Harisa is an Armenian ritual dish which comes from the pagan era, the president of Development and Preservation of Armenian National Dishes NGO Sedrak Mamulyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am adding that after adopting Christianity the Armenian cuisine became simpler.

Mamulyan is concerned with other issues. Last year Turkey managed to register a variety of harisa as a Turkish dish in UNESCO. Georgia is trying to be recognized as the birth place for pitcher works, wine-making and apiary. According to Mamulyan, this means that soon Armenian tonir will be recognized as the property of the Georgians or another nation.

Mamulyan stressed, the strongest fact proving that harisa is an Armenian dish is that Armenia is the fatherland of wheat which is the main component of the dish. He stated that the word harisa has an Armenian origin which comes from the word ‘harel’ which means to stir.

Commenting on the question why Armenia does not appeal to UNESCO for recognizing a variety of harisa as a Turkish dish, he said that currently UNESCO is financially dependent on Turkey, which is its largest donor after Canada, since the United States refused giving financial aid to UNESCO (after the recognition of Palestine).