Armenian charcoal-grilled meat skewers — pork, beef, or lamb marinated overnight in onion and spices, cooked over vine wood embers with an almost ceremonial reverence for fire.
Khorovats is not just grilled meat. In Armenia, it is a philosophy and an occasion. When Armenians say they are having khorovats, they mean a gathering: a backyard full of people, tables of salads and bread and herbs, a man (it is almost always a man) tending the mangal (charcoal grill) with the seriousness of a conductor. The preparation begins the night before, when meat is cut and marinated in grated onion, vinegar, and spices. The fire is built from charcoal or, ideally, dried vine wood from the Armenian highlands, which perfumes the meat with something impossible to name. Khorovats is made with pork in Armenia more often than in neighboring Muslim-majority countries — pork neck is considered the finest cut for its fat-to-meat ratio. Beef, lamb, and chicken are also used, each with its own marinade variation. The key is constant turning, close attention, and knowing when to pull the meat off just before it is done and let it rest. In the Armenian diaspora worldwide, khorovats Sundays are a weekly institution in summer — a way of being Armenian wherever you happen to be.
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