaness' Tone Poem,

"Echmiadzin"

                                               
     Perhaps the seven symbols were appropriate, reaching out to us from a more pastoral, pre-Bolshevik time.  I settled back to enjoy the many courses, at least until the final event.
     Instead of a sweet dish, our seventh course was a highly favored Armenian concoction, a slab of tallow from the rump of a fat-rumped sheep was placed between two slices of aubergine and broiled over a charcoal brazier.  Fortunately or unfortunately my intake of fat was adequate.  The second mouthful was all I could handle.  I could find no virtue to add the original seven which would force me into the third bite.

Aubergine (Eggplant) A Staple of Armenian Cusine

                                           

A Fat-Rumped Sheep Source of the Tallow Classic

Armenian Dish Described Above

                               
                                                             
     To end on the lighter side, I once saw an Armenian Restaurant called Noah's Kitchen.  I could only wonder how long Noah had to wait for the fat-rumped pair coming off the ark to produce enough offspring
to ensure a stable supply of tallow.
   

The Brow of Moses and the Palace of Abbas (Pictures added to orginal blog 1)

     May I introduce myself by sharing with you a visit to one of the most exotic and now lonely spots on Earth, Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha in the Sinai Massif.

      Chapter 95 of the Qur'an (Koran) begins, "By the Figtree and the Olive, Mount Sinai, and this Safe Countryside; ..."  My introduction to the "fig tree and the olive" came in 1989.  In January of that year I went to Ismailia on the Suez Canal for the first time, eager to begin field work and research in the Sinai.  In my naivete I was quite unaware that the transfer of my Senior Fulbright Research Fellowship from the University of Alexandria to Suez Canal University had been manipulated by Dr. Ahmed Ismail Khodeir, who was President of Suez Canal University and dominant member of the Fulbright Selection Committee in Egypt.  President Khodeir had viewed my training in physical geography, soils and water resources and decided to put me to work helping set up the laboratory and field research programs for the new Faculty of Environmental Agricultural Resources at the El Arish Campus of Suez Canal University.  This was a great bit of serendipity which facilitated a wide exposure to the geography and resources of Sinai.  I am indeed indebted to Dr. Khodeir for this opportunity and his personal encouragement which was offered along the way.
     So now for the first story which takes us away from dusty plains, unmapped mine fields and unexploded ordinance to a seemingly safer and culturally fulfilling experience.
     It was January and the high base of the Sinai Massif was cold, but we did not expect snow.  We met our Bedouin camel herders at Wadi Sudud some four miles northeast of Gebel Musa (Mountain of Moses), better known to we Westerners as Mount Sinai.

Bedouin Herder 

                 
     Next came the ordeal of matching beasts to barbarians and a few urban Arabs from Cairo.  I was assigned a tall dark camel with a single leather thong tied through the outside of his nostril.  Alverta was matched up with a smaller light colored beast with three leather thongs piercings.  The number of thongs was indicative of the beast's intransigence.  Now if you have ever seen an American pack saddle, you get the picture of a Bedouin's idea of comfort.  With crossed sticks in front and crossed sticks behind, apparently spaced with an American fourth grader in mind.

                                    Matching Beasts to Barbarians

                                                      Alverta and Her Camel

         

       The saddle was affixed to the single hump of the Arabian camel, like a crown on the head of a monarch.  Each step of the lumbering dromedaries was exaggerated by the high center of gravity.  The forward extension of the beast's foreleg threw the rider forward, effectively poking the front crosspiece into the gut.  The next step threw the rider back against the other cross sticks.
     The Bedouin herders had little faith in we barbarian's ability to control the camels so on the outward trip they walked and led the beasts we rode.  Nor did they trust the citified Arabs from Cairo who accompanied us.  Our caravan of some fifteen camels was gently led southward along the Qa of Sudud.  The slow progress gave us ample opportunity to view some of the most historic sites on Earth.
     The pink and red granites of Ras Sufsafa took on an ominous gray in the lowering cloud cover.  The massive bluffs of the Ras comprise the north face of Gebel Musa hence in common reference it is the "Brow of Moses."  In both Christian and Islamic tradition, this is where Moses broke the first set of laws given by God.  To some believers the second set of laws call the Law of Moses was promulgated from this cliff face to the Host of Israel gathered on the Rahah northward.  Moses must have had a powerful set of lungs.  The Rahah is still called the "Plain of the Promulgation of the Law."

                 Gebel Musa, Mountain of Moses or Mount Sinai

                       The Brow of Musa

     Further west at the margin of the Rahah we were able to see Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha, the Mountain of the Palace of Abbas Pasha.

                                 Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha

     Without getting into the convolutions of pasha successions, let me merely say that Abbas, the grandson as well as the nephew of Mohammed Ali, succeeded to power in Egypt, in late 1848.  The incapacitated Mohammed died in August 1849.
     If the reclusive six year rule of Abbas was frustrating to would be European interlopers wanting to construct the Suez Canal, it was brutal to his subjects who slaved to accomplish his demented undertakings.  To escape the unwanted secularism of Cairo he fled to Sinai.  With slave labor he hacked out a carriage road up the south side of Gebel Musa.  One of the pilgrim trails to the Mount Sinai Summit still uses part of the so-called "Pasha's Road."
     As the project approached the summit, Abbas changed his mind.  Gebel Samr el Tinia, some seven miles to northwest was higher and more isolated, especially from holy pedestrians of non-Islamic bent.  He shifted his hoards of Bedouin Conscripts to the new mountain.  Once again a carriage road was hacked out of the syenite granite all the way to the summit.  Here Abbas built his Qasr, palace, and since that time there is scarce a Badawi in Sinai who would recognize the Gebel Qasr Abbas Pasha by the old name, Gebel Samr el Tinia.

Abbas Pasha in Miltary Regalia

     Abbas died late in July of 1854.  It had been an exceptionally hot summer.  The Bedouins said,  "it was because the Devil had been most dilligent in stoking the fires of Hell to receive our khedive."
     The trek continue and we gradually lost sight of the Brow of Musa and the Qasr of Abbas.  Now blowing snow swirled about us making the ride downright uncomfortable.  The lady trekers were anxiously looking forward to the trail's end at the improbable "Blue Mountain" where our Bedouin hosts were preparing a meal of round bread and grilled lamb.
     Blue Mountain?  In Sinai only great distance lends a touch of blue to the gebels.  Mountain colors, close-up range from gray to brown, pink, red and even black, but only blue in the distance.  Through the drifting snow we rode right up to the face of an improbable Blue Mountain.  It was an obvious paint job where a French artist had used thousands of gallons of bright blue paint to cover the brown monolith.

                                     Blue Mountain

      With hot bread, succulent lamb and scalding kardade' tea, we all felt better.  Even so the ladies and most of the men, except three Egyptians male employees of Fulbright and myself, elected to ride the Peugeots back to base.
     The four of us gently forced the herders to give us control of our mounts.  We played Lawrence of Arabia across the eight mile trip back.
     For more about Sinai see Ned Greenwood, The Sinai: A Physical Geography.  In 1999 it was selected for Choice's 35th annual Outstanding Academic Books list.