Lahmacun,[a]lahmajun orlahmajo[b] is a Middle Easternflatbread topped with minced meat (most commonly beef or lamb), minced vegetables, and herbs such asonions,garlic,tomatoes, red peppers, andparsley, flavored with spices such as chili pepper and paprika, then baked.[3] Lahmacun is often wrapped around vegetables, includingpickles, tomatoes,peppers, onions, lettuce, parsley, and roastedeggplant.[4][5][6][7]
Originating in theLevant region ofWest Asia,[1] where it is traditionally known by its Arabic namelahm bi ʿajīn ("meat with dough").[8] Lahm bi ajeen or lahmacun is a popular dish inLebanon andSyria.[9][10]
Variants of lahmacun are also common inArmenia andTurkey.,[11][2] where the dish became popular in local cuisines.[11] In English, it is sometimes referred to as "Lebanese pizza",[12] "Armenian pizza",[13] or "Turkish pizza",[14] because of its round shape and superficial similarity to pizza, though it traditionally contains neither cheese nor tomato sauce and is made with a thinner crust.[11][15]
Look uplahmacun in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
The name entered English fromTurkishlahmacun, pronouncedlahmajun, and fromArmenianԼահմաջո (lahmajo), both derived fromArabicلحم [بـ]عجين (laḥm [bi-]ʿajīn), meaning "dough [with] meat".[16][17][9] The nameslahmajin andsfiha are often used interchangeably to refer to certain foods.[18][19][20]
Flatbreads in the Middle East have been cooked intandoors and on metal frying pans such as thetava for thousands of years.[17] They have been used to wrap meat and other foods for convenience and portability. However, until the wider adoption inmedieval times of the largestone ovens, flatbreads stuffed or topped with meat and other foods were not baked together, cooking the bread and the topping at the same time.[17][9]
A 13th-century Syrian cookbook compiled in Aleppo,Kitāb al-Wusla ilā al-Ḥabīb (Scents and Flavors), contains a recipe describing minced meat spread on thin dough and baked in a brick oven (furn).[21] It instructs to “cut up meat small, then spread it on a round piece of dough and bake it in the oven.” This recipe is identified by scholars as the earliest textual reference tolaḥm bi ʿajīn (“meat with dough”).[22][23][24][25]
A variety of such dishes exist such assfiha andmanakish, became popular in Levant , such asLebanon,Palestine,Jordan andSyria. A thin flatbread, topped with spiced ground meat, became known aslahm b'ajin (meat with dough), shortened tolahmajin and similar names.[17][9]
An 1844 French–Arabic dictionary of Syrian and Egyptian Arabic by the Swedish orientalistJacob Berggren [sv] defineslahm el-ʿajin (لحم العجين) as small baked pastries filled with minced meat, and mixed with sour milk or pomegranate juice before being cooked in an oven.[26] 2 recipes for lahma bi-ajin can be found in the 1885 cookbook titledUstadh al-Tabbakhin by Lebanese writerKhalil Khattar Sarkis [ar], along with a recipe for meat-filledfatayer.[27]
According to Ayfer Bartu, lahmacun was not known in Istanbul until the mid-20th century.[28] Bartu says that before the dish became widespread in Turkey after the 1950s, it was found in Arab countries and the southern regions of Turkey, aroundUrfa andGaziantep.[1]
InAssyrian tradition, lahmacun is served to those who are grieving the loss of a loved one, alongsideTurkish coffee and other dishes.[29]
InThe Netherlands lahmacun is often sold as a street food or snack, often under the name Turkish pizza. The lahmacun is rolled up and filled with salad,sambal andgarlic sauce, often with addeddöner meat and/or cheese.[30]
Due to the hostile nature of therelations between Armenia and Turkey, the opening of Armenian restaurants serving the food inRussia was met by some protests.[2][35] In March 2020,Kim Kardashian, an American socialite and media personality of Armenian heritage, posted a video on her Instagram saying "Who knows about lahmacun? This is our Armenian pizza. My dad would always put string cheese on it and then put it in the oven and get it really crispy." This sparked outrage among Turkish social media users, who lashed out at her for describing lahmacun as Armenian pizza.[36]
^Nawal Nasrallah,Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine, Equinox Publishing Ltd, 2018 – a scholarly cookbook and food history that discusseslaḥm bi-ʿajīn as a traditional Levantine meat flatbread.
^"'Armenian Pizza' Is the Comfort Food You Didn't Know You Were Missing (Recipe)".Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved16 January 2020.No one knows for certain whether lahmacun's roots lie in Armenia, or elsewhere in the Middle East. "The race to find where these ancient foods originated is not fruitful territory," cautioned Naomi Duguid, author of Taste of Persia: A Cook's Travels Through Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, and Kurdistan. After all, meat-enhanced flatbreads are ubiquitous throughout the region...
^Charles Perry (ed. and trans.),Scents and Flavors: A Syrian Cookbook, New York University Press, Library of Arabic Literature, 2017, pp. 200–201. Quote: "Cut up meat small, then spread it on a round piece of dough and bake it in the oven (furn)."NYU Press –Scents and Flavors
^Nawal Nasrallah,Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and History of the Iraqi Cuisine, 2nd ed., Equinox Publishing, 2018, pp. 450–451. Quote: "The earliest record oflahm bi ʿajin appears in a 13th-century Aleppine cookbook,Kitāb al-Wusla ilā al-Ḥabīb, where the recipe calls for minced meat to be spread on thin dough and baked in a brick oven."Equinox Publishing –Delights from the Garden of Eden
^Bartu, Ayfer Suna (1997).Reading the Past: The Politics of Cultural Heritage in Contemporary Istanbul. University of California, Berkeley. p. 149.We became a nation of lahmacun eaters. Fifty years ago no one in Istanbul knew what lahmacun was – or if we did, we called it pizza.
