Dolma or Tolma? This name of this dish has led to more than a few heated disputes. Photo (c): Vitaly Arutyunov / RIA Novosti. All rights reserved.
Is the popular dish consisting of vine leaves stuffed with rice and/or meat called dolma or tolma? You may think this is a purely culinary question, but you’d be mistaken. Presidents, politicians, ministers, community organisations and the media are all engaged in a heated debate over the preparation of tolma/dolma in the South Caucasus, and particularly in Armenia and Azerbaijan. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has hit the kitchens.
On 27 April 2011, the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev fired the first salvo by stating at the annual conference of his country’s Academy of Sciences that: “if you ask an Armenian what ‘dolma’ means in their language, they won’t be able to answer. It’s like ‘Karabakh’ for them – a meaningless word”. A few months later, Armenia responded by holding its own “tolma” (not dolma) festival as part of the “Golden Apricot” international film festival. The festival organisers, the “Society for the Preservation and Development of Armenian Culinary Traditions” explained (link to Armenian language site):
