Lahmacun is a round, thin piece of dough topped with minced meat, minced vegetables and herbs including onions, tomatoes and parsley, and spices such as cayenne pepper, paprika, cumin and cinnamon, then baked. Lahmacun is often wrapped around vegetables, including pickles, tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce, and roasted eggplant. Though it is sometimes described as Turkish pizza, Armenian pizza, or similar names, it has only in modern times been referred to as "pizza", and it is of Middle Eastern rather than Europeanorigin. Furthermore, unlike pizza, lahmacun is not usually prepared with cheese and the crust is thinner. Lahmacun is a popular dish in Armenia, where it is also called lamadjo; in Turkey, Lebanon and Syria ), Israel, and Armenian and Turkish communities, and Arab, worldwide.
Etymology
The name entered English from lahmacun and lahmaǰun, both of which derive from the لحم عجين, laḥm ʿajīn, short for لحم بعجين, laḥm bi-ʿajīn, meaning "meat with dough". The Turkish word is pronounced like "lah-ma-june".
History
Flatbreads in the Middle East have been cooked in tandoors and on metal frying pans such as the tava for thousands of years. They have been used to wrap meat and other foods for convenience and portability. However, it was not until the wider adoption in medieval times of the large stone oven that flatbreads stuffed or topped with meat or other foods were baked together, cooking the bread and the topping at the same time. A variety of such dishes, such as sfiha and manakish, became popular in countries formerly parts of the Ottoman Empire, especially Turkey, Armenia, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. A thin flatbread, topped with spiced ground meat, became known as lahm b'ajin, shortened to lahmajin and similar names. Before the dish became widespread in Turkey after the 1960's, it was known in the south-eastern regions of Turkey around Urfa and Gaziantep. Due to the hostile nature of the relations between Armenia and Turkey, the opening of Armenian restaurants serving the food in Russia was met by some protests.
