“The artistry of Armenian mante” Special to the Toronto Star, Nov. 6, 2002, D6

 

 

Among younger generations, they are known as the Armenian Grandmas.

The 20 women congregate around tables, molding pieces of dough into tiny bowties. Their heads are hunched over and they are gravely squinting at their hands. They are completely stationary - but for their fleeting fingers that nimbly pinch pieces of dough amidst small hills of flour.

The pieces are the size of your pinkie finger. Called mante, they are stuffed with a ball of ground beef, baked, and then devoured with a sauce of yogurt, minced garlic, and mint - a treat even within the Armenian community.

A group of 20 or so older women meet once a week, for eight hours at a time, amassing 45 kilograms each sitting. These women meet every year for seven weeks before their annual bazaar in the kitchen of the Armenian Community Centre in North York, putting in long hours each day.

One starts sweeping the floor frantically before they start to work. "People are going to come, and the floor is dirty," she mutters as much to herself as anyone else. Young boys in the uniform of the Armenian private school on the premises carry in three long folding tables and open them up, puffing their chests to praise. "How good it is to have youth around us," motherly voices echo. Some hands clap.

Some have grandchildren, others have grown children. All call anyone younger than them hokis (a term of endearment that means "my soul").

Even if few younger generations live with their grandmothers today, the connection between generations is undeniable. These are the women that spoil the young and meddle in their lives at the same time - all in the interest of their grandchildren, or so they say. In turn, younger Armenians revere the grandmas' unintentional skills. Jokes get made that those deft mante-making fingers would be great at rolling joints. Snickers ensue when it's mentioned mante (pronounced mahn-tuh) is even packaged and sold in plastic baggies.

Soon, stacks of rectangular baking sheets are placed on the counter. One woman picks up a big spoonful of margarine and plops it on a sheet, rubbing it up and down furiously. Mary Abramian's hair is a golden-coifed blonde and she is wearing large eyeglasses, black leather sneakers and a matching black leather pouch over her blue skirt. This is a grandma on a mission.

The red oven mitts on the counter are burnt black at the tips - a testament to the 35-plus years that the Toronto Roupina Chapter of the Armenian Relief Society organization has been meeting.

The women will make as much as 40 to 50 kilograms of mante this week and then bag and sell it from the community centre kitchen and cafeteria. They sell out by the end of the day from reserved orders or parents who buy a couple of bags while picking up their children from the school.

After a heated private discussion, a few agree not to disclose the price of mante to the public because of the possibility of mante-making competition. "We are a business after all," one says vehemently.

"Even though all our profits go to charities," another rushes to add.

Don't pity their relentless hard work - these women know how to have a good time. Twice a year they trek to a different destination for two nights. Once they went to the Grand Canyon. This year they went to Quebec City.

"Be sure to mention the churches we went to, hokis," one woman interrupts. "Yes, we saw the Notre Dame and Ste. Anne de Beaupre cathedrals in Quebec."

In one corner, three women are bent over a large garbage can peeling nearly 10 kilograms of onions. Once chopped, they will be mixed with almost 20 kilos of ground beef.

An electric mixer kneads the dough, but it will be rolled out by hand to a three-millimetre thickness with a wooden rolling pin. The flat pancake of dough is then folded over many times to become a rectangular-shaped piece.

Silences are inevitably broken by the chop-chop-chop of the knife slicing the dough into tiny two-by-two centimetre squares. A layer of steamy onion-infused air drives the curious away. But these women have nary a tear among them.

The next station of women takes the beef mixture to make thumbnail-sized balls and drop them in the centre of the dough squares.

Another group of women pinches the ends of the square to create the bowtie shape with the meat peeking out. Once baked, a bite of the crisp exterior yields a soft, steaming centre.

The assembly line of workers moves like clockwork. Ask for the specific recipe for mante and no final measurements can be confirmed or agreed upon. These women work from intuition and the memories of their mothers - now long gone.

About 350 members make up this chapter and they are the driving force behind the annual bazaars, dinner dances, and community events. Their profits go toward the day school, charities, and two annual scholarships for academic achievement.

For most of these women who have long since raised children or grandchildren, these are opportunities to get together with friends - and perhaps most importantly - to feel needed.

Abramian has been a mante-making member for 20 years. She was born in Turkey, but moved to Iran, and finally came to Canada in 1979. Like most Canadians of Armenian descent, she was not born in Armenia.

Armenians dispersed throughout the world after the Armenian Genocide of 1915 during which 1.5 million Armenians perished, and millions more fled. More Armenians live outside of the country than inside it, and today, there are approximately 70,000 Armenian Canadians living in Toronto.

"Armenians gather around food for companionship," says Laura Mavlian, one of the main organizers, and chairperson for the bazaar committee. Mavlian came to Canada in 1989 from Beirut.

Halfway through the morning, strong Armenian coffee is made and doled out in small ceramic cups. Plastic forks and paper plates of pineapple upside-down cake are passed out reverently. But no one stops working - or chattering.

Strains of high-pitched prodding carry down the length of the table, "Come on, come on, where is the rest of it?"

In another corner, hushed tones discuss toothaches that won't go away, and murmurs console the untimely death of a husband.

"The more you talk, the faster you work," says Shogher Yeghoyan, treasurer of the committee. "And we talk a little bit."

A few women pipe in at the same time: "A little bit?" And they giggle like schoolgirls.

Mismatched coffee cups are turned upside down at an angle to let the grounds settle so that the clairvoyant among them can tell fortunes and offer life-saving advice.

When young women request to have their fortune read, they are asked whether they are married. The older women ask in an offhand manner - in a let's-get-to-know-each-other tone. They are eager to please - and so their predictions oblige any single hopefuls. Dotted leftover coffee grounds on the inside of the cup are interpreted to mean incoming cash.

"She was single? You should have told her you saw luck in her future!" one woman admonishes.

Her friend pokes fun at her fortune-telling and doesn't stop until she is berated, "Zevzeg! What's gotten into you?" (Zevzeg is Turkish, and loosely translates to mean "silly").

Another pokes her neighbour, winks, and whispers. "You don't believe in this stuff do you, hokis?"

A warm smile and lowered eyes are the only response you can give these women. It is the isolated world of 2002, but these women live in a time when handmade food remains special and community matters. Voices of old friends bubble in one corner. In another there are backgammon sets and yellowing Armenian newspapers.

There is comfort knowing that even if one returned to this kitchen 10 years later - the same group of women would still be bantering over coffee and kneading traditional values into future generations.